The Loneliness of the Long-Term Care Giver

Abstract

I am standing at a bank of phones, desperately punching in codes and numbers. Each time, the line goes dead. “Why can't I get through to anyone?” I think. “I must be doing something wrong.”I wake up. This time it's only a dream. But the dream originated in a real experience. On the icy morning of January 15, 1990, my husband lay comatose in the emergency room of a community hospital after an automobile accident. Uninjured but dazed, I stood at a bank of hospital phones trying to reach people who could help me transfer him to a major . . .