Guest Post: 28 Years and Counting by Carrie Leeth
Earlier this year, TMP Books put out a call for submissions for two anthologies, requesting stories from cancer warriors/survivors, and from cancer caregivers. We received several submissions, but not enough to fill either book, so for now, the books are postponed.
When I notified the writers who had submitted, one of them suggested running the stories on my blog, and I loved the idea. My goal was to share people’s stories, to give encouragement and hope to other cancer warriors and caregivers, so why wait? I’m sharing the stories each Tuesday, in the order they were submitted.
Today, I welcome my sister, Carrie Leeth, to the blog, sharing her story as a lifelong caregiver:
In 1994, my father had been diagnosed with throat cancer and had been battling this for some time, losing weight, not able to work. He had a feeding tube placed before he started taking radiation treatments two times a day, for six weeks, so my brother and I took turns driving him to treatments. My brother worked night shift, so he took him for morning treatments, and I took him for afternoon treatments after I completed my day shift. I lived right next door to him – 25 yards away – so I was able to keep an eye on him between appointments.
About three weeks into Daddy’s treatments, my grandmother, who lived in Georgia, was having multiple health problems of her own and needed to have surgery, and there was no one to take her except me. Daddy was her only child, he and my mother were divorced, and my sister lived in Oklahoma at the time.
We came up with a plan to take care of them both. I would take off work for a week, go to Georgia for Nanny’s surgery and be her caregiver for a week of recovery, while my brother stayed in Alabama and did double duty, taking Daddy for both of his treatments each day, working at night. But we hit a snag. My employer would not give me the week off although I had vacation time available, so I quit my job of seven years. I didn’t tell my family at the time; I just did what needed to be done. FMLA was fairly new then, and I was later informed that if I had asked for time off to care for my dad instead of my grandmother, I would have been able to keep my job and just take the leave.
Nanny’s surgery went well, and she recovered as much as an 84-year-old could. Over the next few weeks, Daddy finished his treatments and we (me, Daddy, Nanny, and my 10-year-old daughter) spent the next month or so traveling back and forth to Georgia, still managing to take them both for follow-up appointments, until it became too much on them, and on me too. With school starting back in the fall, we couldn’t continue traveling back and forth so Nanny decided to move to Alabama to help me take care of Daddy. We did all the necessary things, like finding her doctors to continue her care in Alabama, closing up her house, moving her into my dad’s house, etc.
As Daddy finished up his treatments, he lost most of his voice and either spoke quietly or wrote down what he wanted to say. Conversations in the car were very difficult because I couldn’t read and drive at the same time. One afternoon after his treatment I stopped at a red light, and he gave me a notepad where he had written “When are you going back to work?”
I said, “Well, I’m not. I quit a few weeks ago because they wouldn’t give me a week off to take Nanny for her surgery.” In as loud of voice as he could muster, he said, “It’s time for a career change anyway.” Little did I know at the time, but God had called me for something much bigger and better.
Over the next year, we spent a lot of time together as a family, shared a lot of laughter, and a lot of tears, seeing the decline in them both. There were times of great joy, talking of past times, visiting with family members who dropped in, taking time to forgive each other, and a time to ask for forgiveness of things that were done or not done. This was a time of family healing, letting go of past mistakes and starting new relationships between all of us. And again, more tears. I loved listening to their stories of when they were young, of funny things Daddy had done, but also listening as apologies were made and being able to make apologies myself. We would be laughing one minute and crying the next. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything! I know now that this time is called anticipatory grief.
As time passed, we developed a routine, doing the necessary tasks of running two households and still taking care of my daughter’s needs. I learned new recipes from Nanny, helped Daddy set up a new computer (playing games on it soon became his favorite hobby), went fishing and played games together, and when they rested, I crafted. I was not in this alone, help came from my brother and sister-in-law, my sister who had moved back to Georgia, my future husband, and other relatives, all came to the rescue when needed. The time was well spent, time we needed for each other, time we had together, but a time that would soon become memories.
During this season, my sister-in-law lost her beloved dad after a long battle with lung cancer. Her precious time with him had been cut short, but she showed such courage and strength as she worked through her own grief.
Nanny continued to decline. She had been in and out of the hospital multiple times, and we had a home health agency coming in to help. Nanny had an assigned nurse and a CNA who came to help me with her bathing.
On her last visit to the hospital, Nanny’s doctor said he thought it was time for hospice help. I had heard of hospice, but had no experience with them, so I had a lot of questions. The doctor explained that hospice was for patients he believed to be terminally ill.
He was telling me that Nanny was dying.
He recommended Hospice of Marshall County (HMC). I did as the doctor suggested and my journey with HMC began October 1995.
I contacted the home health agency to let them know HMC would now be caring for my grandmother. They offered their hospice program, but with the doctor’s recommendation, we made the transfer.
Once HMC began coming into our home, we noticed a change. They provided a different kind of care for Nanny. The other home health was not bad, they did nothing wrong, but the care from HMC was different. HMC not only cared for her, but also took care of my family. They cared for all of us.
