I confess there are times when I think Chris is playing it up.
The heavy breathing, the grunt of exertion as he lifts the water jug into the fridge. He leans heavily on the counter, his breath coming almost in gasps. Finally his breathing settles down.
He asks me to carry his mug of coffee into the bedroom for him, asks if I’ll make a cup of tea and join him? I’m thinking he can carry his own mug, and I have work to do.
Then I realize how very ungracious that thinking is.
The man has severe coronary artery disease. His cardiologist who has had extensive experience with this condition has put in writing that it is the most severe and pervasive he has seen in his practice.
That was over a year ago, and the only thing that has changed is also documented: it has gotten worse.
So even if the man wants to ham it up a little, who am I to judge?
Maybe he just wants me to have the audible of what’s going on inside him, of how he feels as opposed to how he seems.
This accompaniment is not available to others, only myself, and I wonder if I shouldn’t feel somehow privileged to be the only one allowed this very personal insight into his world.
Or maybe he is just playing me.
I’ve come to realize it really doesn’t matter. Whether it is a true reflection of his feelings or just a show for sympathy is irrelevant and unknowable.
All I can ever know looking back from one day in the future, will be how I responded.
Did I respect his pain? Accept the way in which he has chosen to handle his condition? Allow him dignity in the face of his body’s response to his illness?
Did I give him the comfort he reached out for? Offer the humour that turns a tough moment into one where he ends up cajoling me?
In this journey we are taking here together, I have come to one irrevocable conclusion: I must always accept Chris’ outward manifestation of his discomfort as valid.
And respond accordingly.
Yours Truly,
Margaret Jean
When we were married, it never occurred to me that one day I would be his caregiver!
We were married late in life. Chris worked in sales, had three children and I was a twice-divorced single mom with three teenagers. I worked as a dispatcher in Cablevision, making union wages.
Over the years we changed residences and jobs often. The kids flowed between parents and our lives were fairly chaotic.
In 1991, Chris was diagnosed with diabetes. We had our own businesses then, but it became obvious a change was needed. I went to work for the government in Vancouver.
In 1993, still in sales, he had his first heart attack. He’s had angioplasties almost every year since.
In 2000, Chris started a painting business. In 2004 the business was booming and we bought a big old house on half an acre on Surrey’s Panorama Ridge.
In 2006 he had open heart surgery. In 2012 after a brief road trip he had two heart attacks in less than thirty days. An experimental bypass followed four months later.
The stripping of veins from his legs to use for the bypass set Chris back a lot. Walking continued to be painful making it difficult and then impossible for him to assess and negotiate jobs with prospective clients.
We downsized again to a small apartment close to all amenities. In mere months our annual gross income plummeted. Like many other people who are struck by disease or disaster, we face new challenges every day.
This blog is about how we choose to face those challenges.
Yours truly,
Margaret Jean.
My husband thinks he is going to die. This Friday. On the table. Having an angioplasti.
He hasn’t said so, of course, but he’s hinted rather specifically.
If things don’t go right on Friday, he worries.
They will. I try to sound reassuring instead of impatient.
But if they don’t.. he begins again.
Then everything we’ve been talking about for the last twenty years will fall into place, I say.
Heartless of me, perhaps, but then we’ve been having this discussion since his first heart attack in 1993, since his ten or twelve angioplasties, since his open heart surgery in 2006, since his experimental bypass in 2012.
And looking at that history? I realize I have been a caregiver of sorts for most of our thirty year marriage.
I just want to enjoy the time we have left. Live in the present. Not the future or the past.
Because after all these years, I can’t help but be aware of the fact that I am a widow in waiting. And a guilty part of me does look forward to a life where I will not be second guessing anyone, where I will be the focus of my day, my money, and my life.
But that is not my focus now. My concern now is to get him in and out of that operating theatre with confidence. So I’m going in absolutely one hundred percent positive that everything will be fine.
History repeats itself, right? Pray God it does tomorrow, too.
Yours truly,
Margaret Jean.
Caregiver Me 