The Littlest Caregiver
a short essay
by Melissa Yuan-Innes
Published by Olo Books
Smashwords Edition
In association with Windtree Press
I helped my father to the hospital bathroom. He flapped his gown up and I was horrified to realize he wasn't wearing anything underneath.
"Are you okay, Dad? I'll be just outside," I yelped and escaped.
"I don't want to see my dad's ass," I later told a friend who had lost her father to cancer.
"Really? It didn't bother me. Washing him, changing him, it was no big deal."
It was a big deal to me. Ever since my father had been diagnosed with an aggressive form brain cancer almost a year and a half ago, I'd tried to give as good care as I could. Since I'm an emergency doctor, I could handle the imaging, asking for second opinions, pushing for faster and better treatment. But the actual caretaking, I fumbled.
My brother laughed when he had to help my dad. He thought it was funny.
I found it deeply humiliating for both of us. He'd been my brilliant, hard-working, uncomplaining father. Now, at the age of 57, he was exhausted more often than not; an ophthalmologist told us Dad was nearly legally blind; he was supposed to walk with a cane; he'd turned moon-faced and stooped from all the steroids. And still the cancer grew.
In a perfect world, we would both have learned how to handle our new roles, after a few laughs and a lot of tears.
But in fact, we never fit the Hollywood roles of caregiving.
My parents lived five hours away, round trip, so we had to do a lot of telephone liason. Our first conversation after his diagnosis, I gripped the telephone and took a deep breath before I ended our conversation by saying, "I love you."
He paused and said, unenthusiastically, "Yeah."
This played out a few times until I realized that he was just not going to say "I love you" or make a big speech about what a good daughter I'd been.
In the same vein, whenever Dad and I saw each other socially, especially before the chemotherapy exhausted him, I tried to sit with my father. That's what you're supposed to do with cancer patients, right? Sit with them and chat so that, when they're gone, you can treasure all the heart-to-heart conversations you never would have had otherwise? But it felt weird, just sitting there, trying to open up. Both of us were used to accomplishing goals instead.
"You go ahead," said my dad. "I'll look after Max." That was my six-month-old son.
"Are you sure?"