Caregiving and the Heaviness of It All

 Stacy was discharged from the hospital Monday night.

That's how I had intended to start this post. I'll get to that story shortly, but there's a lot rattling around my brain this week. I'm now five days from being admitted; five days from voluntarily turning my life upside down; five days from making myself feel like shit so I can hopefully feel better for a long time; five days from stepping away from my friends and colleagues who occupy so much of my time and account for so much of my identity; five days from making life so much harder for my family.  

That's been weighing on me a lot these past few days, with a physical heaviness that I could feel pushing down on my shoulders and back, and so loudly that it was sometimes hard to hear a casual conversation. 

Part of the weight is the uncertainty - I just don't know how I'll feel or how quickly I'll recover. Will I be able to work part time after two months? I don't know. When will I be able to walk my dog again? When will I be able to see people again? When will I feel "normal" again -- and not a new normal, just plain old normal? When will I be able to run again? I don't know any of that.

But part of the weight is the heaviness of the burden that this will put on my family. I got a brief glimpse of the caregiver role this past week when Stacy spent three days in Miriam Hospital  After experiencing intense abdominal and back pain that had us flashing back to the summer and my symptoms, and understandably freaking out a bit, a trip to the  ER led to a diagnosis of a whole lotta gallstones and an emergency gall bladder surgery for Stacy, and a taste of caregiving role for me. She was discharged last Monday night and is recovering well. But in the short time in the hospital and the ensuing week at home, I caught sight of the emotional burden of caregiving. And it's not light.

But here we are. We start down the path in five days. Some uncertainties will go away; others will emerge. And in the process, we will begin what we hope is the road to long-term recovery.