Lying Down in the Ever-Falling Snow: Canadian Health Professionals’ Experience of Compassion Fatigue

Epilogue

EPILOGUE When we began our study of health professionals’ compassion fatigue, not one of the team had ever experienced it. It was in the midst of our study that one of our team of researchers, Sharon Brintnell, an occupational therapist , began to experience an all-consuming fatigue. Her mother was in renal failure and Sharon, an only child, was trying to sustain her mother’s independence as much as she could. It was some time before Sharon recognized that she was, like the persons of her profession whom she had already interviewed for the study, experiencing compassion fatigue. Her exhaustion was both physical and emotional, and her awareness of what was happening to her was suppressed. Turbulent, potentially distressing emotions were blocked out by the fatigue. In this epilogue, Sharon looks PHOTO BY KARA HURTIG 196 Epilogue back to frankly and generously share her experience. In doing so, she points to the vulnerability of all compassionate caregivers to this phenomenon. Compassion Fatigue: It Wasn’t Supposed to Happen to Me Mother started homecare in May and the senior’s day program in late June. She is ambulatory with a cane and contributing to her self-care, but she is no longer cooking. I pay for someone to be in her house between her program hours during the week and at bedtime. I take her home on the weekend. I am constantly on call. My mother sits at her dining-room table with her cane, which she is ready to use as a weapon when people come to assess her. After their many questions, she consistently gives one emphatic answer: “This is my house and these are my things.” They say, “Oh, yes, we understand.” But, I know what she is really saying is, “I am staying in my house, and I’m not going anywhere.” These words of hers are constantly with me, tugging at me. Putting her into care would be some kind of breach of my responsibility and commitment to her. It is early December 2009, and my competent, independent mother is deteriorating mentally and physically due to chronic renal failure. She continues to walk with a cane, but her increasing frailty and instability makes it more difficult for her to navigate around furniture, to stand up, and to sit down. She continues to live in her big old house with a variety of day supports and a person who stays for a sleep shift, but the rest of the time her care is mine. As Christmas approaches, my tiredness and edginess are constant, and my care cycle is accelerating as I move between her house for the daily monitoring and my house in the country. On weekends, I am fully in charge of her care. I am a hamster on a wheel with no rest in sight. I feel uneasy and harried, doubting my abilities at times and reflecting on my annoyance at our interactions. But still, I am performing. Many disconnected things are going on in my life and the workplace. My mind is full of tasks to finish, and I am constantly rolling on through them at work. I have a major research project to initiate that involves more than a few hiccups; I have people to hire; I have reports to write from last August; and I have responsibilities to other collaborators for my interviews. Time is always running out. The constant push and pull of competing demands adds to the building resentment of one more thing to look after. Even with personal Epilogue 197 care assistants, there is no escaping the responsibility of looking after my mother. My relationship with her is complex and has many facets. I have an obligation to her that transcends parental care. My promise to her is that she will die at home, just as my grandmother did in the same house. It is the driving force behind my actions that is not understood by those around me. This is the context leading up to the moment I was shocked by my own actions. Bundled up in her nesting chair, my mother faces the TV in my den. She is always cold, and for years, this loss of internal heat has been an irritation for her. My mother exists in this chair when she comes to my home. The lower floor has a guest room with an ensuite bathroom. It is easier for me to look...