Caregivers: The Invisible Patients
When you’re the patient, you have everyone’s sympathy. People come out of the woodwork to help you, they bust their butts to cook for you or shop for you or drive for you.
Earlier I posted about how to coordinate care for a cancer patient … but who helps the caregiver?
Caregivers have nearly as much stress, nearly as much worry and fatigue, as the patient does. Everyone wants to lighten the burden the patient carries through and often that means the caregiver’s burden increases tenfold.
Not that the patient is in the wrong — they do need to rely on someone else so they can focus on their fight. But the caregiver has needs of their own. Needs that are all too often overlooked.
So what do you do … you have to make a point of taking care of yourself so that you can take better care of them. End of story.
So what do you need to do?
Schedule time for yourself — time alone, with friends, outside the home, whatever works to give yo a reprieve from your role. You need it to rejuice, regenerate, recharge your caregiving batteries. Consider it a necessary way to power-up when you are running out of steam. Necessary. Don’t look at it any other way.
Eat well, exercise, get plenty of sleep — the better your health, the more rested you are, the better you’ll be able to meet the demands of caregiving. It’s that simple.
Get support — you don’t need to take on the world of caregiving all by yourself. Friends, neighbors, loved ones, local church groups … lots of people are available to help and if they haven’t, they probably just need to be asked. You need to humble yourself, admit you shouldn’t do it all. Notice I didn’t say admit you can’t do it all? Because you can … but you shouldn’t. Get help if you don’t have it.
The ACS has several useful items on their site, a ‘care package’ for the caregiver. If you’re in that role, it’s a starting point for you.
Any other words of wisdom for caregivers?
(Image: Tim Lynch)
Tags: ACS, breast cancer, breast cancer blog, cancer, caregiver, health, men, wellness, womenRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Caregivers, Resources
1 opinion for Caregivers: The Invisible Patients
Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader
Apr 22, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Such a great and truthful post, Karen. Too often caregivers are overlooked, and too often they overlook themselves.
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