LJ Idol Season 10, Week 1
LJ Idol Season 10, Week 1
"I need the Struggle to Feel Alive"
Getting up every day is a constant battle. I have been caregiving for almost 5 years solid. First my next door neighbor, who was as much of a mother as my own. I looked after her at night to give her daughter a break as she was doing 24/7 care. Then my father was diagnosed with what we thought was stomach cancer, turned out to be non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma where the tumor had formed in his stomach.
Nursed him through chemo, and were just getting to the end of treatment when my mom was rushed to the hospital as she was having trouble breathing. They called us out into the hall. She had blood clots in both lungs which would require a risky treatment. When they went in to do it, they discovered her lungs and abdomen were full of fluid due to ovarian cancer. Treatment, surgery, more treatment, and we were told she was cancer free. Six weeks later, it was back, and my world spiraled quickly into preparations to move her home on hospice with myself as the main caregiver. My world narrowed to the hospital, training how to move her, medicate her, wash her, etc. Eight weeks later, my caregiving and the focus of my life ended abruptly when my mother passed away.
I had to go back to work the next day, as we were getting ready to open a theatre festival of short plays and we couldn’t find anyone to replace me on such short notice. For months, I have worked to keep myself too busy to think. I am scared to let myself take a real break with nothing to do because I am afraid I’ll fall apart.
Eventually I will have to figure out where I go from here. But not yet. I’ll find a struggle I can help someone else out with first. Because that is what life is, struggles of one sort or another. I just can’t face my own struggle of figuring out my own life just yet.
"I need the Struggle to Feel Alive"
Getting up every day is a constant battle. I have been caregiving for almost 5 years solid. First my next door neighbor, who was as much of a mother as my own. I looked after her at night to give her daughter a break as she was doing 24/7 care. Then my father was diagnosed with what we thought was stomach cancer, turned out to be non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma where the tumor had formed in his stomach.
Nursed him through chemo, and were just getting to the end of treatment when my mom was rushed to the hospital as she was having trouble breathing. They called us out into the hall. She had blood clots in both lungs which would require a risky treatment. When they went in to do it, they discovered her lungs and abdomen were full of fluid due to ovarian cancer. Treatment, surgery, more treatment, and we were told she was cancer free. Six weeks later, it was back, and my world spiraled quickly into preparations to move her home on hospice with myself as the main caregiver. My world narrowed to the hospital, training how to move her, medicate her, wash her, etc. Eight weeks later, my caregiving and the focus of my life ended abruptly when my mother passed away.
I had to go back to work the next day, as we were getting ready to open a theatre festival of short plays and we couldn’t find anyone to replace me on such short notice. For months, I have worked to keep myself too busy to think. I am scared to let myself take a real break with nothing to do because I am afraid I’ll fall apart.
Eventually I will have to figure out where I go from here. But not yet. I’ll find a struggle I can help someone else out with first. Because that is what life is, struggles of one sort or another. I just can’t face my own struggle of figuring out my own life just yet.