Two Comments, Four Conditions

Sometimes the events of a day link together in such a way as to provide an inescapable, meaningful message. Yesterday was such a day.

The morning started out as perhaps my worst as a caregiver. I won’t go into the details, save to say that a few different things happened to make that so. I even messaged a good friend that what I experienced was the unrewarding aspect of being a caregiver. Yet in hindsight the morning tribulations set the table for placing comments made by others that day in context.

The first came at the town clerk’s office. Serena was watching Cindy as I ran a few errands at Norfolk’s town hall. The person being waited on ahead of me asked if I had any adventures planned. He was a person with frequent business in our small town of 1600, hence we knew each other, but he did not live in town and did not know Cindy’s current situation.

I filled him in, to which the clerk started adding comments like. “You can tell she is happy.” “It is so nice to see.” These surprised me a little, as I do not have frequent contact with the clerk. She’s not from our neighborhood nor in our close circle of friends, yet she noticed the positive impact my approach to caregiving was having on Cindy. If she was noticing, everyone in town was. Then she delivered the comment providing just the right perspective. “You are giving her such a gift!”

I told her I had to leave before she started making me cry. I went back home invigorated as a caregiver and proceeded to take Cindy out for her first pedicab ride. That was a success, by the way, I’m getting in shape fast and she clearly enjoyed the ride, but that’s not as pertinent to this message as the comment I received while Cindy and I were sitting on the porch in the afternoon.

The comment was online, from a high school classmate who is no longer in the area but is in health care. She advised: “You really need to take more time off ….” Granted, she was responding to a post where I was apprehensive about being able to make Cindy smile in the future, but that was a future concern and her advice was about the present.

I am aware of the numerous articles and stories of concern for the caregiver, none more compelling than the statistic revealing that caregivers are six times more likely to acquire dementia themselves. No doubt my classmate with her experiences in health care is intimately acquainted with the dangers of caregiving, having witnessed a few despairing caregivers herself. Yet I am compelled more by my own experiences: four years caring for my Mom, a few months for my father-in-law, going on six years now for my wife.

I am also aware of the research that proves the health benefits of altruism, as I have reported on here in the past. Altruism has to be genuine to be healthy. The same societal forces that have us believing we are self-interested creatures to the core also hold that altruism, feeling good about doing good, is just another form of self-interest. Not so. Research confirms that when good deeds are done for selfish motives they do not hold the health benefits as do those deeds done from selfless motives. Selfless motives are done out of empathy, what we feel for others, there is no self about it.

Thus the morning comment about giving Cindy a gift was the perfect thing to say to reinforce what I have been doing. The afternoon’s comment that I should take more time off, if I were less well-researched and/or experienced, would have led me to do just the opposite. Look, I know caregiving is not for everyone and even those who are good as caregivers can have their health eroded. I offer four conditions for turning caregiving into a healthy pursuit for both caregiver and patient, overturning the conventional “me first” wisdom that pervades civilized economics, philosophy, mass media and even therapy.

First: Know whether you have empathy or not. Do you feel the joy and sorrows of others? If not, skip over the rest of this post. For the 98% that do have empathy, know that altruism, such as the gift of being a caregiver, is healthy for you provided a few other conditions are met.

Second:  Be assured of a good fit between caregiver and patient. Obviously, this conditions holds true for Cindy and me. It may not be true for whoever you might provide care, even if a loved one. Sadly, us guys are more likely to be belligerent patients, in which case probably any single caregiver needs much more back up. Even if a good fit exists between two loved ones there remains two necessary conditions to turn caregiving into a healthy pursuit.

Third:  Adhere to the quality of life that maintains physical, emotional and brain health. Check out my brain health page for what contributes to a high quality of life. A caregiver indeed may be depriving him/herself of the quality of life, eroding health in the process, but this does not have to be inevitable. Nor does taking more time off from being a caregiver have to be the automatic solution to maintaining your quality of life, if a fourth and final condition is met.

Fourth:  Make the caregiver role your singular purpose. Even if I was working only part time now I could not balance what I needed to do for my own quality of life needs with providing the best care for Cindy. It should be noted that making the caregiver role your singular purpose might do more harm than good to your health if you do not use that as an opportunity to maintain your own quality of life as well.

There may be some for whom continuing to work is an absolute necessity, but be mindful that wealth is not the necessity that civilized societal forces indoctrinates us to believe. The pursuit of health is rational; the pursuit of wealth not necessarily so, despite claims of “greatest average utility” and classical economics. If you choose income over caregiving, be certain it is based on the rationale of your health and not your wealth, otherwise you may very well be sacrificing one for the other, affecting both you and your loved one.

Here’s another piece of advice for those who wish to support caregivers. If you can see they are doing a good job for their loved ones, chances are they are doing something good for themselves as well. You will support both the caregiver and patient by simply acknowledging the gift they choose to give.