Cancer Diary: The Spouse As Caregiver Dilemma

 

Times were tense. I was caregiving for my husband, dying from cancer and on chemotherapy that required multiple trips a week to a distant hospital, my spina bifida daughter in a city a half-hour away who had lost her caregiver during the days of covid, and a CHARGE Syndrome adult son living at home -- and trying to run a business at the same time. The son tried to help out as best he could with his own care, but he did not always have the skills to do so. To wit, the scene above that ensued when he tried to help out by making his own breakfast -- one that at least brought a moment of levity into a too-tense life.

Speaking from personal experience, the spouse (in this case wife, but it really does not much which spouse is pressed into the role) who ends up as the caregiver for a cancer patient is in a no-win situation, emotionally and physically.

The role of spouse is to support the spouse and to navigate through life together, IMHO. That complicates the matter of caregiving. The two do not always go together well, especially if the spouse-caregiver does not have the requisite skills. 

In any case, time, including much-needed sleeping time that keeps a life balanced, totally disappears when a spouse takes on the additional role of caregiver. The demands can put immense stress on a marital relationship, given the (typically) sharp and unexpected change in the relationship -- new dependence, new responsibility, and the like.

There are a number of things to consider when one is thrown into this role. Carl's Cancer Compendium has two checklists that could be helpful to new caregivers. One is a list of things for patients to consider after receiving a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer. The other is a similar check list for caregivers; it contains references, as well. Both lists are documents in progress, so, if they are helpful, it might be worthwhile to check back with the CCC periodically.

Other posts address caregiver issues, especially the stress and how to handle it, as well as negative emotions that can come from it and that can unbalance one's life.  Julia Aziz, MSI Press author and Texas-based counselor, addresses this issue. Find out more here: What if you could feel balanced and fully yourself while still caring for other people? MSI Press author, Janice Snyder, a practicing psychologist and long-term caregiver, assembled a dictionary of caregiver needs and experiences that can serve other caregivers well: Survival of the Caregiver.

For more posts on caregivers and caregiving, click HERE.

Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-related story -- and be open to guest posts: Cancer Diary.