I have been a caregiver for most of my life it seems. When I was a kid, I helped take care of my younger brothers when my mom was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 29. My grandmother mostly took care of us but I kind of knew my brothers needed me to look up to. Not too long after my mom went through cancer treatment my dad became seriously ill with cirrohsis of the liver and then died at the young age of 34. I was twelve years old and although I was devastated, I felt I needed to help my mom and grandmother with my brothers. I realize now that I was just a kid but somehow it was ingrained in me that I was born to be a caregiver just like my mom and my grandmother before that.
Years later, I begrudgingly took on the role of primary caregiver of my mother. I say begrudgingly because my mom didn’t really take good care of herself. Although she knew she needed to lose weight, quit smoking, and practice good healthy living, she just didn’t do it. I know it’s hard to change your way of life by making healthier choices. Although I have always enjoyed working out and wanted to look sexy and thin, I have struggled to maintain a healthy living routine and like I said, I actually enjoyed it.
For many years, I tried to encourage mom to make little changes that would help her live a longer healthier life. Most of the time she would just get angry and defensive. I would always carefully choose my words so as not to sound critical or anything but it just didn’t work. I even joined Weight Watchers with her one time so she would feel supported and have someone to work towards her goals with but it didn’t work out very well. I was doing really good at my points and exercising but she wasn’t and she got mad at me because I was losing more weight than her. It was very frustrating. I actually told her one time that I resented her. Her reaction was surprise and anger. I told her that I resented her for not taking care of herself. When her health started to really go down hill I would be the one who had to take care of her and it wasn’t fair to me. I also told her that if she took care of herself and still had health issues, it would be different because at least I would know she was trying.
Not until her cardiologist literally told her that if she didn’t lose weight she was going to die, did she actually finally take it seriously. It scared the crap out of her. Finally, a doctor didn’t pussy foot around her weight issue. She did really good and lost a good bit of weight. That was wonderful but by then her health was taking a serious downturn. She was diagnosed with stage five renal failure and needed to begin dialysis. In order to take dialysis, she needed to have a fistula surgically placed in her arm but her cardiologist wouldn’t approve that surgery because she needed a heart catheter done because of her clogged arteries. After that surgery, she was finally released for the fistula surgery. She had that surgery done in her left arm and it needed to heal for six weeks before they could actually access it for dialysis. Well…about four weeks later, she fell and the trauma caused a huge hematoma (size of a softball!) on her surgical sight. It just wouldn’t heal and her kidneys were quickly shutting down so they had to put an emergency port in her chest. They don’t like to use that area because it’s an external access and prone to infections. They tried several times to get the fistula in her left arm to work but to no avail. They finally tried the right arm. It worked but she had several blockages over the years and had to have many surgeries to open it back up.
This was just the first few years of her downward serious health decline. There would be many more. And yes…I still resented her.