Caring For A Sick Family Member: How To Handle This Challenge Without Burning Out

Tis the sea­son for colds and flu, and many fam­i­lies, despite their best efforts at pre­ven­tion, find them­selves tak­ing care of a child with a bad cold or an elder­ly rel­a­tive with pneu­mo­nia. No mat­ter how seri­ous the ail­ment, hav­ing some­one sick under your roof can wreak hav­oc with every­one’s schedules. You have to do every­thing you usu­al­ly do – get the oth­er kids off to school, get ready for work and head out the door on time – along with a mil­lion house­hold chores and ongo­ing responsibilities. In this arti­cle, we offer tips and strate­gies for cop­ing with an unwell fam­i­ly mem­ber and keep­ing the house run­ning smooth­ly. It’s vital that you don’t make your­self sick while car­ing for some­one else who’s sick. So while you may be tempt­ed to devote all your ener­gies to the indi­vid­ual who’s ill and neglect your own well-being, experts say don’t do it! Burn­ing out does­n’t help any­one, and it makes you more vul­ner­a­ble to becom­ing sick your­self. As the say­ing goes, “this, too, shall pass,” so take a deep breath, con­tin­ue read­ing, and learn all the ways in which you can help the sit­u­a­tion improve and take care of your loved one.

- First, Get Medical Advice

If it’s your child home with an ear­ache or the sea­son­al flu, par­ents know how to get through the worst three or four days. But if it’s some­thing more seri­ous (for exam­ple, if your child has picked up covid-19 at school), get­ting input from your physi­cian is cru­cial. Not only do you need coun­sel on car­ing for the per­son, but you may also need input on avoid­ing catch­ing the virus yourself.

• Are you up to date on the vaccines? 
• Have you read the most recent guide­lines on isolation? 
• Has every­one in the fam­i­ly had their flu shots? 

All this infor­ma­tion and more is avail­able through your health­care provider, so be sure to update them on your sit­u­a­tion and make an appoint­ment if necessary.

- Make a List Of Household Tasks & Post It On The Fridge

At a time like this, every­one in the house needs to pitch in. Sit down and draft a list of tasks that need doing each week, and assign some­one to han­dle each one. Then place it in clear view – putting it on the fridge door is ide­al – so no one has an excuse for over­look­ing their responsibilities.

- Do You Need To Rearrange Living Spaces?

If the per­son is like­ly to be ill for just a few days, most fam­i­lies can adapt to even dras­tic incon­ve­niences for just a few days, like hav­ing a sick child at home whose sib­ling needs to bring work home from school. How­ev­er, if the ill­ness is more seri­ous and like­ly to last for sev­er­al weeks or months, more per­ma­nent adap­ta­tions need to occur. For exam­ple: are you mov­ing your moth­er in while she copes with chemother­a­py? If so, and she’s going to be there for sev­er­al months, she deserves some space of her own. Per­haps the chil­dren can share a bed­room tem­porar­i­ly so grand­ma can have pri­va­cy. Or per­haps one of them can move down to the fam­i­ly room in the base­ment for a while. Help the fam­i­ly under­stand that the sit­u­a­tion is not per­ma­nent and that help­ing rel­a­tives is an impor­tant and lov­ing part of fam­i­ly life. Empha­siz­ing this will give the chil­dren a chance to get to know their grand­par­ents in a deep and real way that will con­tribute to good mem­o­ries lat­er in life.

- Take a Few Days Off From Work To Stabilize Things At Home

If your child is home from school because of ill­ness, tak­ing a few days away from the office should­n’t be an issue. It will make your child feel bet­ter to have a par­ent at home, so whomev­er has a more flex­i­ble sched­ule should skip going to the office for a few days. The time at home gives you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take care of things like get­ting med­i­cine at the phar­ma­cy, can­celling or resched­ul­ing play dates, etc.

- Don’t Feel Guilty About a Few Takeout Meals

If you’ve got your hands full mak­ing soup, scram­bled eggs and oth­er “get well” foods for your sick child or rel­a­tive, it’s per­fect­ly okay to skip cook­ing for the fam­i­ly occa­sion­al­ly. We’re not sug­gest­ing that order­ing piz­za every day is a wise choice, but once in a while, let the gang choose their favourite take-out meal. Your pri­or­i­ty has to be who­ev­er is unwell, so let­ting your usu­al kitchen duties slide a bit is under­stand­able and accept­able. The same applies to house­work. Don’t feel you’ve got to vac­u­um three times a week when some­one is down with the flu.

