Caring for others while caring for yourself

noonrider

The background: I have 10 kids. The oldest 5 are adults and on their own. The youngest five are all at home. All 5 of them have Down syndrome. The youngest four are newly adopted. These are kids learning to "be" in a family. They don't know how to play with toys. They don't know how to live without someone guiding every moment of their day. It it is a lot of work, and something my husband and I truly enjoy doing. To watch the changes in our kids from day to day is the moses blessed of experiences. We are not saints. We are not heroes. We're just doing a job and getting paid for it in hugs and kisses, or sometimes in eye contact and a high 5. 

And then came cancer. 

I worried that doing chemo over the summer was really going to be a problem. All the kids home all day while I laid around and did a lot of nothing. We got the timing of side effects down and for the most part things worked out. One of our adult sons has been a HUGE help, staying with us several days at a time to be another set of hands and eyes. But it was HARD. Our newest daughter came home March 19th and I had my first surgery April 2nd, started chemo May 17th. She doesn't remember me without hair. She doesn't know me with energy. All summer we did exactly three fun things. 1) in July we rented a cabin at a resort where my husband's extended family spends their summer. The extended family was a HUGE help when it came to watching our busy kids near the water. (something that makes me very nervous) 2) We had the 4th of July, times just right that I actually had energy for the carnival and fire works. 3) A couple weeks ago we took the kids to the county fair. That's it. Thats was our big summer. The day-to-day fun things of summer didn't happen. No trips to the zoo (so important for my post institutional kids who had never even seen a dog or cat before, much less a cow or zoo animal!) No trips to the park or area pool. Anyway, life didn't end and we made it through.  My kids are SO excited to go back to school because they won't be bored anymore! 

On Sept 12 I'm scheduled for BMX and recon. Four of the kids will be in school full time. Our newest won't be in school yet so we'll have to find someone to watch her. But the logistics of this surgery seem bigger than chemo was! I think partly because my son is back to college so is busy with his own life. One of our kids is quite a handful and we really cannot have any other caregivers for him other than the three adults already in his life. The day of surgery logistics are a nightmare right now. Beginning on day 3 after surgery I will have to be getting kids off buses by myself because my husband will have to be back to work. And the list goes on….

Anyway, I know there are mothers of young kids here who are struggling with caring for their kids while caring for themselves. There are others who are caring for kids with disabilities, or extended family members who are disabled or aging. Lets support one another as we work through this thing called cancer.