I sometimes get caught up in the daily challenges of caring for my husband and forget to look for the positive side of it all. I love the fact that he is still here with me, and we still do many things together. I love cuddling with him and sharing special memories of those things we may not be able to do anymore. I actually like the feeling I get from being able to help him and know that I am making his life easier as face his Parkinson’s Diagnosis together. The positives of CarePartnering are sometimes outweighed by the realities of his progressing symptoms, but I need to treasure those moments when we are connecting again like we did pre-PD.

Parkinson’s is progressive which means that my husband’s abilities will decline and his needs will increase. As his primary CarePartner, that means my load will increase too. He has good days, when he does many tasks for himself, and bad days, when he relies more on me for help. The changes are happening slowly for us, rather like a lobster in pot of boiling water, will I recognize my limits before the burden overwhelms me? 

I found a great tool on AgingCare.com called the Caregiver Burden Self-Assessment. It asks a number of questions about how I feel while providing care for my husband. The survey helped me honestly look at my perceived burden and gave suggestions on what I might need to do to care for myself as things progress. I first took the survey a year ago and again this past week. It shows that my burden, while still in the mild to moderate stage, has almost doubled in the past 12 months.

Finding the burden is easy for me, finding the blessing can be too if I take the time and remain honest to myself. I truly am thankful for the opportunity to care for my husband and for all the good things we still share. I will do my best to recognize that time when the burdens start to take that away from me and look for the help I need before it is too late and I am completely overwhelmed.

If you would like to take the survey yourself visit Caregiver_Burden_Assessment.pdf (agingcare.com).