JEAN KITTSON’S SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR CARERS

The comedian and author offers practical advice on how to survive the rollercoaster ride that most carers find themselves on.

Illustrations Patrick Cook

We all know that we should fit our own oxygen mask first, even if our panicking children are looking at us in horror and will never trust us again. Being a carer is much the same. Often a very long-haul journey. For some carers, it’s a lifetime’s work. So pace yourself, carers, and get as much support as you can. If you crack, the whole thing falls apart and all the planning and organising will be for nothing! All the tears and pain and letters of complaint, and all the years you have spent on hold on the bloody phone. Here are some suggestions to survive it all (reasonably) intact.

Look after yourself

If you feel a build-up or a blockage, call a counsellor or a plumber. You will need emotional and physical help to hang in there and survive the ride –maybe even enjoy it. Many people have told me that their time looking after their loved ones was one of life’s blessings.

It is a time when you learn a lot about yourself. How grown-up you can be. A time when you will witness levels of human compassion and courage and dignity and humility and grace that you are unlikely to encounter in any other situation. When you will also see and do things for the human body that you thought only happened on Extreme Bodies.

The role of carer means you will often not look after your own health. Try not to neglect yourself. Your teeth may look in pretty good shape compared to those in the glass beside your parents’ bed, but don’t skip your usual check-ups. Regularly check your eyes. Go to the GP for a whinge. Get a massage.

Get to know what you need (and how to get it)

Getting support is a great idea but, if you’re like me, most of your friends have racked off because you have totally neglected to even put them ahead of getting your loved ones’ toenails cut. The only way I stay in touch with friends is by phone because I am in the car so often that it’s my call centre.

I still feel connected with people I love outside of family and if they pick up the phone, I ask them what is going down in their lives, and we have a big warm whinge to each other. Well, nowadays we start with a mandatory Organ Recital, as one friend calls it. This is where we talk about our own health and what hurts. A treat. Excellent.

How my week turned out

The past week is a fairly good example of life in the carer’s lane. The fast lane is a chauffeured cruise in a slow limo compared to the carer lane, which is a cross between Mad Max and the Mad Mouse – unpredictable, demanding, fulfilling, exasperating, joyful, mournful and difficult. I was walking my daughter’s dog because she is hiking in Guatemala’s live volcano country. Or cruising off Panama in a yacht. Good for her. What she is not doing is walking her dog.

Pablo is lovely, but he needs an hour’s walk every day, then a half-hour shower to get half a ton of sand out of his coat that otherwise turns soft furnishings into schnitzels. Then breakfast. His. I have no time for breakfast.