C is for Caregiver

So tonight is going to be a little different. This is not Gin, this is Geoff. Gin is passed out cold (good for her), and I agreed to get something posted for her tonight. The plan always was for me to periodically write some posts, and tonight is as good as any night for my first guest appearance. I will warn you that this will be short, because not only is Gin asleep, but Ella and E are also asleep, so I am missing out quality sleep time myself.

It can be challenging to care for someone who is a professional caregiver. There is an old joke that teachers make the worst students, and based on several years of continuing education classes back in my teaching days, I would say there is some truth to that. I don't know for sure if such a thing exists, but I would be willing to bet there is some sort of saying along the lines of nurses make the worst patients. A little Googling reveals this is indeed the case:

**(see below)

I am going to take just a minute here for a brief interlude in this brief post to speculate what this saying would be for other service-oriented jobs. I know from experience that bike mechanics are supposed to take the worst care of their own bikes, so do pumbers take the worst care of their own plumbing? Feel free to let me know other classics that you have heard.


So you can probably guess where this is going, "Geoff, give us some juicy gossip about how frustrating Gin is as a patient." Well, the problem is, I don't really have any gossip. Gin has been an amazing patient. She has been great about getting to all of her appointments, she is a great self-advocate, and she takes decisive action when needed. If I sound a litte ra-ra cheerleader about my wife, that's because I am. She has been amazing.

We just finished the first week of treatment. Overall, it really has gone quite well, but I won't lie - it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. Her port is bothering her, particularly since it is in the spot where the kids and I seem to bump into her the most. She is more nauseous and  tired than she lets on - particularly this morning. I don't mean to alarm anyone - she is still doing mostly well overall. The reason I bring it up is because if you saw her on the street, there is still a very, very good chance you would not know anything is wrong.

I feel fortunate things have gone so well so far. I know Gin has said this multiple times, but I need to say it as well - we feel so fortunate to have such great friends and family and for all the support we have received so far. You are all caregivers as well, and thank you for that.

**At around this time, the computer i was working on decided to have technical diffidculties and ultimately I decided to give up and go to sleep myself. I finished the post the next day. Sorry for the delay.