My husband started 10 years ago with dementia. Over that time he has developed diabetes, congestive heart failure, stage 3 kidney disease, and in April a shower of blood clots let loose of his leg and landed in his lungs. He came minutes from passing away. Yes we have lost friends (fair weather friends) and have to put limits on great grandchildren coming over as it agitates him. I thank God every day that I get to take care of him. Until I can not because of physical complications on my part, I have spina bifida, I will be happy and rub his feet, cut his hair, help him with medication and any thing else God has allowed me to do. With out faith I would be angry and feel like I am not living my life. Be angry at the disease not your loved one, it is not them it is the disease. Thank God my mom didn't give up on me because I was to much of a bother and she couldn't live her life. Peace
Giving up a good career is a real challenge, and a significant compromise. Instead of interacting with peers, interaction changes to medical people, and a range of care related people. It's more challenging in part b/c caregivers aren't on equal standing - not b/c of competency, but b/c we need things from the medical profession.
It's not like working with co-workers who have the same goal for the company.
And if you read the family dysfunction thread, you'll get insight into dynamics that challenge all involved. It's not easy to be cheerful about caregiving when you're the only one in the family willing to do it and are inundated with caregiving obligations.
How wonderful that you are happy caring for your husband. Hopefully he is calm and happy in his confusion. There are some of us that live with demanding, screaming, narcissistic parents that are a handful and try our love and patience daily.
It also sounds like you're in love with your spouse. I'm sure that makes it much easier. Some of us have not had the best parents or spouses, so there probably isn't the same level of love in caring for them as you have for your dear husband. The fact that we are caregivers at all shows we have some level of love for those we take care of. That's all some of us can muster.
Maybe you couldn't think of doing anything else because your husband needs you. I'll assume you and your husband are fairly close in age. But some of us are much younger than the loved ones we care for and have dreams of doing active things. Our plans are interrupted to stay home and, in some cases, we literally break our backs caring for loved ones. We are taken out of society to exist in a very limited life. This can NOT be compared to what our mothers did for us! It is completely different and I get ticked every time someone says that. Our parents wanted children. Our moms stayed home raising us with the dreams that we would grow and thrive as adults, capable of taking care of ourselves, have a family and the cycle goes on. For caregivers, we know that Alzheimer's (dementias) are a progressive disease downward. No way a 94 year old with stage 6 Alzheimer's can be compared to a 2 year old. A child can be taught and will learn to become more independent (fairly fast actually). With dementia, you know your work will only get harder as time goes on. This causes more stress on top of the physical work.
Then, no one is prepared to be screamed at as you are helping them. It doesn't 'compute' in our brains. We're 'hard wired' for a lot of responses, so you could say our frustration or anger is not our fault either.
I would venture to say there are more caregivers that are frustrated and angry than view it as a blessing.
You're an angel in a sea of little devils. 👹👹😇👹👹