Setting Boundaries when Caring for your Dying Parent

"I don't check my email very often so can you just call me with the updates each day?"  I sat at the end of my mother's hospital bed, dumfounded on how to respond.   I was spending up to 2 hours a day calling each person who wanted an update on my mother and felt obligated to do so since these were people who obviously cared for my mother deeply.  They were her friends, siblings and cousins.  People who were praying for her and hoping for her and people who had volunteered to help with her caregiving.  I owed it to them to at least let her know how she was doing, right?

Wrong.

My obligation was to care for my mother and if I was busy updating all these people two things were going to occur...  1) I wasn't going to care for my mother as well as I could and 2) I was going to drive myself into sickness myself.  Neither was a good situation.

So I learned to be firm.  When people asked such things I would just let them know that we were sending out updates via email (and later we started to use caringbridge.com to send out updates) and they could follow that and if they didn't check email then they should find a buddy who did and that buddy could update them.  I was busy taking care of Mom.

I have to admit I felt guilty being so firm about it but people took it well and eventually I learned that it was the best route to take.  We even put a notice on her caringbridge site that thanked people for their well wishes but that we would most likely not be responding to email or voicemails as our focus was on her health and our well being during this life crisis.

There were other boundaries to set too that at times made me feel inhospitable and mean.  When friends had overstayed their visit and I knew my Mom needed to sleep I plainly told them it was time to go -- it was naptime.  I had lots of people in and out of my house to help care for my Mom and I was and am STILL grateful for all their help -- it helped me lead a somewhat normal life and my Mom felt SO loved and appreciated.   However, sometimes it was too much and I needed to protect some of our family life.  There was more than once occasion where I told someone that I needed their help and was glad they were making a trek from other states to visit, but they needed to find another place to stay.  I didn't have the energy or fortitude to be nice to an overnight guest.  I didn't want to worry about changing sheets or if they wanted coffee in the morning in our coffee-less home.

I also had to set boundaries with my time.  I felt guilty when people would come from out of state to visit and the second they arrived, I shot out the door to go to work or sometimes to just get some time for myself.   But that's why they were there.  To help and spend time with my mother ... not for me to entertain them or to see me.  So I needed to get over my guilt so I could better care for my mother when they were not around.

I truly did feel blessed to know people cared and it did make my Mom feel better too but we needed those boundaries and you probably do too.  If you feel mean setting them, refer them to this post and maybe it will help explain.