Hello Jean,
Thank you so much for making the world so aware of what caregivers themselves go through. Yes, caregivers do neglect themselves health wise because they have to whether they are aware of it or not.
Back in 1998 my mother was helicoptered to a hospital in Wichita, Kansas with three life threatening events going on at the same time. She had an abdominal aortic aneurysm that was ready to blow and kill her, she had a large Pheochromocytoma (adrenal gland tumor) that was producing huge amounts of the hormone Cortisol at a dangerous level and the adrenal gland tumor was causing her to be in an extremely dangerous hypertensive crisis with a blood pressure of 200 something/200 something and ready to stroke out at any second. Somehow she survived all of this (obviously she wasn’t expected to make it). She had a major surgery for all three events. I had to stay with her at the hospital for three weeks straight, drive to a neighboring Respite care hospital when she came home everyday and look after her there. After that, the kidney that the affected adrenal gland sat on died and she had to go back to Wichita to remove the dead kidney. When she came home again I had to hose out the hole (stoma) to get out debris twice a day and look after her again.
I was 37 years old with a four year old toddler to take care of as well as my maternal grandmother by myself. I lost weight, was exhausted and tried to work. She is doing okay now but I didn’t think that nightmare would ever end. Again, Jean thank you for caregiver awareness, you are opening the eyes of the medical and social work fields in this regard and I applaud you. As you stated other caregiver stories don’t have a happy outcome; my situation was temporary. God bless you Jean and thank you so much for what you are doing for Dan’s fans.
Love and Prayers,
Linda M
