“Melancholy
hearts flutter with unrequited care”
Restless by C Rossi-Kenyon
While
caring may be unrequited the most important thing I must remember (because I
can) is that for Patti it’s not a choice.
Progression
of Multiple Sclerosis cognitive symptoms, including dementia like symptoms including memory
loss, prevents her from dependable awareness, much less concern, about my health
and well-being or anyone’s.
Progression
of MS physical symptoms prevents her from physically caring for
anyone (much less herself).
Unrequited
‘love’, now there is something we all know about, but is love the same as
caring. Who amongst us cannot tap that emotional reservoir of unrequited love? It
can get crowded drinking from that keg of emotions sharing with yourself,
Charlie Brown, and most of history’s romantic poets.
But what
about unrequited caring?
What
about caring but being physically unable to help? Trapped inside your body unable
to help.
What
about caring but being cognitively unable to help? MS is not the only disease
with progressive memory loss. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that there
are 500,000 Americans younger than 65 with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
One out
of eight people age 65 and older (13 percent) has Alzheimer’s disease.
My own diagnosis
this year of lung cancer, surgery, and recovery rather dramatically accentuated
all this. Yes, I find myself “tebowing” in gratitude for the care facility era
of living with MS because unless reminded, including a brief refresher version,
Patti remains oblivious in the now of the recent then. Patti was safe and
unworried through my struggles – the way it should be.
Unrequited
love? We can all rally around an anthem of she/he done him/her wrong. … Unrequited
care? We can only imagine the care robbed by failing abilities of those who
cannot remember what or who they care about.
I may
not be a smart man but it seems to me song writers and poets may have had it
easier before modern medical science discovered it could prolong life but not
the quality of living … and ‘somebody that I used to know’ was a choice and not
progression of a medical diagnosis.
Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer
videos: www.youtube.com/daddyleer
Awesome!!! You are a remarkable man.
ReplyDeleteYou say it so well, Patrick. While it's a different circumstance, I see it in my mother. Her clichéd responses still center on the care she had for me, but her deep dementia makes it impossible for her to act.
ReplyDeletePatti is so lucky to have you, even if she doesn't know it.
Peace,
Muff
My mother because progressively more & more ill while I was still a child, so I turned caregiver rather young. That killed her a little bit inside. She was the ultimate caregiver to all, when she could be...
ReplyDeleteI like your thought of how medical science figured out how to prolong life but not the quality of it; I struggle with that concept a lot.....do we really need to live a long life with multiple diagnoses and multiple pills because we can by science or should there be some ethics here......this in particular is a very hot sensitive subject to me
ReplyDeletebetty
This is beautifully written and a wonderful public expression of the beauty you have inside. This is not the life you and Patti would have chosen, I suspect, but it is a life well lived. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your kind comments and shared experiences. Seemingly the world has been victimized by "unrequited love" (4 million plus google results) but "unrequited care" reveals just over one thousand results. We are the new age.
ReplyDeleteCaregivingly Yours, Patrick
Beautiful Patrick! "Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with." Stevie Wonder
ReplyDeleteSadly, I struggle with this a lot. How to handle the one-sidedness of the caregiving relationship? Sad, maddening and, it makes me cranky!
ReplyDeleteWell said, my friend.
yours is really an amazing story. to be a caregiver while the caregiver is healthy is one thing, but to pull it off while having your own health compromised is quite a whole different ball game...thank you for sharing Patrick.
ReplyDelete