care & love
It's 6:17 a.m. The alarm hasn't gone off yet, but you're already awake—startled by the sound of your mother's soft call from the next room. "Honey? Can you help me sit up?" You swing your legs over the edge of the bed, feet hitting the cold floor, and pause for a second. Just one second to rub the sleep from your eyes before the day begins. By 7:00, you've adjusted her electric nursing bed to a 45-degree angle, fetched her medication, and started the coffee—though you'll forget to drink it until it's lukewarm. By noon, you've used the patient lift twice to transfer her to the wheelchair, cleaned a spill, and spent 20 minutes on hold with the insurance company. By 8 p.m., your back aches, your throat is tight, and you're staring at the home nursing bed's control panel, wondering if you remembered to lock the wheels. This is the invisible work of family caregiving—and it's why so many of us feel emotionally drained, even on the "good" days.
Caregiving isn't a 9-to-5 job. It's a 24/7 state of hyper-awareness. When your loved one is in an electric nursing bed, you don't just see a piece of medical equipment—you see a potential hazard. Is the rail up? Did the mattress shift? What if the motor fails in the middle of the night, leaving them stuck in a painful position? These questions loop in your head like a broken record, even when you're in another room. You learn to sleep with one ear open, attuned to the creak of the bed or the faint sound of labored breathing. A friend once joked, "You've got better radar than a security system," but it doesn't feel like a superpower. It feels like exhaustion.
And then there are the tools meant to "ease" the burden. Take the patient lift, for example. It's supposed to make transferring safer for both of you, but the first time you used it, you fumbled with the straps for 10 minutes while your father winced in discomfort. Now, even when you're efficient, there's a split second of panic: *What if I ｄｒｏｐ him? What if the battery dies?* The manual for the home nursing bed is supposed to answer your questions, but it's 30 pages long, printed in tiny font, and half the instructions seem to contradict each other. You've highlighted sections, folded corners, and still, when the bed beeps unexpectedly, your heart races. Vigilance isn't just about watching over your loved one—it's about watching over the machines that keep them safe, too.
Before this, you had hobbies. You painted. You played guitar. You met friends for brunch on Sundays. Now, those parts of yourself feel like relics from a past life. When someone asks, "How are you?" you automatically say, "Fine!"—but what you want to say is, "I can't remember the last time I read a book for fun," or "I haven't slept through the night in months." Your calendar is filled with doctor's appointments, physical therapy sessions, and trips to buy replacement parts for the electric nursing bed. Your phone's photo album has 500 pictures of your mother's smile, but only 12 of you—and most of those are blurry, taken in a hurry before another task demands your attention.
It's not that you regret caring for them. Of course you don't. But there's a quiet grief in losing the "you" that existed before. You catch yourself in the mirror and barely recognize the person staring back: dark circles under your eyes, a permanent furrow between your brows. When a cousin asks, "Remember when we used to hike every weekend?" you nod and laugh, but inside, you're thinking about how you can't even leave the house for two hours without worrying if the home nursing bed will alarm or if your sibling will remember to check the patient lift's battery. You're not just a caregiver—you're a scheduler, a nurse, a technician, a therapist—but somewhere along the way, you stopped being *you*.
Emotional exhaustion doesn't exist in a vacuum—it's tangled up with physical fatigue. Lifting, adjusting, bending, and reaching take a toll, even with help from tools like the electric nursing bed. You wake up with a stiff neck from sleeping on the couch next to the bed, just in case. Your knees ache from kneeling to adjust the patient lift's base. Your hands are chapped from washing them 50 times a day, between changing linens, administering medication, and cleaning the home nursing bed's frame.
And then there's the sleep deprivation. Even on nights when your loved one sleeps through, you don't. You're up at 2 a.m. checking if they're warm enough, at 4 a.m. adjusting the electric nursing bed's height so they can reach their water glass, at 5:30 a.m. because the bed's alarm went off—again—due to a loose sensor. You've tried drinking coffee, but it only makes your hands shake. You've tried napping, but the guilt sets in: *They're not napping. Why should I?* Physical tiredness turns into irritability, which turns into guilt when you snap at them for asking for a glass of water. It's a cycle that feels impossible to break.
You didn't sign up to be a medical expert, but here you are, decoding doctor's notes, researching insurance policies, and arguing with customer service reps about the warranty on the home nursing bed. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the electric nursing bed's motor isn't covered under the basic plan," the voice on the phone says, as if you're being unreasonable for expecting a $2,000 piece of equipment to work for more than six months. You take a deep breath, count to ten, and explain—again—that your mother needs the bed to elevate her legs to prevent swelling. "Let me check with my supervisor," they say, and you wait, tapping your foot, while your mother calls out from the other room, "Is everything okay?" You say, "Yes, honey," but your jaw is clenched so tight it hurts.
And then there are the "independent reviews" you read at 3 a.m., when you can't sleep. You search for "electric nursing bed reliability" and scroll through forums where other caregivers vent about the same issues: motors burning out, remote controls failing, companies that ghost you after the sale. You wonder if you made the right choice, if there's a better model, if you're failing your loved one by not buying the "best" equipment. The internet is supposed to be a resource, but it often feels like a minefield of conflicting opinions and horror stories. You close your laptop, stare at the ceiling, and think, *I just want to do this right.*
Here's the cruelest part: No one sees how hard this is. To the outside world, you're "doing a wonderful thing." They see the clean sheets on the home nursing bed, the meals you prepare, the way you laugh with your loved one during visitors. They don't see the tears you cry in the bathroom, the way you cancel plans last minute because the patient lift needs repairs, or the nights you sit on the floor next to the electric nursing bed, holding their hand, feeling utterly alone even though you're inches apart.
Loneliness also creeps in when your loved one can't communicate like they used to. Maybe they have dementia, or a stroke left them with slurred speech. You used to talk for hours about everything—now, you're explaining for the fifth time today how to use the remote for the electric nursing bed. You miss their voice, their jokes, the way they used to tease you about your coffee addiction. Now, the only conversations are about medications, appointments, and bed positions. It's not their fault, and you'd never blame them—but it leaves a silence that feels deafening.
Emotional drain isn't just about feeling "tired." It's about burnout—the kind that makes you question if you can keep going. It's about guilt when you feel relief at the end of the day, or when a friend invites you out and you almost say yes before remembering the patient lift's battery needs charging. It's about the quiet fear that you're not doing enough, even when you're doing everything.
But here's the truth: You *are* doing enough. Every time you adjust the electric nursing bed, every time you fumble with the patient lift, every time you stay up late because they're restless—you're showing up with love, even when it's hard. And it *is* hard. Acknowledging that isn't weakness. It's honesty. It's the first step toward healing.
So be kind to yourself. Let the dishes pile up. Ask for help—even if it's just someone to sit with your loved one while you take a walk. Read that book you've been eyeing. And remember: The fact that you feel drained doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're human. And in this messy, exhausting, beautiful work of caregiving, that's more than enough.