Don’t make the mistake of polishing my halo and telling me I’m wonderful. I’m the carer who doesn’t care. I wash, clean, feed and generally look after my dependant, but I would rather not be doing it and it is done with a sense of resentment and sacrifice, most definitely not care.
Over the past few years I have learned to manoeuvre and dress a fully grown adult, and acquired new skills in using a hoist, but I’ve drawn the line at learning to administer an enema. If I had wanted to be a nurse, I would have trained as one.
I have been on first-name terms with community nurses, paramedics and professional carers. I usually present as capable and independent, positive and upbeat. I find that if you smile, even though you don’t feel like it, you can kid yourself as well as other people. I don’t like myself for being like this, but I would like myself even less if I walked out on the role.
I don’t think it is coincidence that carers often seem to develop serious illnesses themselves. The role is stressful and brings significant – and in my case unwelcome – lifestyle changes. The stress levels this creates have to go somewhere.
Friends and neighbours ask, “How is he…?” with a pitying look, indicating an awareness of everything that has to be endured. I don’t resent their pity; I feel it for myself, and would feel it for others in the same situation. It is their caring that gives me the will to carry on and to keep that smile going.
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