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Have you helped comfort others during their time of need?
In his most recent column, Brad Dell wrote about a recent experience he had comforting a friend when bringing them to the emergency room. Many of us with CF are usually the ones who are comforted as we go to the hospital.
Have you ever helped bring a friend or loved one to the hospital? If so, how was it for you as a person with cystic fibrosis to have the shoe on the other foot? -
2 Replies
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My CF person is 1 bad cold away from the ICU, no slack in her lung capacity and facing up to starting the process of trying for a lung transplant.
CF is a long game for the caregivers. It profoundly changes the situation. There are the hospital stays, and then there are the other 7 days a week, every week of the month, every month of the year. Yeah, I give all the comfort I can- every day. These days my feelings are my problem, I have to cultivate my own emotional and spiritual supports and I have to put a bunch of work into that. Disassociation and aversion to the faces of the medical machine is a luxury to be grateful for as far as I’m concerned. I have to engage regardless.
Its a job doing the work and cultivating the spiritual fitness in the face of my own grief and fatigue to constructively respond to the fear and emotional dumping, and accept that the CF sufferer, on a good day, can make it up and down the stairs to do their various things. On other days its tougher and no getting off the ride for either of us.
So, I’m glad he went to the ER and faced his demons and was able to give some comfort to someone in need. I think he should do it a bunch more.
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This is interesting for me, because even though I have CF I don’t experience that much support as one would think. As a child, I became a care taker due to many reasons and as I grew so did my care taking. I’m very comfortable with being there for someone when there ill. I’ve been to the bedside of friends dying from cancer, to my parents, and grandparents and even when I am in the hospital, I try to be supportive of others needs and plights. It is a big part of who I am.
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