How many caregivers are here?

nsrn

Hi! I'm just having a little 'pity party' for me tonight and thought surely there are others here who are caring for invalid family members daily.

I am an RN (day shift). Then I come home to work: my husband is not very mobile due to a series of medical issues,...well, he fell Thursday and broke his right leg. I have elderly parents with multiple health issues. They live about 8 miles from me. Heck, even my pets are old and on drugs!

Sometimes the life just gets sucked out of me.

Anyone else relate? What do you do to recharge? I play on this computer, pet the dog, work in my yard, and the ultimate--go fishing.

AudeSapere

LOL - sorry. I feel for you. I really do.

At first I thought you were offering your services...!

I live alone in a two-story home and 12 days ago tore up my knee badly and broke my ankle. I could use a little assistance here myself.

Man - you really have your hands full. I'm interested in hearing how others re-charge. I've been on the giving end before. Not as much as you clearly are, but enough to wear me out.

Heck, even my pets are old and on drugs! - Dang. That alot of dependency...

Hugs!!

-Aude.

averyniceguy

I am a caretaker of a house near the beach in Florida, but I do not take care of people like you do.

nsrn

Aude:

Sorry to hear about your knee, too. ICE ICE ICE ICE and lots of hugs helps with knees.

Funny you said 'dependency' because it's so easy to be the 'codependent' to all these needy folks. I guess the trick is to be aloof enough to do the work well without allowing life-sucking. It works at the ER with strangers, but that's a fine line with family. My older brother is coming in a couple weeks to visit and 'help' and that will be a great relief. You have to have backup.

Do you have anyone helping you?

Thanks for responding! It's1:30 a.m. and I'm stuck wide awake again....sleeping well would improve things, I'm sure.

nsrn

avery,

Got lots of room? I'll add it to my "fantasy vacations I'll run off to someday" daydreams.

bem

Good sleep is great but really hard to achieve when everything is on your shoulders so to speak I have taken care of a few sick people but not to the point you are, heck the healthy people I care for can wear me out! Time for yourself helps me and mine is Lock myself in the bathroom take a long hot bubble bath and no thinking just unwinde. Then a few minutes of in the floor or sitting on the ground if time permits for centering and then concentrate on regeneration, I don't ask for anything for anyone not even myself, I just try to draw in energy by resting my mind. Sometimes I may only have a few minutes for each but whatever I get helps.

Hope things improve for you big hugs from ~Dorothy

MsMcDucket

Sometimes the life just gets sucked out of me.

Ditto! I'm a RN too. (((Hugs))) Where is the love? What about us? Hey, I get off work and then have to take care of my husband too. He had a hemipelvectomy due to a malignant sarcoma of the sciatic nerve. He has multiple health issues, and so do I. What's a girl to do? You noticed my avatar.

cognizant dissident

Hi nsrn:

I was always taking care of others so I joined the RN degree program 5 years ago. figured I might as well get paid for it! The problem is that I got so exhausted caring for others for 12 hours a day and then coming home to a ill son and a hypochondriac mother who was just anxious and wanted lots of attention. Anyway, I was always getting so rundown and sick, catching everything from my patients. I finally came down with lupus in my 3rd year and had to leave the program. I know they say to take care of yourself when you're a nurse, but when the hell are you supposed to do that when you come home to sick people also?

I don't have any answers for you, but I sure have a lot of empathy! Nurses and doctors are tops in my books!

Cog

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