Care-giving is just a job
- Private group -
Fri, 08/31/2018 - 10:29am
For those of us who have chosen to be caregivers in a professional manor it is not just a job. You could make just as much money if not more doing other things; but we choose to spend our days with those who need us most. Caregivers open their hearts
and souls to their patients. At the end of a shift the caregiver doesn’t shake off all the woes from the day, we take our work home with us mentally.
Caregivers think about what will happen to their patients when they are not there and if they will see them again. Sometimes you care for a person for a 12-hour shift and the next day they are gone, without a word; just an empty bed a waiting the next patient. If you’re lucky you may hear about what became of the patient who you gave a small piece of your soul to and how they are doing, or when the funeral will be… if you’re lucky. Care-giving is never an easy job, we do it because we love it, we feel needed. It takes a special kind of person to be able to do the work so many of us do every day.
Some caregivers walk into a nursing home every day with their chin up ready for the 10 patients who all need them right away. Knowing they can only give attention to one patient at a time and some patients will have to wait. It is a delicate balancing act of knowing your patients well enough to know who can wait an extra minute and who can’t. Once everyone is settled and ready for the night or day you must pass the torch to the next caregiver coming in and hope that between your notes and conversation you didn’t forget anything they needed to know.
Some of our fearless caregivers do in-home care. How many of us feel comfortable walking into a stranger’s home announcing we are here to help them? To walk into someone’s home all alone can be a scary thing, then you add in the fact that the patient maybe bed bound or has Alzheimer’s. You can have the makings of a real disaster. We are there to help them with their daily living needs and hope that they except our help or they have a loved one who is there and can introduce us; again. With our Alzheimer’s patients we watch them slowly slip away into the nothingness that is their unforgiving mind. One day they know us and the next day they are calling the police because there is a stranger in their home who wants to do their dishes and help them get cleaned up.
No matter if you are a caregiver at a facility or in-home caregiver the job weighs on you, it’s something you can’t help but take home with you and think about. You connect with your patients and wish them all the best. As their spark fade’s so does yours, a little piece of you goes with each one of them. So, if we are losing little pieces of our selves why on earth do we do the work of caregiving?? It’s the things that refill our hearts like the smile our patients give us when we walk in the door, or the way they hold our hand because just our presence makes them feel more comfortable. Our patients teach us about the past, present and future. They share their stories with us and bring us into their family. You know that you made a difference in someone’s life each day. Even at the end of life. Personally, I have spent time with a patient as a caregiver, just to hold their hand at the end so they wouldn’t be alone when they passed. That privilege is not for the faint of heart, it can be scary, sad, happy, and just emotional on every level, but we do it, so no one has to die alone. We come into this world connected to our mothers, I believe we should leave connected to another human being also. Being privileged enough to help someone pass can be emotionally straining on a caregiver, but it can be spiritually rewarding as well.
