While growing up and going to school, I never saw any classes offered on the subject of caregiving. When college recruiters visit high schools to promote their specialty majors, caregiving is not one of the offerings. When employment recruiters visit colleges or sponsor job fairs to attract talented candidates, caregiving is not one of the careers that is advocated or advertised. As of the present, May 2010, perhaps a handful of all of the companies doing business in the United States actually offer any kind of employee benefit that has to do with time off for caregiving duties.
In 2010, however, the demand for caregiving with all of it’s unique skills is becoming a big deal. Over the next 20 years it will grow into a substantial occupation and career path for both the unwilling and those that will come to chose it as a choice of the heart.
There is nothing glamorous, high paying or high profile about caregiving.
It does not receive the same kind of internet buzz of a sports or celebrity figure sex scandal. The latest YouTube video clip of something moronic, or sensational does not feature caregiving. The latest “Apps” for cell phones, texting devices and I-Pads offering nothing in the way of Caregiving instructions. (Maybe they should).
Caregiving is demanding, intense, exhausting, work that offers low or no pay without any benefits. Most of the time, your patient, charge, or family member passes away from either the disease they are suffering from, or complications from other failing health issues. Not many survivor success stories among caregivers to crow about or to look forward to.
It is a position that will extract a telling toll from the person engaged in delivering their efforts.
For many people, the job or role of caregiver fell upon them; and only just them, after the alarm klaxons sounded and the rest of the available siblings scurried like roaches for cover and darkness, to avoid the sharing of an unpleasant task. It was as if the unspoken instruction before the alarm sounded was: “Run like hell at the sound of horn, whomever is still standing at the scene after 10 seconds gets to be the caregiver.” The goddamn gutless bastards, is what the voice in your head then proclaims. This is not some childhood game of playing tag!
Yet for a sizable minority of those that are compelled to man-up or woman-up to the demands of caring for the needs of a sick and dying family member: there can be profound life-changing rewards.
First, you find that you really get to know your charge. Whether out of pain, a weak moment, or in developed trust, the sick person begins to disclose private thoughts, memories, hopes and fears to you. In short, you wind up becoming a confidante.
Second, you discover that you have become adept at reading and anticipating the moods and emotions of who you are caring for.
Third, you notice that whether you wanted to or not, you have developed a strong emotional attachment in the welfare of your patient.
Finally, you begin to realize that your patient may have come to value you at a level equal to or greater than any other member of their immediate family. Not because you intended it. Not because you initiated or contemplated any kind of manipulation game. It is because you are the one that has hung in there and stuck with them. When the enemy fire of their disease became intense and furious, you stayed in the foxhole right with them. They were not abandoned in the middle of a fight and plight. You remained as their companion. To serve and care for them.
The question is: how are you going to handle it and rise to the occasion? Will you choose to let it grind you down, or, will you choose to allow it to become a life-changing defining moment for you? Choose now and choose wisely!
Jeff Dodson
Jeff Dodson lives and writes out of Elk Grove, California.
You can reach him at: www.imaginatic@frontier.com
He and his wife Penny are devoted Caregiver advocates.
Or send him a message at My Space or Facebook.
