'I'm caring for my sick dad as well as my kids. It's unbearably hard and painful.'

The term ‘sandwich carer’ used to conjure certain words in my mind. Words like obligation, sacrifice and frustration. Since falling into the category myself I understand that there are other words I need to include; words like pain, sadness and love.

A sandwich carer is someone who is caring for their elderly parents while, at the same time, raising their children. I’m 46 and my children are eight and 10, My parents are 76.

My parents have always been very independent and my transition into being a sandwich carer has been sudden and dramatic.

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My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease when I was in my 20s, but has managed it extremely well. Six years ago he had deep brain surgery that meant his symptoms were so well managed the only sign he had the disease was a slowness in movement and some mumbling. My parents' lives were full of long walks, catch ups with friends, their children and grandchildren.

Things are very different now. So different it is surreal. Dad is now incontinent, often delusional, he cannot walk. He went in for a fairly routine procedure that resulted in an abscess on his spine. It was a dangerous infection that flipped the lever on his Parkinson’s. The infection led to 10 weeks in hospital. We were desperate to get him home. But when we finally got him home, we learnt just how hard caring for someone who is so unwell can be.

During this time I have learnt a lot about sandwich caring, but the most important thing has been about love. We don’t want to put him in a nursing home because we know he is happier at home. When I ‘care’ for my dad – by helping my mum get him to bed, putting him on the toilet, calling a million different aged care providers and wading through all the bureaucratic bullsh*t... I do it because I love him.

The type of care I give to my children is different, but is also done with love. There are sacrifices involved but I hardly ever think about it because it’s as natural to care for them as it is to breathe.

What I didn’t realise about caring is how much it hurts. The fact that I love both my father and my children so much means that when I see them suffer my heart breaks. We’re told that you’re ‘only ever as happy as your most unhappy child’. What I didn’t realise was that can also extend to your parents.

Since Dad has become unwell, my heart has swung between being full and grateful to shattering into a million pieces.

It's been full when I visited him in hospital, and I watched his foot stretch across to gently touch mum’s leg. And it was when I saw his confused and lost expression searching for her face for reassurance. When I realise how monumental their love for each other really is and how lucky I am that I was raised in such a home. It’s been full when I’m on the phone with my siblings, trying to work out how we will support our mum and dad and I realise how lucky I am that I’m not doing this alone.

But while that is happening my heart has broken a bit more every time I see my strong, rational and generous father lash out at the woman he loves. When he says things he would never say in a million years because his poor brain is broken and tired. When I see his swollen feet, his thin legs wasted from disuse, his arched back when we finally get him to bed and the exhaustion on his face. When I realise he will never again be the man I have known and loved for so many years. When I see my tiny, indefatigable mother look sad or broken.

And while my heart breaks a little more every day, life goes on.

When Dad first became sick, I was given a promotion at work. I was excited. It was something I had wanted for a long time. And while my colleagues have been understanding, work has its own demands. Where once I might have felt conspicuous leaving for day care pick up, now I feel uncomfortable making all the calls needed to care for someone at home or taking time out to visit Dad.

The responsibilities for my children haven’t disappeared while all of this is happening. My husband has been great, but he also works full time. Which means there are drop offs, school excursions, birthday parties and the mercurial emotions of children to navigate at the same time.

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I feel pulled in a million different directions in a way I haven’t felt since the kids were really small. There is never enough time in the day. I’m constantly rushing from one thing to the next, which is just life for most people in the modern world… but I feel an undercurrent of love, sadness and pain underneath most of the things I do.

Still, I know how very lucky I am.

The depth of my pain right now is a direct mirror of the love both my parents have given me over my life. It hurts but the pain sketches out the edges of my heart and shows me it’s bigger than I thought it was.

I will keep going to put him to bed at night even though I’m tired and full of dread at what I might find when I arrive. I will take deep breaths when my daughter cries in the morning because she doesn’t want to go to school and hold her the way I was held.

Because I didn’t know how much I loved my dad. I mean, I knew I loved him, but I didn’t know how much that love permeates every cell of my body, that it makes me who I am. It’s a different kind of love than what I feel for my children but it defines me in the same way. It’s part of who I am.

And that’s what keeps me going, keeps me putting one foot in front of the other, even though I don’t know where it will all lead, even though it’s hard and painful. Because caring is part of love, and I am so very lucky to love and to have been loved.

Feature Image: Getty.