Caregiving for Family

As I mentioned in the "About Me" section, I have been caregiving since 1988. It started with my grandmother, who had been bitten by a brown recluse on her foot. Then, while she was in the hospital, they discovered she had diabetes. At age 12, I learned how to clean and dress a wound, test blood sugar, and give insulin shots. As time progressed, she had strokes and developed dementia from them, and I learned how to work with her, from thickening the food to help her swallow to assisting with her physical therapy. The hardest part was dealing with the dementia and how emotionally draining it was to see her deteriorate, as well as the stress on the rest of the family, as my mother and I were concentrating on her care. After she passed, we took care of my uncle after he had his heart attack. I have also been a caregiver to our pets; we had cats that were diabetic, and several cats and a dog that had cancer, whom I spent time taking care of until they passed. Now, my mother is my "patient." In 2021, she went into the hospital and had emergency surgery for perforations in her stomach and spent about two months there before I got to bring her home. Since then, she's been in the hospital twice more, but otherwise, I've been taking care of her. It's a challenge now, as I'm the only one to take care of her. She hasn't been strong enough to do physical therapy, and she recently got diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, which I've never dealt with. There are challenging days with her, but most are pretty normal. I just want to learn more about what to expect in taking care of this new issue.