A Caregiver’s Day

A recliner this hard should remind me of sleeping on the ground during one of my

much loved camping trips but that’s not true. Even though I have tried to keep a

good perspective during this hospital stay, my tension is building and my patience is

waning. Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep and a rock-hard recliner that’s contributing to

my foul mood but I’m ready to go home before I lose my good nature.

Caregiving is tough. It’s especially tough when you are the caregiver for a family

member who is surviving day by day. I don’t know what to ask the doctors because

I’m not quick on my feet, as they say. I’m not mentally sharp because the lack of

sleep and the sleeping conditions are not conducive to rest. I want to ask, “how long

do we have?” but the doctors don’t want to approach that topic and they veer me in

another direction when they feel my questioning heads that way. They are still

peddling hope when I am wallowing around in the reality of my loved one’s cancer

diagnosis where he has outlived the statistical timeline. I’m wondering if his

confusion that brought us here is part of the dying process or a reaction to drugs or

more unmapped cancer that’s invading his body. So far, the tests have revealed no

clear answer.

When I brought him here on Wednesday night, I was scared. As I drove the twenty-

mile route, I silently cried because I felt that this might be the last trip. I thought

that he would never come home after this. I was incredibly sad but knew I needed

to be incredibly strong.

So here we are and we wait. We wait for test results. We wait for doctors. We wait.

Now they will send us home with no additional treatment other than to wait and

see. I know what we’re waiting on this time and I pray that it’s an easy journey as

we wait.

Cancer is hard. Survival is harder. Letting go may be easy, maybe not. I know this

for sure…the alternative is not bad. Going home to meet our Heavenly Father is the

hope of all Christians. It is the letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians in the New

Testament, to die is to live. This hope is what gets me through each day.

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