I believe that my time as a caregiver was one of the most challenging and fruitful in my life. Being someone who thought of himself as an apathetic and passive person, I thought (and my parents too) that I would be a bad caregiver. During the Covid pandemic, job searching was tough and after being let go from Amazon/Whole Foods packing groceries for delivery due to low hours and scarce working opportunity, I did not have the luxury to be picky about my job. So I applied at a caregiving agency and after going through learning material and tests all in 1 day. I was ready to be assigned to my first client.

I’m not one to get nervous easily and am eager to try new things. I’m actually quite adventurous and wouldn’t say no to things like skydiving, extreme roller coasters and etc. But that first time going into someone’s home to take care of them knowing if I mess up it would have a direct negative impact on their life gets to you. It’s not like when I was working selling internet or being a retail clerk where a mistake would mean a customer doesn’t get their product delivered.

It was an older lady with severe dementia I had to take care of and there was her husband there too. It being my first time there I was told that there would be someone to train me which brought me some comfort. I thought she would be there for my entire 12 hour shift. Little did I know that she just showed me some ADL’s(activities of daily living) in the morning and off she went in less than 10 minutes. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer and was going through some pain so he wasn’t the most welcoming and soft spoken person. He had a lot of complaints about our company, saying that I was the 5th person that had been there within the span of 2 weeks. And that made me wonder, why?

She was bedridden, had severe dementia and I couldn’t have a proper conversation with her but I did try my best and when I smiled she would smile back. The husband and I would talk about how she got to this point and apparently she had a bad fall when trying to get up off her recliner. I struggled to get her up and off her bed into the wheelchair, I strained to get onto a toilet and fended off her thrashing as she was uncomfortable with a male undressing her to use the bathroom, and I had no cooking skills at all. Her husband was disappointed and he had no intent of hiding it to protect my feelings. When it got close to bedtime, I had to change her into her night gown. I asked her if she just wanted it over her shirt and she said yes. Apparently her husband didn’t think that was okay at all and he yelled at me at the top of his lungs asking me why I would do that. And I’m not gonna lie and I will be vulnerable with you here, that hurt. For the first time since I was a child I cried. At first I tried to hold it back but I couldn’t hide it. The husband felt pity for me and tried to calm down, he did to a certain extent and told me that it was okay and to come back tomorrow. I wished at the time he told me to never come back. This was one of the worst experiences in my life. Not because I was yelled at. But because I knew that I would have to come back tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that too. I have lived a mostly comfortable life, it wasn’t perfect but it was relatively free of tough times and easy going. I had to come back and I dreaded it, but I did it anyway because I knew I would regret it if I quit on the first hint of hardship. That would be a life altering bad habit if I got used to it. Also, after me and the husband talked I had to facetime my mom to teach me how to use a tabbed adult diaper.

So, that was my first day as a caregiver. I know others probably have it way worse and in no way I am complaining. I am grateful for having gone through that and survived it. I continued working with them until she passed and a lot of days were uncomfortable but I was a better for it. I even eventually learned to stand up to myself and not let him yell at me for inconsequential things.