“Life is abundant, and life is beautiful. And it’s a good place that we’re all in, you know, on this earth, if we take care of it.” ~ Alice Walker.

I decided I wanted to be a nurse when I was very young.  I don’t know who was my role model, or my inspiration.  My mother (so the story goes) had started nursing school, but had to leave after eight weeks or so, when she had become engaged.  Nursing was not for the engaged or the married at the time.  Almost like becoming a nun, I suppose.  Where would we be today if we still had such restrictions?  But I believe the rule was based on the concept of selflessness. 

As I grew up I flirted with the thought of other careers, but ultimately was not shaken, and off I went to nursing school, leaving my tropical Jamaican home at the time, for the land and town of my birth, grey and gloomy Manchester, UK.  At the time, you went to a hospital-based program, spending most of your time on the wards as a member of the healthcare team.  We were in the classroom for a couple of weeks, every three months or so, but the rest of the time we were given a schedule, worked night shifts, weekends, and anywhere we were needed.  By the beginning of our second (of three) year we were given responsibilities, sometimes left in charge at night, with newer nurses following our lead.  My memories of this time are all pleasurable, but apart from learning skills; recognizing signs and symptoms of disorders; memorizing medications and their uses; beyond all of these practical facts, I was learning what it meant to be a nurse.  How to put aside personal feelings or discomforts as you learned to think of how the patient must feel (empathy).  How to listen to a concerned patient without rushing off, even though you had a dozen other things to do.  How much you could learn from your patients, even as you thought you were supposed to be teaching them.  I learned to respect the fact that lessons could be presented every day, if only I looked.  But I also learned that it is far easier to nurse a stranger, than your own family member.

In the middle of my second year away from home, when I was working on a cardiac ward, I went to collect my mail on my break.  This was in the time when our most common form of communication was by mail, and with my parents still living in Jamaica, I would look forward to my mother’s regular air mail letters, full of news of people I knew and missed, full of reminders of what was happening in Jamaica.  But on this particular day, the news was of my father.  It appeared he had been hospitalized for a heart attack, but was recovering.  Even though these letters were sent by air, they still took a good week to arrive, so the ‘news’ was already two weeks old.  But my response was instantaneous and I found myself crying unconsolably.  I could not go back and finish my shift, caring for women with similar diagnoses.  It struck me as being hypocritical, but I was human.

Many years later I would find it ironic and a bit painful, that since I lived so far from my parents once they retired to Wales, and I lived in Miami, that I spent most of my life caring for the parents of others.  For the most part my parents were very healthy up until around the last decade of their life, still traveling back and forth across the Atlantic to visit friends and family.  It was in their 80’s that their health began to decline.  My father, with his history of cardio-vascular disease lived to be 90, but those last years were cruel as his memory was stolen by dementia.  My mother, the only member of her immediate family to make it to 80, actually lived to be 93, but her health declined as she became my father’s primary caregiver.  Her attention to detail, her love of routines were ideally suited to the care of someone with dementia.  Unfortunately in caring for him she neglected to notice her own needs, which led to her being hospitalized with a severe kidney infection.  This break in my father’s routine challenged his ability to function as well as he had while under her care.

It is unfortunately a lesson not emphasized enough in nursing school.  Those who care for others must remember to care for themselves first.  Look out for number one may sound selfish, but it is essential.  Most mothers learn this lesson too late, that while they are busy putting the needs of others ahead of their own, their own health and mental well-being suffer.  And once Number One is down, what happens to everyone else? 

In my travels around Jamaica I am as always filled with reminders of my childhood, of my parents, of the life I left behind.  I have also been confronted with the question of how best to care for those with dementia, when the part of the mind that can learn new information, and make new memories is broken.  There is hope in science, as there is breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (the most common form of dementia), but in the meantime what are the best modes of treatment for those afflicted?  And how do we make sure that the caregivers are taken care of?

This Friday morning, as I sit in the hills of St. James I can hear the usual country sounds, a rooster crowing, a donkey braying, a distant motorbike chugging up the hill.  I have traveled on smooth highways, and impossibly pot-holed country roads.  I have gazed in wonder at lush hillsides, some neatly farmed with rows of ‘yam-hills’, or bananas, or corn.  I have sampled the fruits in season (mangoes, naseberries, pineapple) and missed the ones that are not (starapples, sweetsop; tamarind).  I have (tried to) feed hummingbirds at a local sanctuary (too impatient to sit motionless, hoping they will dive in for a tasty treat of sugar and water, from a miniature liquor bottle).  I have felt a cool breeze up in the hills of ‘Upper Trelawney’ in the middle of a June day, with clouds gathering but not really amounting to rain.  Down on the coast I have sat and sweated and heard about the new level of heat that must portend hurricanes ahead.  I have watched in horror at the news of ‘once in a thousand years’ floods in South Florida (again).

As I wish you a wonderful weekend, Family, I hope you will make time to check in with those who are caregivers.  See if you can offer them some relief, or suggestions, to make sure they are taking care of number one.  And may you make time to appreciate the beauty all around you, and do what you can to preserve it for future generations.

One Love!

Namaste.