Prince Update ~ 20 January 2014: “Care for the caretakers”
My Prince’s Gift: “Care for the caretakers.”
It can easily become all-consuming to care for those who have health issues. This, of course, applies whether it’s our beloved animals or people. I am somewhat fortunate in that I am home currently and have the advantage of being with my boys, both Prince and Blaze, as they transition. I did just come off a year-long flare of the auto-immune disease I was diagnosed with in 1990; hence, so I’m still building my own strength and stamina up. I often wonder how people do this with full-time jobs and children, etc.
The flip side of being home most of the time is that I am experiencing the ups and downs of what is happening, almost minute-to-minute with my boys. Yet even more so, I wonder how people handle this with children who are ill. That would be incredibly difficult; such as this is.
Both Celt, my Border Collie, who came from Louisiana following Katrina and Missy, my red girl who came from a puppy mill seizure in North Carolina in 2009 have not been getting an equal amount of attention. It can be easy to fall into the habit of thinking … “”well the boys will be dead soon, then the others can get more attention”. Yet I got reminded they need to be made to feel special as well.
When I was doing yoga, Celt came up like he used to and snuggled against me during the meditation part; plus we enjoyed our walks today. Missy sweetly take care of Blaze during the middle of the day when I needed him to be attended to, so I could get some things done. I made sure to give her extra kisses for that.
Prince continues to spend more time away from me … especially his “nesting” in the laundry room. I also hear him reminding me to take time for myself and the others. So today when running errands, I didn’t just rush out and rush home. I took some extra time to browse and just enjoy the freedom of time and space. I haven’t done much of that since my flare started end of 2011. It was enjoyable to just linger.
Here’s the challenge for each of us .. on every day .. “what are we doing to take care of ourselves”? Not just survive, more to feed our soul to thrive? Is it taking 10 seconds to pause watching the sky change? To thank a cashier using their first name, easily seen on their name tag? To ask the customer service rep on the phone how their day is going? To take long slow deep life-affirming breaths.
All of these feeds others; and since we are all connected, feeds us.
Prince says in addition to getting his almost daily r-i-d-e, he’ll try to do more toy playing tomorrow to feed his soul, and mine. What will you do? <3 <3
