The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Caregiving, Boundaries, And Small Wins
Caregiving isn’t a tidy checklist; it’s a constant recalibration of energy, emotion, and logistics. In this episode, I'm talking about life after back-to-back hospital stays and what it takes to keep a home running when helpers still need help, the dog thinks every visitor is a threat, and the cat needs a calming plan to handle the foot traffic. That swirl forces hard choices, and I get candid about the small moments that protect sanity—like holding a long-delayed hair appointment as a promise to myself.
The heart of this conversation is practical compassion. We talk about why “put your oxygen mask on first” sounds simple yet feels impossible when physical therapy schedules collide with neuropathy flares. Thanksgiving becomes a lesson in doing less on purpose: skipping big cooking, embracing reheats, and spending a sunny afternoon in the garden reclaiming calm leaf by leaf. From there, we reset expectations for the holidays—lighter decorations, a friend’s help to swap seasonal boxes, and permission to live with a garage that looks like life happened, not like it was staged for a catalog.
We dig into the essentials that keep us steady: guarding sleep, making peace with imperfect routines, and treating the 20-minute dog walk as a micro win for body and mind. Working from home makes this season possible, but the weight is real, and we share the honesty of sore backs, tired mornings, and friendships that get fewer check-ins than we’d like. If you’re navigating caregiving, chronic illness at home, or just a season of overwhelm, this story offers validation and a playbook of small, repeatable choices that add up to resilience.
Subscribe, share with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your notes and stories mean the world—tell us one small boundary you’re keeping this week.
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Welcome to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? That you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. Today I'm gonna talk about caregiving. Now, as you know, if you've been a regular listener, my husband um was in the hospital this month and last month. And so, yes, I've been a caregiver. Although really throughout most of our relationship, I've been a caregiver. And it's really an art, I guess, balancing everything that you do along with taking care of someone or taking care of somebody's needs in addition to your own. But with the last two hospitalizations, I would have to say that my caregiving um duties have increased. Now, if you've ever known anybody who's been a caregiver or you've ever been around anybody who's a caregiver, you know that one of the common conversations that people will have with that person is remember to take care of yourself. Oh, you've got to take care of yourself. Oh, you've got to put yourself first. Because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of somebody else. And I would tend to agree with that. I mean, right, in the airplane, if you don't put your oxygen mask on first, you're not going to be able to help anybody else. True. But what I found is that caregiving is a challenging, a challenging job. And there's not always time to take care of yourself or take care of yourself in the way that you would like to take care of yourself, right? Bill has needed a lot of help and a lot of maintenance. And in addition to the things that I do for him, there are the home health people. There's the visiting nurse, there's the physical therapist that comes to the house, and there's a nurse that comes to help him bathe. And what I found is that everybody who comes isn't um what's the word? Independent of me. They're not they're coming to help, sure, but they also need my help when they're here. They have questions, they need to get something, or they need to find something. And then there's the pets. The cat and the dog, Brownie and Bubby, need to be um watched out over, right? So they don't get out. Brownie the dog, um, she will tend to bark a lot. Sometimes she feels threatened, depending on who it is, right? So I have to take care of them to make sure they're okay. And it really stresses my cat out to have different people coming and going in the house. So what I've done is just started to give him a little bit of medication every day that somebody's coming, which is most every day, so that he is calm and we don't have any other issues going on because right now I don't need any other issues, right? Now, this week, Thanksgiving week, um, well, last week I decided to finally make myself an appointment to get my hair done because my gray roots are really getting out of control. I mean, it's to the point that it is kind of embarrassing, right? And my hair is kind of long and I can deal with that, but the gray roots can't really cover them up too well. So I made an appointment on a day and time that I thought was safe, hoping to carve out that time for me, and and also just so that I don't look like, you know, a mess. And of course, there was a conversation because, of course, the physical therapist wanted to come, you know, at that point, at that time, and um it caused a problem, right? But we held to our ground and Bill didn't mind. We're not gonna have well, with the holiday too, it's stressful. And Bill also had one night this week where he had really horrible neuropathy pain in his foot, so he couldn't see the therapist that day. So that was the alternative day to my hair appointment. So, long story short, he only saw him once this week, but that's the way it goes, right? I feel bad that maybe I um prevented the therapist from coming. Um, well, it's today. I'm gonna go get my hair done today. But I have to get some things done for myself, right? I think any