The Difficulties of Caring for a Loved One While Chronically Ill
I dedicate Endometriosis and Me to providing support, spreading awareness…
As I sit here in the emergency room (This time, I’m not the patient.), I’m reminded of how difficult and emotionally draining it is to care for someone else. It’s not that I don’t want to be there and care for them. It’s just when I’m already chronically fatigued, any added stress is just downright exhausting.
It’s hard to take care of others when you’re fighting a chronic illness.
When you love someone there’s no question – you jump into action to be by their side. Whether that means dropping everything or speeding through the day just to be with them. You aren’t thinking about your own pain levels and how the stress is about to (and will) affect your body. Selflessly, you do whatever it is that needs to be done.
Caring for a loved one is especially difficult, however, when you walk into the doctor’s office only to hear those same awful words. You know the ones. Those words that tend to creep up when you’re in extreme pain and all of the professionals are at a loss…
“All your tests came back normal. We don’t see anything wrong with you.” And of course, “We don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
You shudder and want to shake the damn doctor and scream in their face: What the fuck are we to do, then!? But you don’t because they’re just doing their jobs. They’re following protocol. AKA a game of trial and error in hopes to find a solution, but with no real answers.
It’s even harder when you’re taking care of someone you love. It’s easier to be in pain than it is to see someone you love in pain. When it’s happening to you (as our fellow #EndoWarriors know) you know how to cope because it’s happened so many times before.
A flare-up and a trip to the emergency room is common for us, but for our loved ones? Not so much.
We get used to being called drug seekers, fakers, liars, over-exaggerators and the like. When you see it happening to someone else it’s a little bit of a trip. We’re so used to being told that there’s nothing that can be done. But, there is always something that can be done. There are always things you can add, subtract, or tweak in your life to improve it.
My message to you is this: I encourage you, and whoever you know who is being gaslighted by a medical professional, to seek second, third, and fourth opinions. You don’t need to take the recommendations from the first doctor you go to. You are the captain of your own ship and you are your own advocate, so do what’s best for you.