How Do the Loved Ones of Patients Experience Illness? Paper Example

Loved ones of patients experience illness in various ways. Taking care of a sick person is not always an easy task. For instance, in The Gift, the narrator says that when his father had cancer, he had to bring him a bucket to puke in. He also took care of his mother when she also got breast cancer. In the Dirty Details text, the narrator asserts that it was not easy for her to take care of her sick spouse because she had to endure what other people were saying about them. This shows that taking care of a sick person is a difficult task as the loved ones are faced with lots of emotions such as confusion, betrayal, loss of focus, and alienation. In both texts, the loved ones narrate how hard it was for them to care for the sick persons and how they experienced lots of emotions in the process.

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In The Gift, the narrator uses flashbacks as a literary element to show his experience with taking care of her sick mother. The flashback he uses shows that he had great memories of his childhood with his ailing mother. He says that when he was young, he would run up to the mother to embrace her and immediately vomit all over her breasts, and the mother had to take a shower, and she would come back clean and tidied up. This is an indication that caregivers reminisce a lot while taking care of a loved one who is sick. They think of the good memories that they had together with the loved ones and how they wish they’d go back in time. In Dirty Details, the narrator also uses flashback to remember how less than a year ago, while playing a game of Therapy, she felt betrayed and insulted for losing a game. This is an indication that those who take care of sick loved ones carry with them a lot of emotions, including betrayal and confusion, especially when things don’t seem to go right. They carry pain within them, and any little thing sets them off.

In The Gift, the narrator writes about how the doctor delivered the news about their mother’s death to them; he said, “Your mother is going to die in a few hours and if you have anything to say to her say it now.” The loved ones are always receiving bad news even when they are not ready to face it. They are told when to expect something bad to happen. Such bad news can bring a lot of emotions, such as sadness, fear, anxiety, etc. On the other hand, in Dirty Details, the narrator writes that “we have to be strong,” meaning that the society expects them to be strong for their families and sick loved ones. This statement may also bring a lot of emotions as a person is feeling sad while at the same time, they are expected to be strong.

The two texts, The Gift and Dirty Details connect by showing the burden that caregivers carry while caring for their sick loved ones. They experience many emotions, such as alienation, betrayal, sadness, anger, weakness, and ineffective as they have to go against their beliefs, habits, lifestyles, and expectations to take care of the sick ones, an indication that it is not always an easy task.