It’s been 3 years since I lost my profoundly disabled son, Brendan Bjørn. For nearly 18 years, I was his full time, nursing-level carer to his complex medical and disability needs. I did this as a lone parent. I did this, during some of those early years, while working full time. I did this, some years, while working part time. Mostly, though, I didn’t work outside the home. His care needs were too demanding. They were indeed literally 24/7.
Three years on and I find myself in chronic pain with a number of health issues, the primary one of peripheral neuropathy which has yet to be addressed by anything other than a scrip of Gabapentin that has numerous side effects for me. I’m slowly weaning myself off of it and I’m trying like hell to find a doctor who will do more than hand me pills.
I want to be better.
I need to be better.
I’ve been looking for part time work that I can manage with my health issues. I’ve had no luck at all. Let’s face it, my CV is lacking when it comes to recent professional work experience, I’ll be 60 later this year, and I’m limited in what I can do physically now.
I think I’ve passed the Best Before Date.
It’s extremely difficult to not give up hope on having a fulfilling future when struggling to make ends meet; when being rejected for simple jobs; when not even getting a response to a CV submitted. It’s disheartening to think of the decades of study, the degrees earned, the professional works accomplished, when sitting in a darkened room so to keep the electricity bill from getting too high while selling various less-needed household items just to make those ends meet. It’s disappointing to be used as a full time, complex carer to support a crumbling, dysfunctional health service who provided so little help while I was a carer to my son and who have now, for all intensive purposes, discarded my own health needs. But here, take these pills.
It leaves me often pondering what it was all for, those years of work and study? Did I do any good in this world which will leave a legacy of positive contribution for the generations to come or was it all for naught? When it’s my time, will I just fade out of everyone’s memory, forgotten despite all of those years filled with passionate effort and living? I think about all of this probably far more often than I should. I’m nothing if not open and honest in this blog, though.
It leaves me, frankly put, feeling useless and left to sit quietly in this darkened room hoping to God this debilitating chronic pain will go away so I can once again have some hope for a happy, productive future.
I think I’ve passed the Best Before Date.
May I be wrong.
