An Unexpected Benefit of Caregiving

Recently, I received a booklet from the hospice serving my mother’s nursing home. One page suggests vocabulary for describing pain, something I’ve always struggled with. My doctor asks, “How would you describe the pain?” All I can think to say is, “It hurts.” Then I fall back on “It’s maybe a six on the pain scale.” But the hospice booklet offers specific adjectives: stabbing, nauseating, throbbing, cramping, dull, and stinging, among others. These and other descriptors will help me communicate with my doctors.

Receiving this help for myself from something intended for my mother reminds me of other ways I have benefited from being both my parents’ power of attorney for health care.

Let’s face it, most of us caregivers are “of a certain age.” When we go to Mom’s or Dad’s retinologist appointments with them, we hear them being advised to place a warm washcloth on their eyes at night before bed. For their dry-eye condition, this practical tip along with a prescription will help. At their post-knee-replacement physical therapy sessions, we watch them being instructed how to handle stairs and curbs now—lead with the affected leg. Mom’s gynecologist recommends timed voiding to lessen leaks. We take notes, help our parent incorporate these new habits, and then forget about this advice …

… Until our senior citizen selves need the same advice. My doctors have never counseled me thus for dry eye, arthritic knees, and stress incontinence. But now when I have issues similar to those of my parents, I remember the advice my parents received ten or twenty years ago.

I also remember care I was critical or suspicious of at the time my parents received it. I had trouble keeping my mouth shut when I saw a physical therapist hand my super-senior-athlete dad wimpy three-pound weights. What? Don’t you know he has tennis trophies spilling off a ten-foot shelf? What’s with the three-pounders? Also, when my mother’s speech therapist showed her a certain head tilt to avoid aspirating when eating, my inner skeptic rolled its eyes. Really? That miniscule motion is going to keep food from going down her windpipe?

Thankfully, I did not express my disdain to those therapists, because now, I am reluctant to admit, I was wrong. Now my aging, formerly athletic self experiences the wisdom of starting back to strength training with light weights. And I have to take measures, including that miniscule head tilt my mother learned, to keep fruits from squirting juice into my windpipe.

Although I don’t like thinking I am already as old as my parents were when I was accompanying them to all their doctor appointments, I am grateful for what I learned there. Maybe some of the advice I heard them receive will help me avoid having to use all that stabbing and stinging pain vocabulary with my doctors. This is an unexpected benefit of caregiving!