Autopilot - the mode of operation for long-term caregivers

In times of trial, when it feels like we’re flying alone – God provides better than “autopilot” and becomes the pilot of our journey

Autopilot becomes the way we handle things flung at us as new caregivers. Actually, who am I kidding? It didn’t get easier just because it became longer – in fact, the longer I lived on emergency-ready, life-and-death mode, the grayer my world became. My son was four-years-0ld when we started his cancer journey, and I was 39. When we finished chemotherapy, he was 7 1/2 and I was 93. My always-learning brain had turned to mush (Anita calls it chemo brain by proxy) and I literally saw through a gray haze. I functioned on autopilot – but it worked, because of Who my pilot is: this is a poem I wrote shortly after finishing chemo and realizing I was in deep-struggle-mode.