Last week, I was dealing with a bad case of the what ifs. What if I take this trip to Las Vegas, and Jeanne's feeding tube pops out again? What if I can't get back to Los Angeles for hours and she has no way to take her meds or nutrition? What if she dehydrates because I had the need to lounge pool-side in the desert? The mind is an amazing thing. These all sound like perfectly reasonable questions. But they aren't. They are no more reasonable than someone in a perfectly healthy household asking, "What if my spouse is run over by a bus today? What if my spouse has lunch at their favorite restaurant and gets a sandwich with one of those tomatoes carrying salmonella? What if my spouse takes great care of themselves and, in spite of it all, is diagnosed with a chronic illness like MS?
Let's face it. We can all find great reasons for spending the day hiding under the bed. Whether we're caregivers or not. But life is to be lived. And so we decide that while anything can happen, most things won't. And when they do, we find ways to deal with them. But none of us can afford to put life on hold in an effort to inoculate ourselves from all of the real and perceived threats that may or may not exist.
And so this is my last post about the upcoming Las Vegas trip. It's scheduled to take place at the end of this month. And I'm going. I'm going because a change of scene is healthy. A change in my daily level of responsibility is healthy. And I haven't allowed myself to take some time off for me in longer than I can remember.
But that's me. To all of the caregivers reading this post, what will you do to take care of the caregiver?
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