Caregiving: Practicing Self-Care During Emergency Hospitalizations

Caring for a loved one with a mental or physical injury or illness is often a thankless job.  Its exhausting, stressful, time consuming, frustrating, and draining. Often it’s not a job one chooses to do, but nevertheless, it needs to be done.  And it’s often done with pride and love. While caregiving for a loved one might not be anyone’s first choice, it’s a duty happily accepted because you wouldn’t have it any other way.  Naturally, there are mixed emotions that fluctuate from day to day depending on the unique circumstances of the situation such as the relationship you have with the loved one, the illness or injuries afflicting them, or your ability to get quality-timely medical care.  

Sometimes you’re thrown a curveball; a condition worsens, they have an unexpected fall or accident, have a bad medication interaction, etc.  In these cases, you need to act fast and a trip to the emergency room and/or hospitalization occurs. These are incredibly stressful situations where you wade through the unknown and hope someone figures out what went wrong and mends your loved one.  Your days, hours, minutes are consumed with worry for the one you care for, and often you forget yourself. More than ever, this is the time to practice self-care so you can be at the top of your game and handle what’s thrown at you. The following are some suggestions on how to practice self-care in emergency situations:

• Eat – This may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised how this essential task is pushed aside when the one you care for is struggling.  You might not feel hungry, lose track of time, feel like you can’t leave your loved one, etc. However, despite all this, your body needs nutrients to function and perform well.  It will be difficult to make decisions or focus when your stomach is growling or you’ve become hangry (you’ll also be more pleasant for doctors to work with if you avoid this hunger induced anger and annoyance which will make the rest of hospital stay more pleasant for everyone.)
• Sleep – Again, this one seems like a given, but it’s often thrown to the wayside in an emergency.  It becomes difficult to sleep when you worry about the status of your loved one. However, if they are incapable of making decisions for themselves, you need to be the one to do it.  You need to stay sharp, make informed decisions, and do what you do best; coordinate care for your loved one. This will be easier to do with a good night’s rest.
• Make Jokes/Laugh – I know what you’re thinking, “How can I laugh at a time like this?!?! What is funny about being in the hospital?!?”  To answer that, nothing is really funny about being in the hospital, but that doesn’t mean it gets to rob you of who you are or your joy in the world.  Laughter can be the best medicine. Maybe not for physical issues, but in times of stress it’s good to laugh. If you can find laughter in these situations, you can weather any storm.  For example, my husband was in the hospital recently. The ER staff did all kinds of tests. Many of them, I knew wouldn’t show anything, but they had to do their thing. Rather than get frustrated by a lack of answers, I made jokes.  They did a chest X-ray, found nothing. But I could laugh and say, “well, looks like he still has his lungs! That’s good news!” And it was good news, and better for me to focus on the good in a laughing manner than obsess over the unknown.  This can be beneficial for both you and the one you care for. It will ease tension and keep the mood positive.
• Bring Something Fun to Do – Rushing to get your loved one to the hospital may make this one difficult to do.  However, with smartphones, this self-care tip can be easily implemented. Play a game, watch a show, read a book, etc.  There’s going to be a lot of down time. Plenty of time you could use to worry, obsess, or stress over. OR you can use it as an opportunity to manage that stress by doing something fun and relaxing.  I always carry a book on me for when I find I have to wait, this can be a lifesaver. And hey, you might get caught up on some of the self-care you’ve been putting off.
• Find the Positives – Focus on what is going right, what you did right, not what you could/should have done but what you did do.  Point out to yourself or your loved one a good nurse, a good test result, a doctor who listens, how quick you got into the room, etc.  Practicing this form of self-care will keep you from slipping into a spiral of what ifs, anxiety, and panic. It can turn a bad situation into a bright one.  The reason for this being that our judgements or perceptions of the world cause us more internal turmoil than the situation at hand. Switching our judgements to positive ones, eases the negative emotions and makes the situation more bearable.
• Trust Your Judgement – You are the expert on the one you care for.  You made a judgement call because something wasn’t right.  You did your best. You are one badass caregiver who knows his/her stuff.  This self-care tip can come in the form of a pep talk, mental pat on the back, or an extension of the previous tip on finding to positives.  It banishes self-doubt and reinforces your confidence in your abilities as a caregiver.
• Tap into Your Sisu –  Sisu is the ability to look at adversity and overcome it.  It’s never giving up when you face an obstacle. It’s knowing and believing you can overcome the impossible, and then you do it.  Though this is a Finnish concept, every human being has sisu.  It’s my belief that caregivers have especially strong sisu.  Unknowingly, caregivers strengthen their sisu on a daily basis.  Any difficult task they accomplish, any problem they solve, any health issue they coordinate care for, and even mundane tasks that need to be done for your loved one is a daily practice in sisu which makes it grow stronger and stronger.  Did you calmly call 911 and wait for the ambulance to arrive while simultaneously preparing your loved one, yourself, and any others to follow to the hospital?  That’s sisu.  Did you get to the ER and make multiple phone calls to make sure your kids were taken care of?  That’s sisu.  Did you give the ER or hospital staff a detailed health history, including dates, medications, and current treatments of your loved one? That’s sisu.  You have it in you to overcome this curveball life has thrown at you and bring both yourself and your loved one to the other side.  Use it. You’ll need it in this situation, and you’ll become strong for it.

Not only are these self-care tips important for the caregiver, they are also important for the one receiving care as well.  Many of these can be done with your loved one in order for you both to manage the stress and physical demands in this trying time.  Have a meal together, laugh together, do fun activities together, point out the positives together and the positives you see in each other.  These will strengthen your sisu and see you through, together.

These are only a few suggestions and I’d love to hear from you about what have you done as a caregiver or care receiver to practice self-care in an emergency hospitalization situation?