Trying To Keep It All Up

I am stressed. To the max. Again. It’s never ending. I am tired. Mentally and physically.

Very few people understand what I have on my plate. Some understand more than others. Some think they understand, but they really don’t.

Some think they understand, and actually do. But that list is very short.

I don’t want pity. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. What I do want is for people to understand why I am tired. Why I have a short fuse. Why I over react and flip out over little things. I want them to understand my life so that they understand me. Understand us.

I work 40 hours a week. I keep a house going. Cook, clean, pay bills, and worry how we are going to keep going financially week to week and make it through another month. I make doctor appointments for Vince and myself. I keep track of all the appointments and make sure I have off work to get Vince there. I order medications and keep track of the inventory at our home. I worry and stress about how we will pay for them. I make endless phone calls regarding appointments, medications, and health insurance changes or issues. I am a full time employee at work 40 hours a week, but I am also a full time care giver at home 24/7. I am needed to help Vince with his mental wellbeing to keep his spirits up and keep him positive, as well as his physical wellbeing. I have to help him get dressed. I administer all of his shots and change out his insulin pump sites. On the rare occasion we get to go out to a restaurant, if he forgets his reading glasses, I have to read the menu to him. I don’t get a break. I don’t get to run away. I have to balance being a wife with being a care giver and not forgetting that I am a wife too.

When I get really stressed and worrisome, I like to sleep. Because well, when I sleep, I can rest my mind and forget about all this that I have on my plate. But that doesn’t always work. I am awoken more often than not AT LEAST once a night to help Vince. Whether he needs help getting to bed because the drowsiness of his medications, or he needs help because of a low sugar episode, or maybe he is in a lot of extra pain and needs help doing something. Sometimes he even falls in the middle of the night. His balance isn’t the greatest anymore due to the Neuropathy so add in the medicated drowsiness and this can get very tough for him; like getting to the bathroom or to the bedroom.

But I’m not complaining. Really, I’m not. I am just tired. Worn out. Exhausted from trying to balance life as a 29 year old who is young and wants desperately to have a family but in reality has to take care of a sick husband because that is the one person she loves more than life itself and can’t imagine giving up on him.