Taking Care of Myself Was a Lesson I Learned the Hard Way

This morning, my mother was in the day room at the skilled nursing facility. She had finished her fruit and was drinking coffee while talking with a CNA student.

As I watched, she seemed to become agitated.

“We were looking for your nurse,” the student said.

I asked Mom what was wrong. She told me she had been waiting three or four hours to get cleaned up. She was losing her patience.

That was her account of the wait. I hadn’t been there the whole time. But I could see her frustration, and I could understand wanting help with something she could no longer easily do herself.

This post isn’t an assessment of the facility or its service. That moment brought up something personal for me: the responsibility I have to take care of myself when I have choices.

I am accountable for myself and the decisions I make.

For a long time, my mother didn’t see a physician. She wasn’t taking medication to manage chronic illness, and stress was a regular part of her life.

She was also my father's primary caregiver. From what I witnessed, he expected a great deal from her, including managing his medications and meals. Her own health needed attention while she was carrying those responsibilities.

Then she had her first stroke. Later, she had a second.

I can’t say exactly what caused either stroke. But I worry about the years her health went unattended and the opportunities there might have been to address it.

She was making progress after the first stroke. After the second, she lost some of that ground.

I don’t know whether she ever imagined living in a skilled nursing facility or planning a move into assisted living. Before her second stroke, I had spoken to her about the possibility of needing that level of care if her health continued to decline.

Watching her struggle now brings me no satisfaction in having raised that concern. I wish she had more independence. I wish everyday things were easier for her.

And I recognize something of myself in her situation.

I didn’t make my health a priority either.

I didn’t manage my diabetes. I didn’t see a physician. I behaved as though I were invincible, as though there would always be time to deal with my health later.

I learned, painfully, that there wasn’t an unlimited supply of “later.”

In my case, an open wound led to an infection, then sepsis, and eventually an above-the-knee amputation.

Those consequences became part of my everyday life. I couldn’t undo them by finally understanding how serious things had become.

Today, I take my medications seriously. I don’t miss my Ozempic shot. I take my medication for anxiety, my GERD medication, and the other medicines that are part of my care. I show up for dialysis.

I would like to keep the body parts I have left. And I hope a donor kidney will eventually become part of my future.

I still have a life to live, and taking care of myself helps make that possible.

Being accountable doesn’t mean I believe every illness is preventable or that someone who becomes ill has failed. I know people can do everything asked of them and still face devastating health problems.

My mother deserves timely, respectful care now, regardless of her past decisions. Her frustration matters.

I can hold that belief and still be honest about the choices I made in my own life. I put off appointments. I neglected my diabetes. I treated my health as something that could wait.

I paid a price I’m still living with.

I’m sharing this because I hope someone reading it will recognize their own habit of putting things off and take a step toward caring for themselves. Make the appointment you’ve been avoiding. Have the honest conversation about what you’re struggling to manage. Ask for help, especially if caring for someone else has left you with little energy for yourself.

I wish I had done those things sooner.

I can’t change that history. I can take responsibility for what I do today.

And I hope you get to learn that lesson more gently than I did.