What it Feels Like to Take Care of Your Loved Ones
My grandparents, Yim and Ting, raised me while my parents worked. They were my primary caregivers for most of my life and instilled in me the values and traditions of our culture: hospitality despite someone’s sour attitude, don’t be late or make someone wait for you, don’t be scared because that’s what stops you from doing your best, chicken soup with chinese broccoli and slices of Spam, taking down methanol molasses when your throat is sore, and more. They shaped me into the person I am today.
But what does it feel like to be a granddaughter and a home health aide/caregiver as a pre-health student? Long story short, it’s hard.
Two weeks into moving back home, my grandfather, 87, was facing unknown medical problems, which, upon a quick trip to the ER, turned out to be kidney and gallstones that turned him septic. With no one available except my 78-year-old grandmother, who has limited English proficiency, and has been acting as his primary caregiver since his pacemaker placement in 2012. In the summer, his congestive heart failure symptoms worsen, his legs blister and dressings need to be changed every 2-6 hours (depending on the day and humidity) to prevent infection, make sure his open sores are clean, the gauze is dry, and he’s not bleeding as he’s also on blood thinners. The surgery he had to undergo to remove the stones warranted the use of anesthetics, which is risky in older populations, particularly those on blood thinners, pacemakers, and those with underlying conditions. He was still septic when he woke up, and septic, but loved the hospital Jell-O. Though he was in good spirits, he was totally out of it. Now, he wasn’t able to walk, and well to put it bluntly, when he has a motive, he will do whatever he puts his mind to.. Or at least try.
His lifestyle was changed overnight. He would cry because he felt like a failure now that he had to use a walker, that he wasn’t the “#1 Strong Man” that he was for me and my brother growing up, that he could walk around the block with his 2-year-old granddaughter, Elora. He could no longer eat lobster, his favorite food that we’d have at all our family celebrations, no steak, no crab, no coffee– something we bonded over. The hustle and bustle that he enjoyed suddenly came to a halt, and his world got smaller: from his chair in the living room to the chair in the kitchen facing his small garden, he could no longer tend to.
I watched him cry, express his frustrations of walking with a walker, often going to pick it up after he throws it across the room, change his dressings, remind him what day it is, and remind him that I’d be back after work. After 8 weeks of antibiotic treatment, physical therapy, and check-ups for his heart and infection, he began to feel lively and hopeful again. Accepting that he was going to have to use the walker for now, and that his diet was going to be changed, came with due time. This was no match to my clinical job, this felt raw.
In my opinion, the best part of healthcare is the reward of seeing patients taken care of, but worst part of being a caretaker for your loved ones is not being able to tell them that it’s going to be okay, or that you know what tomorrow will bring, things you can not provide them that they provided you when they were your caretaker. However, the best part of being a caregiver for your loved one is being reintroduced to the things that made you, you. I spoke in Cantonese Chinese, which I spoke at home with my grandparents after I got home from school, or had some Hong Kong-styled breakfast (though made specifically for my grandpa’s new diet, by his friends at the restaurant down the street). The best part is showing them what my education at university taught me– something they never got because they moved to the US to give my dad, his siblings, me, and my brother a better life.
Today, Ting is 88, walks around with his walker, which Elora has decorated in her stickers. He still sits in the kitchen window looking out at his garden that my grandma cleans (her rose bushes are some of the best I’ve seen, btw, not biased, I promise). He enjoys his morning breakfast of oatmeal and a banana or some soup noodles paired with tea or Ovaltine. He has returned to his old self, not just as a showman to show us he can swing his legs (his exercises), but also as my #1 Strong Man.
Take care of yourselves everyone– feel the feelings, ground yourself back to your roots, and remember that you are awesome in all the work you are going to do for this field.
XOXO, Steph
