I am the caretaker of three adults with various disabilities: My mother, my husband, and my daughter. I have been doing this for over 20 years now. With minimal support from others, including the medical professionals that I have dealt with, I have managed to keep my daughter and my husband alive beyond all medical predictions. I have had to fight to get the medical care they needed. I have had to fight insurance companies to pay for needed care. I have had to fight hospital personnel to not give wrong meds and to give the right meds. I have had to educate myself whenever a new diagnosis came up. I usually tried to find other parents or patients that faced the same challenge to get their perspective and found them to be more helpful and knowledgeable then any doctor. There has got to be an easier way. Why is caregiving such a maze? Why don’t the people in power care about the people that struggle to survive with chronic illness? My family is just as human and important as any other family. Extreme Home Makeover has recognized a few families and the needs they have dealing with disabilities but they can’t help everyone. Things need to change from as small as making more curb cuts to as big as paying family members to take care of their families so they don’t have to go to institutions. Thanks for listening.

Submitted to the Fem2.0 blog carnival