Care to Care: Maintaining “normalcy”
Watch the corresponding Care to Care episode here.
With major life changes– whether it be a medical diagnosis, the birth of a child, a big move, a new job, or taking on the care of a loved one– comes the need to adapt and adjust. New life circumstances often upend routines, shift priorities, and transform the familiar landscape of everyday life. Trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy amidst such change can be a real challenge.
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it felt like everything came to a screeching halt. Before my diagnosis, I was busily working to build my private practice, was involved in community engagement work, was teaching psychological assessment at a local university, and was developing a caregiver consultancy. In addition to my work, my other roles included mom, partner, daughter, sister, and friend. I was wearing a few different hats, to say the least! When I found out I had stage 2b/3 invasive ductal carcinoma, my days shifted from working and family time to a whirlwind of doctor's appointments and treatment planning. Cancer felt like a full time job.
At first, my response to so many changes was to want to keep things the same as they were before the diagnosis– continue with all of my roles and responsibilities and just layer cancer treatment on top. However, after I wound up in the hospital due to complications from an egg retrieval procedure (which I did to hopefully preserve fertility before starting chemotherapy) I realized maintaining the same pace of life in the context of my current health was not going to work. I wasn’t thrilled with this realization… All I wanted was for things to go back to “normal.”
The questions emerged: how does a person maintain a sense of normalcy while acknowledging and being realistic about the limitations they face? How does a person identify and implement modifications that need to be made to help make life more manageable in their current circumstances?
For me, as a new care recipient and a caregiver I learned that I needed to loosen my grip on control (e.g., planning, building, scheduling) and cultivate a willingness to tolerate the uncertainty of my current condition. Although it is uncomfortable, and I am still working toward this, giving myself permission to be uncertain and to be okay with feeling uncertain has been an enormous relief. An example of this in practice was my decision to modify my work schedule and leave my role teaching psychological assessment. While I enjoyed this work, I realized that it was too rigid to accommodate my frequently changing needs. My husband similarly enrolled in intermittent FMLA so that he could have some flexibility in his otherwise rigid work structure. For us, these were ways to make more space for uncertainty.
It has not been easy and it is an ongoing process, but over the last six months, we have learned some additional ways to try to maintain a sense of “normalcy” even in the chaos of cancer and caregiving. Watch the related YouTube video to this post to hear some of our takeaways!