The 10th circle

I must have been a pretty awful person in a previous life … because somehow I found myself in the 10th circle of hell. This is the one where you have to watch the person who means the most to you go through debilitating chronic pain. And there's not a single thing in the world you can do to make it better.

Tonight my heart broke in a million pieces as I came home to a person wracked with pain despite having taken the max dose of everything the doctors have prescribed to help. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do for nerve pain, and today was a very bad day. I just held them and played music for hours, hoping to distract them from their misery.

It's in these moments that I find myself thinking the things you're not supposed to think….

Wishing that there was anything I could do to take their pain away.

Being jealous of terminal patients who at least have a hope of an end in sight. Not that I ever want to loose them, but there comes a point where you wonder if the pain they deal with daily has drifted into the realm of cruel and unusual punishment. And when it reaches such levels of extremes so frequently that you know their quality of life has been shattered.

Hating the people and events that caused their injuries, and hating myself for not having done enough to avenge their suffering.

Frustrated that I'm not getting things I need to do accomplished because I'm just laying here with them.

Knowing that even if I weren't laying here attempting to comfort them, I'd still likely get nothing done because the bone-weary exhaustion of years of caretaking each and every day has depleted any stores of energy that I once had.

And hating myself even more for being a failure of a caretaker and a sad enough human being to have any of those thoughts to begin with. Hating my lack of gratitude and inability to be optimistic. And sick and tired of being sick and tired when I'm not even the one who has to deal with it.

On nights like tonight, it's difficult to give myself an ounce of the care I give them. I don't have the energy for it and I don't feel like I deserve it. So I just snuggle in closer and hope tomorrow sucks a little bit less.