This is very insightful on your part..I did a lot of hospice work before I was forced to retire. I did private duty work and am the one who went to peoples homes to care for them and to help their main family caregiver. Both the patient and the main family caregiver can feel very isolated..I have been on both ends of the spectrum in my life..and no it is not ours faults.
It is just what it is and we have to do the best that we can with it..
I'm finishing reading a book called "Midwife For Souls" by Kathy Kalina, who spoke about that fear around sick people. Kathy worked in a hospice and says there's a fear of saying the wrong thing. I'm certain people also fear just being around illness, recovery since youth is marketed in business, too.
She says about saying the wrong thing that "...that's definately a risk, because suffering people are tender all over and easily offended....". She continues to speak about her work as a hospice worker "...but we can't let fear keep us from the work we've been called to do...".
I suppose we can't tell others how to respond to us, since they have their challenges. We've probably been suffering all our lives, so now I realize that some of my isolation isn't all my "fault", and I'll do the best I can with my response
I seem to have come back to this topic again..it does seem to be haunting me..Feeling sadness and grief about it. I said I try not to let it hurt me but it does. I was talking to others in another group I belong to and I am not the only one who has found that once you get sick with a major illness people no longer want to answer their phones or talk to you..One person said that they don't think that others don't care it is just they don't know what to say. Well I don't know what it is or why people turned there backs on me and I do try to understand but it still hurts and saddens me deeply...I have always been there for everyone who has needed me and now I find myself alone in it..Thank God that I have my partner..My one true thing in life..
I finally got past some of my fears and anxiety and called and left a list of questions that I have for my doctor about the proposed surgery..It was very hard to put my anxiety aside and make this call but I feel I am making a lot progress. Hopefully when some of these questions are answered my anxieties and fears will lessen a little..and I will be able to make a decision..
Thats all we can really do is hope for the best in these kind of situations. I have found that everyone deals with these type of upsetting situations in there own way..Be it grief, or loss, or tragedy..etc etc. Some people are there for others and some just can't be. I have experienced this personally many times in my life and saw it all the time while working as a Certified Nurses aid / Home Health Care aid..A person is really lucky if they have one person who will stand by them when these things happen. This is all we can really hope for..I have no regrets about the time I spent being there for the people who needed me and feel privileged to have been there for them and grateful that I was able to put all the pain and hurt and fear aside that I felt so that I could be strong for them...I know that everyone can not do this and I try to show them compassion and understanding. I try not to let it hurt me..They are just running from a situation that they fine unbearable.