anybody would agree with that. And my husband is fully supportive of it as well, so there's that. I mean, he's not upset. He he knows that I've been really going out of my way to to take care of him. Um, our Thanksgiving. Well, I I told him and I told uh my brother-in-law, his brother, that I wasn't gonna cook, and I wasn't even gonna get stuff that I had to reheat because that in effect is cooking. So I just got some extra food the day before. I did have to reheat that, but it wasn't a big deal, and it was just the two of us. We didn't do anything big and splashy this year, we didn't do anything at all really, and that was fine. And what I did was I spent most of the day in my garden. The weather was perfect, it was sunny and fairly warm, and I got to clean up a lot of the stuff that I've been putting off. We had, you know, all the rain, of course, and we had a lot of leaves that had come down. I got to sweep those up, I got to pull some weeds, I got to trim some things that needed to be trimmed, and uh filled up one of the garbage cans with all that stuff. So I'm happy about the backyard looking better. Uh, I also have uh some of the Halloween stuff still not in the garage. And so what I did was I asked my friend Lauren, she's gonna come over tomorrow and help me get some of the last remaining pieces of Halloween in the garage while getting some of the Christmas stuff out of the garage. Uh at this point, the garage looks like a nuclear bomb hit it, it's a disaster. But um it is what it is. And you learn that you have to kind of settle for things, right? You can't you can't have your expectations too high because you're just not gonna get there. Um so I'm gonna decorate some for Christmas, but I'm not gonna go, you know, crazy like I I have done. Um, I did get a few new pieces. Well, I got new pieces last year on clearance, and I did get a couple new things this year, and uh I'm gonna put out some more lights and make it somewhat festive. I would say that there's a lot of houses in the neighborhood that already have their Christmas lights up, some have their decorations, and it's just fun to look outside and at night, right? And see that you have Christmas lights and Christmas decorations, but I just don't have all the energy that I usually have. And I know that I'm gonna have to take it all down. So but I I want to do something. Um, so that's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna do that tomorrow, and uh, you know, put up something, make it fun, and that'll be that'll make me feel better, and um, and then get still have the skeletons and the oh the other tombstones uh out. So those will have to find a place in the garage somehow. Yeah, so there's that. Um and really what my goals are now uh well my main goal is to get through each day, but make sure everybody's fed, make sure everybody's clean and uh healthy, but also uh to make sure that I get enough sleep or to get as much sleep as I can every day. That is definitely my number one goal. And to eat, of course, because it's all about eating, but um definitely to sleep, because with without sleep, you're nothing. And I'm just grateful uh and so thankful that I work at home because I can't imagine how I would navigate this whole situation if I was working, you know, full-time outside of the house. It just wouldn't have happened, it it couldn't happen. Um, I would have had to take a leave of absence. So I am able to get stuff done here. Um, you know, but is it is it overwhelming? Sometimes yes, because I'm one person, I have a lot of responsibility, you know, just for the house. And um some days I'm tired, some days I'm sore, some days my back hurts, and um, you know, the the neighbors have been walking the dog, but they they went out of town to see their family. Um, and I said to myself, well, Tracy, you should be walking too, walking for your health, right? But oh gosh, it's uh it's a lot. And you know, I feel bad because she'll look at me, you know, every day like, oh, are we going now? Are we going now? And she she so wants to go on a walk and she so wants to smell everything, and she enjoys it so much, and it's only like 20 minutes out of my day to go around the block. Um, and it's good for her, but oh gosh, sometimes it's like I I don't know if I can do it, right? So anyway, but it it's one thing that is good for me too, and that's what I try to remember. It's good for me. And in my mind, I think, you know, I should be going out and I should be walking for a couple of hours. I I would be healthier, I would be thinner, uh I would feel better, but I feel like I don't have that time. So it's it's a delicate balance. And you know, whether you're taking care of a spouse or a child or a parent or even yourself, I think that these are all things that can resonate with you. Um if not now, at some point in the future. So just remember to be easy on yourself. That's what I tell myself every day. I've got to be easy on myself and you know, to take it one day at a time. And I feel bad because I have friends, you know, I have people that I want to keep up with and check in with and see how they're doing. And that's challenging as well. Um, I've I think I've done okay, but the scope and the amount of people that I've been able to keep up with is obviously more limited because I just don't have the time to do that like I'd like to. So that's that's where I'm at today. And now I'm sure that there's something I have to go do, and I'm gonna figure out what that is next week. Well, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries Podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on. And consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page, Only Child Diaries, or Facebook, Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace, and these are the Only Child Diaries.
