Photo by Canva.
Speaking as a caregiver, anxiety is building for me. I wish it weren’t true. I wish I could say I take every challenge with calmness and nothing flusters me. But that isn’t the case. Some of you may identify. Your circumstances may by different from mine, but you may need the encouragement from God’s Word just like I do. Even with it, anxiety catches up with you.
It has been very eventful around here lately.
It has been an eventful few weeks around here. Ron had his esophagus dilated along with some other tests. They found that his voluntary and involuntary swallowing muscles are not cooperating with each other. He was started on Speech Therapy until another swallowing test could be done. Meantime, he was put on a very, very soft diet with tiny bites along with pureed foods. He did okay on that diet for a bit until one day he was choking on even the liquids–thick and thin. I realized we couldn’t continue that way so we went in the middle of the night, to the ER when ER traffic was low, and were seen (after I had a few hours naps.) Can you tell i’m a seasoned ER person?
By 9 AM, they decided he would be admitted to the hospital when a bed was available. But one wasn’t available until about 430 PM! Has anyone ever told you how hard those seats in the ER rooms are? My rear was very sore…down to the bone! We got him to his room and settled in by 5/530 PM. Then Holly (my daughter) took over and I went home. She stayed with him a few hours but of course that day was wasted as far as getting the main test he needed was concerned.
Early Tuesday morning, the swallow test was done to see where food was going in relation to his lungs and stomach, etc. Again, voluntary and involuntary muscles weren’t working well together. Voluntary muscles were weak and needed strengthening. Basically, food wasn’t going anywhere. It was just sliding down his throat and sitting there just above his trachea/esophagus, ready to drop into the trachea and choke him! He was high risk for aspirating his food into his lungs. His diet was changed to all pureed food. He had a few meals of that diet and tolerated it well. So he was discharged on Wednesday. The hospital Speech Therapist and the hospital Dietitian met with us to help me out. They were helpful. But once we got home, it was crazy having to figure out how to manage getting all the meals ready in an efficient way that provided him the calories he needs in a tasty form.
The goal is to make pureed food that Ron likes and keep him from losing weight, maybe even gain some.
The goal is to make pureed meals that taste good and are nutritious so that Ron can at least keep from losing weight. In the end, we actually want him to gain. Right now, keeping him from losing weight is pretty hard and keeps me very busy.
On top of this, he needs to do tongue exercises to strengthen his muscles. Doing all those things is impossible for me. The exercises lose out. This is not good. I’m barely holding my own in that i’m keeping him fed and maintaining his weight. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. This doesn’t contribute to my feeling rested or successful, but rather like there is always something undone all the time. I also feel like all this work I’m doing is wasted because it isn’t enough. More needs to be done. Always more.needs.to.be.done.
Encouraging words for caregivers.
I think that is part of the difficulty with being a caregiver, isn’t it? No matter how much we do, it is rarely enough to solve all the problems. I read these comforting words.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God
so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.I Peter 5:6-7 ESV
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.Philippians 4:4-7 ESV
