I wasn’t supposed to be a caregiver that weekend. I was supposed to be at a wedding. It was October 2013 when everything changed—fast. My mom called late at night. “Your dad won’t come out of the bathroom,” she said. At first, it seemed like more of the same—we’d seen concerning behaviors for months, possibly related to undiagnosed health challenges. But by 2 a.m., her voice had changed. There was blood. She couldn’t find him.
I was in Minnesota. They were in Illinois. I had her put the iPad on FaceTime so I could see him, and I knew instantly—he was having a stroke. I told her to hang up and call 911. By morning, the neurosurgeon called: “You need to get on a plane now.”
He had a large stroke in the brain stem. Multiple heart attacks. His vertebral artery had split—like a river branching off—and blood clots had flooded into his body. It wasn’t isolated; it was everywhere. I flew out immediately, and that began two intense weeks of caregiving that would mark the rest of my life.
I’d been in hospitals before—performed CPR in public, worked as a nurse—but this was different. I was family now. The decisions hit deeper. The emotions cut sharper. My mom and I stayed at the hospital every day. She was understandably overwhelmed by the trauma and struggled to manage even simple tasks. My brothers were dealing with their own shock and grief in different ways. I found myself naturally stepping into the coordinator role.
Every morning, I was there for rounds. I ran logistics, asked questions, took notes, and kept a Care Journal—a third-grade spiral notebook I found in a closet. It held updates for the medical team, daily summaries for family members, and milestones that might have seemed small to others: “Dad sat up today,” or “He told me he wanted to eat socks”—a confused but funny moment we could laugh about later. Those details helped us measure progress when everything felt like it was standing still.
Meanwhile, I was a full-time PhD student and a working nurse. If I didn’t work, I couldn’t pay rent. After the two-week stretch in Illinois, I went back to Minnesota and immediately worked eight days straight to catch up financially. No one gives you a rent extension because your dad almost died.
I was also organizing everything else. I delegated yard work to a neighbor, housework to another, and set up an Amazon wish list for out-of-town family. My dad needed comfort: his robe, his slippers, his favorite snacks. My mom needed food she could actually eat with her celiac disease. I tried to make their ICU space feel a little more like home—pillows that smelled familiar, soft lighting, anything to warm up the cold edges of that room.
But none of it was easy. The emotional toll hit hardest after I got home. My husband asked a simple question—“Are the tater tots done?”—and I lost it. I threw tater tots at the wall, one by one, until he sat down next to me and said gently, “You’re not okay.” He didn’t try to fix me. He just sat there. That moment of presence was everything.
When my dad came home from inpatient rehab weeks later, I knew that’s when the hardest part would start. The hospital had help. Home didn’t. I coordinated visits from friends so my mom could leave the house for groceries. I helped prep the house—moved furniture, rolled up rugs. But more than anything, I tried to prepare my mom for what it meant to care for someone who had changed—not just physically, but emotionally, too.
I wish people talked about that more. That caregiving isn’t always tender. Sometimes it’s rage and guilt and grief, all sitting at the dinner table. I wish more people knew how much coordination it takes, how exhausted caregivers are, how necessary it is to delegate and ask for help without guilt. Because this work will burn you out if you try to hold it all alone.
There were moments of hope, though. Like when he stood for the first time with a walker and everyone cried. Like when he started talking again. Like when he sat with my therapy dog, Buddy, who I left with my parents for three weeks because my dad was so lonely.
These are the moments I want to remember. Not just the tater tots.
