George Maris, cont'd

I have to admit, I can do caregiving, I can be with her and give her chocolate ice cream sodas or change her urine bag or whatever, and I do it with a certain determination, and I'll keep at it. I would feel a terrible failure if I couldn't continue. Sometimes that upsets me. Looking at it the other way around, I'm locked into something, and I'm aware of that, and I think to myself, my God, I can't get out of this, I'm locked into this and isn't that awful for the rest of my life I might have to do this. So that's a very dark side to caregiving for me that comes up from time to time.

I'm not confined to a wheelchair, I have choices. I can get up and get out, and that takes some of the pressure off me. There are certain times when I would like to get up and get out. Rarely have I bolted. I need breaks; Nancy understands that I need breaks; she's good about providing those for me. And vice-versa -- I try to provide her with space where she can get away from me. And I know that some of her feelings are very much like mine, but her limitation is different from mine. Mine is self-imposed, and she is really just stuck.

Caregiving only works, in my experience, when its circular -- and I want to give Nancy opportunities to care for me, sometimes I do that consciously but not always. Sometimes I just genuinely need her to just touch my hand, to say it's all right.

My having cancer was an extreme example. I had stage 4 melanoma, it had metastasized to a tumor in my bowels. Most people apparently die of that. I guess the odds of that are pretty much against my having survived that but it's been 10 years, and I'm sure I have survived that in part from the nurturing I have received from Nancy. She was quite disabled 10 years ago when I was hospitalized for this surgery to extract this piece of my bowels, she was quite disabled but she insisted on having a bed in my room, and being there with me during my times of confinement.

There were times when I was only dimly aware of her being there, I think I was not a great patient, I know that I cried out a lot of pain. And I think I probably harrassed the nurses and I wanted pain medication. And I was in a great fog. And I knew at the same time that Nancy was present. And I'm sure that has something to do with my being here today. I know that she was, if not calling to me aloud, telling me that I was needed. So that's what caregiving is, and yes, there's still that circularity. And I don't think that we would continue if it weren't somehow that way. Giving round and round.

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