HMC provided a nurse, a social worker, a home health aide, and volunteer services, all of whom provided care in a heartfelt way. Nanny had been bedbound for some time, and Daddy was now unable to care for himself; they noticed the changes in him. I was primary caregiver for both, now around the clock, so hospice personnel began caring for me, too. They showed concern for my daughter who was experiencing first-hand the death of her great-grandmother and her grandfather. They had hearts, they had compassion, and they empathized with me.
Daddy was also declining, and although he was still mobile, he was a little confused at times, and not as active, or as steady on his feet as before. By November, the nurse thought Daddy would qualify for their services too. With our permission, she contacted his physician, and hospice soon had two patients in one family, both terminally ill.
Nanny and Daddy were in different stages, but both were drawing closer to the end of their lives. Nanny kept talking to her deceased parents and siblings. She had been seeing them, one by one, carrying on conversations with them, and always had a glow about her as she talked to them. We couldn’t see them, of course, but we knew they were there, waiting for her to be with them once again. She was seeing Jesus, and she had the sweetest spirit about her. She stared at things unseen to us, but she was always smiling.
As the month of November rolled by, their care needs increased. I ate and slept when I could, doing what I could for both. My family, and hospice, decided I needed a break, so a volunteer from hospice sat with them while I went Christmas shopping for my daughter. It was a much-needed break for me, a stress relief. But it was the calm before the storm.
Most nights, after tucking them in, I’d go to bed, and get up during the night to check on them, but that night, in the first week of December, I slept all through the night. I woke up later than usual the next morning, started the coffee, then went into Nanny’s room. She was gone. She had died peacefully in her sleep.
We made all the arrangements for her to be taken back to Georgia to be buried with my Grandpap and some of her siblings. As we made plans, we all seemed to be collectively holding our breath, not knowing if Daddy would survive through her funeral. We had her service, then after a few days of taking care of business, we returned home and resumed regular care for him.
Hospice continued to check on us, even while we were gone. They sent sympathy cards, called us, and planned nursing and social work visits when we got home.
After we returned home, Daddy began seeing things and kept talking to others, too, just like my Nanny had done. Earlier in life he was an engineer and wrote tech manuals for airplanes, performed contract work – all detailed type of work, so when I prompted him to tell me who he was talking to, he would give descriptive details, saying things like, “Over there, he’s wearing jeans, blue plaid shirt, and red suspenders, and hard hat, don’t you see him? He’s about this high,” motioning that whoever he saw was about six inches tall. Then he said, “The other one stands about 5 foot, 7 and quarter inches.” He tried to chase after these images he was seeing, but almost stumbled and fell in the process. He was becoming a danger to himself. I was worried and scared, not knowing at the time that he was seeing angels, and he was trying to hold on to life, trying to put more time between deaths. He was trying to run the angels off.
He didn’t want to die. He knew my sister-in-law was still grieving for her father, he was grieving for his mother, and knew we were all still grieving, too. He wasn’t ready to die yet and told me that many times. He said it would be too hard on everyone, too much death, too close together. He was thinking about everyone in our family and what this thing called death was doing to everyone’s heart. He wanted us all to be okay.
From that point, he began a rapid decline. A few days before Christmas, he became bedbound, unable to speak, or do anything on his own. We had family and friends coming in and checking on us, we had the support of hospice care – physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
There was no time to grieve, no more time to do anything except take care of Daddy on his final journey. Right after Christmas, just twenty-five days after Nanny died, he passed away with the family at his side.
We loved and we grieved. Almost 29 years have now passed, but I still find myself grieving over our losses that year. The love we had for them never leaves us, so grief never leaves us either. Grief is part of who we are, part of what makes us human, because we love. I found myself grieving as I wrote this story, proof that grief never really leaves us. It just becomes sweeter with all the memories left behind.
After the first of the year, a couple of weeks after Daddy’s funeral, I went back to work after almost two years of caregiving. I started a job in a factory because I needed it, but it just didn’t feel right. I needed to be somewhere else but didn’t yet know where.
In February, I got married and started a new life, full of hopes and dreams. A few weeks later, I went shopping and ran into the hospice nurse who had taken such good care of Nanny and Daddy. She asked what I was doing, and I told her I was looking for a job. She said HMC was looking for a homemaker, someone to clean houses for their patients. She gave me all the information and told me to fill out an application.
Twenty-Eight years and counting. The week I’m writing this, I’m celebrating 28 years with Hospice of Marshall County, now called Shepherd’s Cove Hospice. The journey has been a mix of happiness, sadness, grief, and joy, combined with plenty of blood, sweat and tears.
I’ve held many different positions over my 28 years with Hospice, but the journey began as a family under their tender care.
More about Carrie:
North Alabama native Carrie Leeth grew up in a small town, and never moved too far from home. She is the mother of two beautiful daughters, and a Granna to five grandsons and one granddaughter. Carrie currently works for Shepherd’s Cove Hospice and has for more than half of her life, twenty-eight years and counting. When she is not working or spending time with family, Carrie enjoys various art projects. She has created charcoal drawings, which were all about the hand of God, and in recent years, she makes artwork using broken pieces of jewelry.
Shepherd’s Cove Hospice is located in Albertville, Alabama. They serve nine counties in northeast Alabama. Since 1982, Shepherd’s Cove has been community-focused, community-led, and community-supported.
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