Hurting as a caregiver

soccerfreaks

pasgirl said:

trying times
I'm so sorry about your mother. My dad has stage 4 colon cancer. He was doing the same thing with the eating and now he is completely tpn. Which makes my life alot easier! But before this it got to a point where we had nothing to say to each other. Seems like everytime I went to give him his meds or just check on him if he was awake I was always trying to talk him into eating something. He would just keep telling me I didn't understand. It got to the point where we no longer had anything to say to each other, until I decided to sit down one day and think of all the things we used to talk about besides his eating, or cancer. Then the next time I went in there I started talking about deer, fishing, you name it! LOL And oh the remember when we, blah blah blah. And you know his color even got better and he started talking to me. He was to weak for a big smile but I could see in his eyes that for just a minute it was nice to be talked to as a person and not as the patient. It's still hard for me not to constantly nag him about what meds I want him to take, or that I think he should try to eat something but I learned if I want to enjoy him this is the sacrifice I had to make. This may not be the situation with your mom but I just wanted to let you know that as a caregiver myself I do understand and I am so sorry for the hurt you are going through.

wise
A very fine observation, pasgirl, and a reason that people come to sites like this as survivors: surprisingly, they intuit, I think, that they need to be around other survivors to talk about things OTHER THAN CANCER!

It is truly amazing, if you hang out in the CSN Chat Room for any length of time, to discover that the folks in there, survivors AND caregivers, talk about food, talk about kids and grandkids, talk about sex, talk about ANYTHING but cancer, given the chance!

Of course, as these boards bear out, there is always time for cancer, for advice, for encouragement, for sympathy, for empathy.

But you are so right on: talking about things other than cancer is such welcome relief, whichever side of the survivor/caregiver coin we are on.

Best wishes to you and dad. He is fortunate to have such a wise and loving person on his side and by his side.

Take care,

Joe

AnneS

pasgirl said:

trying times
I'm so sorry about your mother. My dad has stage 4 colon cancer. He was doing the same thing with the eating and now he is completely tpn. Which makes my life alot easier! But before this it got to a point where we had nothing to say to each other. Seems like everytime I went to give him his meds or just check on him if he was awake I was always trying to talk him into eating something. He would just keep telling me I didn't understand. It got to the point where we no longer had anything to say to each other, until I decided to sit down one day and think of all the things we used to talk about besides his eating, or cancer. Then the next time I went in there I started talking about deer, fishing, you name it! LOL And oh the remember when we, blah blah blah. And you know his color even got better and he started talking to me. He was to weak for a big smile but I could see in his eyes that for just a minute it was nice to be talked to as a person and not as the patient. It's still hard for me not to constantly nag him about what meds I want him to take, or that I think he should try to eat something but I learned if I want to enjoy him this is the sacrifice I had to make. This may not be the situation with your mom but I just wanted to let you know that as a caregiver myself I do understand and I am so sorry for the hurt you are going through.

Hey Pasgirl (thanks for your
Hey Pasgirl (thanks for your PM, sent you one back),

I can totally relate to the constant nagging: eat, take meds, drink, eat, take meds, drink, nag nag nag nag. No normal conversations anymore. Everything is about this disease. So, yes it is a relief to start on the TPN, cos at least THAT is out of the way:)

Talk to you soon, Anne

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