You know you're a caregiver when...

• You get excited when your loved one makes a bowel movement
• You feel enormous satisfaction when your loved one is eating and cleans the plate without throwing up
• The stuff that used to gross you out like vomit, poop, or blood doesn't phase you anymore
• TMI is no longer in your vocabulary
• You no longer define "Mets" as the name of a baseball team, and "Ned," no longer as Homer Simpson's neighbor
• You give an automatic eye roll whenever you overhear someone complaining about job, relationship, birthday stress...as the worse thing that's happened in their life
• You'd be rich if you got a quarter each time someone told you how strong you were
• social life? what social life?
• You know to warn the nurse that she only has 2 tries to get the needle in
• You spend countless hours perusing the internet for items to help deal/ combat side effects of treatment (wigs, protein shakes, supplements,etc.).
• You forget if you've showered today
• You constantly tell or show your loved one how much you love him or her
• Your nights out or "time for yourself" revolves around your loved one's doctor's appointments, scans, and if you can get someone to "babysit."
• You have the name of the disease on your Google alerts, so that if there are any novel treatments, you're the first to know
• Going to a caregiver support group is considered "treating yourself"
• You've become a pro at giving the best foot massages
• You've unleashed your cancer rage at the annoying telemarketer phone guy who apparently doesn't care that you're on the no call list
• Running errands helps you feel normal
• You've figured out how to silence the beeping machine, if only for a few minutes
• When you run into another caregiver, it's like you guys are speaking in tongues
• Your exhausted and tired, but you can't imagine anyone else doing this instead of you
• You know that before there was Brangelina or Bennifer or Speidi, there was EOX, Folfox, Folfiri, ECX, DCF...and other names smushed together to create chemo cocktails
• Their nap time is your nap time....
  You have the softest hands in town from all the lotions you applied..
• You know that "5FU" is not a dirty word
• You feel like smacking the next person who says "Boy, you really look tired" (but you have no energy to even if you could).
  You make life and death decisions with a snap of your fingers but you need 30 minutes to select an item from a dinner menu.
  You can rattle of the generic and brand names of medications and the family they belong to quicker than the nurse.
  Going to the grocery store feels like a mini-vacation.
  
  
  *from caregiver board on csn.cancer.org)

As a caregiver, people always stress that it's important to take care of yourself even though it's not always easy. Here's a "Self-Care Inventory" Check List. I have yet to rate myself, but it can be helpful in evaluating your strengths while looking at making positive changes in the lower scored areas.