THE SIDE OF BEING A CARER THAT NO ONE SEES

The weekend has been a very hard one for me . If you didn’t know , I work as a community Carer on weekends. I decided that after having Nila and once maternity leave ended I would go back only
On weekends as we have no family to look after the children and childcare costs are absolutely ridiculous!.

So I’ve been back since January/ I actually went back earlier than I should have , but we needed the money and i needed it . I missed my clients and missed the adult company.

Anyway so over the weekend I had found out hat one of my regularly clients was poorly . She had been absolutely fine the weekend before and was her usual bossy self :). I honestly was not expecting to see what I did. I was lost for words.

Over the course of Saturday she had deteriorated and the doctors had come to the racism that she was actually dying . She had a DNR in her plan which means she didn’t want to be resuscitated if she stopped breathing , so we all knew that she wanted to be left to die peacefully, which broke my heart .

I have been caring for her for a few years and I just couldn’t stay professional anymore. I went outside to have a cry and to try and compose myself really, I didn’t want her daughter to see me crying as I knew it would of upset her .

I got home Saturday and the tears just kept coming . This job has its perks , your sort of your own boss , in the sense that you go out to your calls on your own and make your own lunch times etc, you get to bond with people and help them maintain independence and help them to stay in their own home , but the down sides are horrendous and sometimes hard to cope with.

Sunday I spent all day back and fourth, I was on until 6.30pm , and saw to this particular client at every call- breakfast lunch , dinner . She had gotten a lot worse by dinner time and wasn’t responding  to anything. Her daughter told us to just make sure she is comfortable and that is all we can do really . We were waiting on the Douglas Mac nurses to come as they are end of life care and they were able to sit with her through the night .

Unfortunately I got the news this morning that she had passed away early hours this morning . I can not even put into words how I feel. Looking after someone while they are dying is a whole different ball game when it comes to caring . It had been an emotional and daring weekend , but I am so fortunate that I got to spend the weekend making sure she had the best care possible and she will forever be in my thoughts.
Xxxx