“There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.”
—Rosalynn Carter
There’s a day I still remember clearly.
Because nothing worked the way it was supposed to.
I was trying to fill my mom’s pain medication prescription.
She had been prescribed Dilaudid.
She was at home in severe pain.
The pharmacy told me they didn’t have it in stock.
They said it would be available the following week.
I went back a few days later.
They still didn’t have it.
So I spent the rest of the day calling other pharmacies.
Walgreens stores across town.
One after another.
Getting transferred.
Put on hold.
Told no.
Told maybe.
Told to try somewhere else.
At the same time, I was calling her doctor’s office to see if they could help route the prescription somewhere that actually had it.
All of this while I was supposed to be studying for my physical therapy board exam.
I’ll be honest…It Sucked!
But things still had to get done.
And in that moment, I was the one doing them.
This wasn’t a one-time emergency.
It was a pattern.
When something broke down in my mother’s care, it often came back to me.
Because I was already involved.
Already handling it.
Already the person who knew what had been tried and what hadn’t.
The work that kept returning
It isn’t just the tasks.
It’s the way the tasks keep finding the same person.
Calling one pharmacy turned into five.
One question turned into three more.
One problem exposed another layer I didn’t know existed.
There was no clean handoff.
No system keeping track.
Just me.
Keeping track of what needed to happen, what had already been tried, and what the next move was before the situation got worse.
No one formally gave me this role.
There was no conversation.
No agreement.
No moment where someone said this is yours to carry.
It accumulated.
Each time I handled something, I became the person who had handled it.
Each time I followed up, I became the person who followed up.
Responsibility doesn’t always get assigned.
Sometimes it moves toward whoever is already holding the most.
From the outside, it probably looked like I was running an errand.
Trying to pick up a prescription.
Making a few calls.
What stayed with me was the responsibility.
The decisions happening in real time.
▪️Do I keep calling?
▪️Do I drive somewhere else?
▪️Do I go back to the doctor?
▪️Do I wait and hope this resolves?
There was no script for it.
And no one else holding that set of decisions with me in that moment.
Somewhere along the way, without anyone saying so, this became something I was used to stepping into.
The weight stayed where it landed.
With me.
On the phone.
The person it kept returning to.
Weekly Resource(s)
📄 Blog Post: The Default Caregiver: Why One Person Ends Up Holding Everything byThe Meta Caregiver — If this resonated, this piece goes deeper into the structural reasons why coordination work falls on one person and stays there.
If you’re in the middle of something like this, you’re not the only one holding it.
Just remember…
You can only do what you can do.
Full Stop.
And no matter what, in the midst of it all, remember to:
✅ Be kind to yourself
✅ Control what you can control
✅ Acknowledge you’re doing the best you can with the cards given to you.
With you,
Bryce
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