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Dealing with the Guilt
As I sit at here at my keyboard this morning I am, as usual, multi-tasking. I have one load of dirty clothes in the washing machine and one load of clean clothes running track in the dryer. I have the timer set to notify me when the pot of potatoes I set to boil will be done enough to mash for Dad’s lunch and I’m trying to remember where I put the cordless phone. I don’t want to have to scurry around looking for it when the nurse calls to discuss the continuing fluctuations in his blood pressure.
And I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the guilt.
I wish I could be more like my friend, Dana. Dana does not multi-task claiming that it takes less effort to do ten things consecutively than it does to try to do five things all at once and she insists that feeling guilty is a complete waste of her time and energy.
“Get over it, she insists. Guilt is a useless emotion.”
She is probably right. I just don’t know how she does it.
I can try to do fewer tasks at once but I know I’ll never get down to doing only one thing at a time. Not as long as Dad is alive. No matter where I am or what I’m doing part of my mind and most of my heart is with him. I go to sleep puzzling over how I can add flavor to his diet of pureed food and thickened liquids. I wake up wondering what his blood pressure reading will be. Sometimes I stop in mid step, listening to the too still air, hoping for a small cough or sneeze to signal he’s still breathing.
Caring for him reminds me of caring for my babies the first days of their lives when they seemed too fragile to be of this world and I feared that any misstep on my part would bring on disaster.
He had that heart attack last month. He almost died. Again. And I feel so guilty about that. Shouldn’t I have seen the signs before it got that far? Looking back, he did seem more tired than usual and his heart rate was slow enough for an alarm to be sent to his doctor through the tele-health monitor in our home. Still, everyone agreed he seemed to be doing OK and the readings weren’t dangerously low.
“We know you’re taking good care of him,” his care coordinator said. “We’ll keep an on this for a day or two and see what happens.”
Now we know. A heart attack happened. I realize that his EKGs had been fine up to that day. I know he never complained of chest pain or shortness of breath until the moment the blood clot hit him. I know that I did the right thing when I called 911 right away.
“Time is critical in a situation like this, the paramedic explained. And you got us here fast. You did good.”
I don’t feel good, though. I feel guilty. And I sit here today wondering how to deal with that.
And I’m not the only one to feel it. Not by a long shot.
My husband feels guilty because I spend most of my time caring for the man we both call Dad, his father. On an especially hard day he will apologize many times.
”My poor honey, he says. I feel so guilty.”
I keep telling him there is no reason for him to feel any guilt. He goes to work everyday to earn the money that supports us so I can be at home with Dad. We planned for this long before it became necessary. We agreed on the division of labor. But still he feels it and it shows in his face even when he doesn’t say it out loud.
I understand. My own father, older than Mike’s Dad and also quite ill, is being taken care of by his stepson in Florida while I’m here taking care of someone not of my blood. I long to go to him but I can’t and he doesn’t want to come here. Still I cringe every time I hear him say, “I don’t know what I’d do without Brian.” In my heart I feel that he’s mine, not Brian’s, and I should be with him, shouldn’t I?
A cousin of mine, so close we are more like sisters than actual cousins, feels guilty because her mother is being cared for by her daughter. Grandmother and Granddaughter live in the same town and share a special bond. My cousin lives across the country, visits often and calls almost daily.
“She’s doing what I should be doing. I feel such guilt,” my cousin says even as she acknowledges that her life is in Florida and her mother will never leave New York where she was born and has lived all of her 82 years. I try to reassure that things are just as they should be.
“There is nothing wrong with your daughter being there for your mother. It’s what they both want, and she is on good hands. It’s OK,” I insist. But in my heart I fell guilty for not having a better answer for her.
Mike’s Dad, my father and my Aunt are all getting good care. The problem is not with them, it’s with us. The caregivers. The ones who try to do it all and can’t.
The timer on the stove has gone off almost simultaneously with the buzzer on the dryer. The phone is ringing and Dad is making his way down the stairs. I can deal with all that. That part’s easy. But tell me if you can. How do I deal with the guilt? How do I get over it?
I need to talk to Dana.
Please feel free to respond to this article on this site or you can contact me directly at bcarducci@comcast.net to talk about this or anything else regarding care giving that's on your mind today.
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