Roadside assist

A slipped disk, an urgent-care-level migraine, a job change for the first time in five years, plus four straight weekends of guests and/or travel - that was my month. How was yours?

If my wildest dreams are even slightly true and someone actually wonders what happened to my amusing yet inspiring posts on Sundays, now you know. They took a back seat on the cheese wagon that barely contained all the competing priorities of the past month. Not anymore. Today the bus is empty. There’s a West Coast Swing dance social in the second row, but she disembarks at 10pm. I don’t see Jason anywhere in my oversized rearview at the moment, but I suspect he took shelter under a bench. He hid out with the chewing gum. Maybe he’ll emerge if I firmly shut the folding doors. 

Enough of the metaphor. I don’t regret our choices. The relational investments we made were invaluable. The professional trajectory we changed will pay off. The physical impediments we faced (yes, both of us) were impossible to predict. So, I don’t regret our choices. My body does, though. So does my mind.

I’m worn out physically & mentally. The mental drain of increased demand under decreased capacity was immense. By the fourth weekend, my emotions were wrecked. God bless my husband because he managed a road trip to his in-laws (6 hours each way) with a wife crying to quit her job, sell the house, and live alone in the mountains. “Honey, that’s completely irrational; maybe you’re just tired” is what he didn’t say. These 25+ years are no accident.

The past month magnified a deep-seated feeling I live with every day - inadequacy. Most days, it’s a lie. Recently, it was true. I legitimately could not perform what needed to be done without help. A lot of it. I needed help lifting my legs to climb into bed without crumbling to the floor. I needed help meal prepping my lunches because raw chicken + nausea = pukeville. I needed help believing I could glean relevant themes from a 400 page government publication at work with my vision phasing in and out. Beyond all of that, I needed help with the most crucial, fundamental, core value I possess. Nurturing loved ones is what I do, it’s who I am, it’s why I care to get out of bed. Feeling inadequate to bear the emotional weight of my friends puts bearing the weight of my own body to shame. Chronic pain destroys both.

I sincerely hope you don’t have to know the soul-crushing truth of chronic illness. I hope you don’t have to feel its reality as the one suffering or as the one supporting. But I bet many of you do. If you don’t now, you probably will. So hear me when I say the worst part of it is feeling like a burden. The pain, whether physical or mental, is hard enough. Add to it the secondary effects of diminished capacity. Now add to that watching loved ones pick up the slack. The combination isn’t additive, though. It’s exponential.

That last operation is a doozie. So if you have chronic illness in your life as the sufferer or as the supporter, take a long look at the burden factor. Is it as high as you think it is? Does it need to be? Maybe supporters are happy to help. Perhaps they aren’t and they feel guilty about it. Maybe sufferers compound the burden with pride. Perhaps a humble “thank you” could cut it down. 

Caregiver fatigue is a vast & complex topic. These simplistic questions barely scratch the surface. I am fortunate to weigh down my family as the exception rather than the norm. This last month was very heavy. My yellow submarine of priorities got detoured down a dirt road of potholes. Thankfully, roadside assist came to fix my flat. It might be time to downsize to a Suburban. Jason certainly deserves a heated bucket seat.