In the month of June there is an annual campaign called Carers Week, this week raises awareness of the unsung heroes within our community.
This week is there to highlight the many challenges they face, often on their own behind the hidden doors called their family homes.
These heroes are often unpaid or if they do receive Carers Allowance, it doesn’t reflect the time and dedication they put in, let alone give them a good quality of life.
Apart from living on the breadline, many have sacrificed their own careers, social lives, passed times and even their homes to care for another they love.
This is often a vocation that is down played and forgotten about by society.
But, without these unsung heroes the cogs within our society would definitely struggle to turn.
This year’s slogan is ‘Putting Carers on the Map’, so let’s do that by acknowledging their importance within our community.
When Billy was diagnosed, I didn’t see myself as a career, I just saw myself as Billy’s mum.
I didn’t see my mothering role as any different to any other first-time mums.
Yes, admittedly I was careering for him within a hospital, but I just thought any mother would do the same.
I started to realise that I may be a carer when Billys name was entered into the Transplant List, I started to realise that our journey was just starting and there was no clear end.
Then it was really confirmed after transplant, when I started to really understand that transplant wasn’t a cure, it was just a treatment programme.
A powerful one, but all the same, it wasn’t the end game.
Within the early days, I started to realise that there was a process to becoming a career within your own brain.
Over time it started to dawn on me, that the life I knew wasn’t really there anymore and the things that made sense, just didn’t anymore.
In a bizarre way, it was like I had moved to a new world within my brain.
Where the only things that mattered was preserving Billys life and the simple things.
This place actually regards laughter, happiness and family time, higher than possessions, a career and money.
And fittingly the entry sign says ‘life is too short to be unhappy.’
You have no time for superficial, just immersive behaviour.
So, at times, dead wood was cut, so happiness could grow.
Being a carer is a journey with many highs and lows.
And if you except, it can be one of the most rewarding vocation life can throw at you.
Happy Carers Week to all the carers out there xx
Remember you may not feel strong but you are
Love
The Rose-Tinted Mum
The Rose Tinted mum 