Caregiving for Beginners

Getting My Head On Straight

After Frank was diagnosed, every morning I’d wake up thinking:” He’s going to die. The man I have always loved is going to die!” I was a wreck- you know the drill: can’t sleep, can’t eat, worried about the kids, worried about finances…….
I began having panic attacks. I went to my doctor when I had what I call “My Target parking lot incident.” I was just beginning my errands one spring morning, when I got out of my car: I felt itchy all over and kind of “off”. I figured it was allergies and got back into my car, took an antihistamine and waited for the itching to stop. When I looked in the mirror my face looked red and blotchy, like hives. I began to feel a tightening in my chest and knew something was really wrong. I drove like a mad woman over to my doctors, with no appointment. They thought I was having a heart attack- and so did I!
After an hour in a dark examining room and an EEG; my doctor came in and told me I was not going to believe this; but I was having an anxiety attack! Me? I know, she said, but here’s a prescription for Zoloft and the name of three therapists. I was stunned. I didn’t need a therapist- I needed my husband not to have Dementia!
The attacks continued, I lost weight, then decided maybe I needed help from someone, anyone!
Months later, money well spent on a counselor who saved me from myself; I began to understand that Frank wasn’t dead yet. I was behaving as though he was. I was grieving before his funeral. I learned I had many more memories to make with him before the end. I could still cherish the man I married; even celebrate what parts of him still remained.
You need to know that I live in a small town. I‘ve taught the little children of this town about God for the past 35 years. Two generations of children have heard me tell them: “God wants you to be happy. He has a path for your life. Finding the path God has for your life is not easy but you will be happiest if you follow His path rather than your own.” Now I was lost! What path could I ever take that would make me happy with what I was facing?
The little children (now adults) were watching me. Would I practice what I had preached all these years? I wasn’t sure if I could.
Ok. If you think this parts too “preachy” just skip to the next chapter now.
One day the priest at Sunday services in our small church, was telling us about the anniversary of Our Lady Of Lourdes, in France. He told us of St. Bernadette. I knew the story, but not that she had lived in France. (St. Bernadette is the patron saint of the sick.) Millions of pilgrims have gone to France some have even been cured. We really couldn’t afford a trip like that, but I was determined.

With the help of our local priest and a wonderful Irish Pilgrimage Society
Group; we traveled to Lourdes in the south of France. This group of sixty, many with health problems, some in wheel chairs, traveled with two young nurses. The group go every year. This is their “vacation”. Something like you’d go to Disneyland with your children for a vacation. Many of them are factory workers, or retirees. The faith that bound them together was so strong, it enfolded me and lifted me up. The tens of thousands of Pilgrims in Lourdes that summer marching by candlelight, some on gurneys with nurses pushing them, all singing and praising God and Our Lady of Lourdes -to those who don’t know - is Mary, mother of Jesus. It is said that the waters that spring from the Grotto have cured hundreds. I brought some home in little bottles for my friends and relatives. Frank and I drank from the waters.
Frank and I did whatever the Lourdes pilgrims from Ireland did. Frank asked me after few days: “Why are we going to Mass every day?” He didn’t understand how devout these people were. Neither did I, until I had been with them staying at the same hotel, listening to their troubled stories, singing with them, eating with them, for a week.
And like a sponge, I absorbed the combined prayer and the faithful “cloud” surrounding these special people. Thousands of faithful people. I had gone to France looking, hoping for, a “miracle” for Frank. But I came home with a small “miracle” for myself. I had found the path God wanted for me to take, the one that really would make me the happiest. And I was determined to follow it well.
I discovered that if I could find creative ways to help care for Frank, I would be following God’s path. Oh, of course I have my bad days, days I wish- I don’t know- this time could be past, but then I wouldn’t have any of Frank left. I am not willing to give him up not until God decides the turn of the path.

And so my friends: that’s how I got my head on straight!