- Use Online Ordering For Groceries & Other Supplies

If the pan­dem­ic taught us any­thing, it’s that order­ing gro­ceries and phar­ma­cy sup­plies online is a viable alter­na­tive to shop­ping in per­son. It might cost a lit­tle on top of your usu­al food bill, but the speed and con­ve­nience of gro­ceries show­ing up on your doorstep huge­ly off­set the expense.

- Plan The Next Steps

If you’re deal­ing with a sick child who’s home with the flu for a week or so, orga­niz­ing mea­sures to get through the short term isn’t too hard. But what if some­one seri­ous­ly ill is going to be under your roof for sev­er­al months or even a year? What do you do in those cir­cum­stances? Most impor­tant­ly, it would be best if you made con­crete plans. First, talk to their doc­tor (with your rel­a­tive’s per­mis­sion, of course, if they’re an adult) and get a defin­i­tive diag­no­sis and prog­no­sis. The physi­cian will sug­gest strate­gies for med­ical care – get­ting a nurse in part-time, per­haps, to help when things wors­en. The doc­tor can also advise how to admin­is­ter med­ica­tions and how to use an oxy­gen mask if it comes to that. At this point, you should be in touch with hos­pice care to learn the guide­lines for admit­tance if that time comes. The point is you need to ready your­self for seri­ous out­comes and pre­pare the rest of the fam­i­ly, too. If every­one knows what to do if a med­ical emer­gency presents itself, no one will feel caught off guard in even the most seri­ous circumstances.

- Don’t Ignore The Rest Of Your Family

When some­one is sick, it’s easy to put all your focus on them and over­look the needs and wants of the rest of your fam­i­ly mem­bers. Although this ten­an­cy is easy to fall prey to, it’s impor­tant that you guard against it. Your spouse and healthy chil­dren need your atten­tion, and while some excep­tions are under­stand­able, leav­ing them to their own devices all the time has neg­a­tive con­se­quences. For exam­ple: if your 10-year-old is sick with bron­chi­tis, should you skip the school play your teenage daugh­ter is per­form­ing in? No! One par­ent can stay home, per­haps, but ide­al­ly, bring­ing in a care­giv­er for the evening is the best move. Ill­ness does­n’t mean you should abdi­cate the parental duties of oth­er chil­dren. They still need your love, sup­port and atten­tion the way they always have. Bal­ance is the key here, so take each day as it comes and find a way to demon­strate your love and con­cern for every­one in the fam­i­ly, not only the per­son who’s sick.

- Don’t Ignore Yourself, Either

Avoid­ing burnout is only pos­si­ble if you take care of your­self and get lots of rest. Get as much fresh air and exer­cise as you can – brisk walks in the morn­ing or at lunchtime go a long way toward restor­ing your ener­gy and sense of calm. If you don’t have the time, tem­porar­i­ly, to head to the gym for a work­out at the end of your day, do an online work­out at home. That way, you can unwind and do some deep breath­ing and stretch­ing but still be with­in range if your sick fam­i­ly mem­ber calls out for you.

Wrapping Up

No mat­ter how seri­ous a fam­i­ly mem­ber’s ill­ness is, it’s cru­cial that you don’t let the respon­si­bil­i­ties you have at work, to oth­er peo­ple and your­self slide. Try not to wor­ry about the future too much – not only is it unpro­duc­tive, but it’s also bad for your men­tal and phys­i­cal health. Stay­ing pos­i­tive, stay­ing in touch with the sick per­son­’s doc­tor and stay­ing on top of chores and duties around the house is the best path for­ward until the per­son recov­ers, and your sched­ule gets back to normal. Chil­dren get­ting sick in the fall and win­ter months is a nat­ur­al part of grow­ing up. And car­ing for our elders is a real­i­ty in a world in which long-term care solu­tions out­side the home are some­times less than ide­al. If you plan it prop­er­ly, and if you take care of your­self while tak­ing care of oth­ers, you can get through this chal­leng­ing peri­od in a healthy and bal­anced way.