Caring for yourself as a Caregiver
In 2017 my world was rocked when I found out I was pregnant with triplets. Not only that but Maggie, Max, and Miller were born 16 weeks early and spent the first 5.5 months in the NICU. Every waking moment was spent looking through a foggy incubator as they lay on life support for months. It was then that everything I needed: my body, mind, and spirit went on the back burner. When looking back, I don’t blame myself for not showering, exercising, or eating well, it was an extreme circumstance that I thought had an ending, but I would soon learn that wouldn’t be the case.
When they were discharged from the NICU in October 2017 my world was quickly rocked again when I realized that I was bringing home medically fragile children that required breathing treatments and too many meds to count around the clock. I was losing myself and I didn’t know how to even find a moment to brush my teeth much less focus on self-care and what my body was screaming it needed. The past 5.5 years have been filled with more life-support moments then I can count (for myself and my kids), hospital admissions, protocols, physical therapy intensives, PICU stays, surgeries, brain surgery, you name it. I have given up my career and found myself becoming a full-time caregiver and advocate. But yet I wasn’t taking care of my body or advocating for myself.
It was in 2021 that I started understanding that I couldn’t wait for my life or my children’s lives to look different, if I wanted to feel stronger and be in my body, it was going to have to be in the rhythm of our actual life, a life of disability and hospital stays. I did intense counseling, took a solo vacation, and really dove into my mental health. I was starting to hear my own body speak over the demands of my children’s care. I was starting to breathe again.
The start of 2022 I felt mentally strong and spiritually healthy for the first time in five years. It was now that I needed to work on my physical strength. It’s funny writing this because the irony is, I have a child with a physical disability that requires so much of my body daily. His movements are my movements at times. I know every curve, bump, scar, and muscle spasm of his body better than I knew my own.
I had more goals for his body than I had for myself.
In May 2022, I witnessed a mom, who is the full-time caregiver for her daughter who is 16 years old. Watching them move as a team had me breakdown. I fully comprehend in that moment that my body, physically, was not going to be able to take care of Max for the long haul. Me caring for my body and strength are just as important has my child’s physical body. I joined BurnBoot Camp two months later. I initially signed up to get strong for Max. For my back to be stronger when helping his body and lifting his equipment through out the day. But at workout 50, something changed for me. It was no longer about being stronger as a caregiver for Max, but becoming strong because I cared about myself.
Workout 51-100 has been for me. My body. My mind. My soul. My strength. My goals. They have been for no one else, it might sound selfish but in reality I can not be a full-time caregiver and advocate for someone else when I don’t care or advocate for myself.
So here’s to me and you being caretakers and advocates for ourselves. My body is a good body and I can’t wait to see what I learn about my body and strength in 2023.