how i care for high blood pressure and stroke: 'i just wanted to fix it'
shawnee kish made a discovery sorting through things at her mom’s house while she was in the hospital: a blood pressure cuff machine and prescription medication for hypertension.
6 minute read
shawnee kish, right, has been the primary caregiver of her mother lynne sherry, left, since lynne suffered a stroke in 2020.
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the phone call came out of nowhere for shawnee kish. her little sister, frantic and scared, told her that their mom mama lynne was on life support in hospital, barely hanging on.
it was the event that completely changed their lives, bringing the struggles of caregiving and worry to rest on kish’s shoulders, the middle child of the three siblings who is highly capable and action-oriented.
“i just wanted to fix it. it was hard to imagine how this actually happened. it felt so abrupt, and i felt powerless, which is the worst feeling,” kish recalls. she was on a ski trip in banff, alta. when she got the call and made it to the hospital in hamilton, ont. as soon as she could.
she learned that her mom had suffered a brainstem stroke that left her severely debilitated.
“i’m usually good at figuring out how to fix things. but i couldn’t fix it. i couldn’t make it better,” she says.
but she moved mountains in her own life in many ways to take care of her mom, lynne sherry, 64, who had the stroke almost three years ago. she is in a wheelchair and needs help with daily living and therapies for rehabilitation. her speech, hearing, vision and mobility have all been affected, and the left side of her body has little to no feeling at all.
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“her right side has some feeling and better movement, but not full movement or precise movement. she has double vision. her depth perception is off,” kish, 36, explains, wanting to share her story as a wakeup call to others. “her speaking is slurred, which is what she struggles with the most, just not being able to communicate properly.”
how could this have happened to her vibrant mom, a social worker who was very active and dedicated to her work and family?
high blood pressure (hypertension): the underlying cause
kish made a discovery sorting through things at her mom’s house while she was in the hospital: a blood pressure cuff machine and prescription medication for hypertension that was dated a few years earlier.
“she didn’t really talk about it. she didn’t mention it. i hardly knew. i heard it in passing from my brother who said, ‘you’ve got to monitor that.’ i didn’t really know what that even meant.”
looking back, kish says her mom likely felt healthy and strong and thought she didn’t need medication to control her blood pressure. “i think she just thought, ‘i’m an active woman, i eat healthy, my body is healthy, my weight is healthy, i’m healthy.’ you can’t see high blood pressure and she didn’t feel her high blood pressure. ultimately, it affected a vessel in her brainstem.”
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she was making plans to retire from work not long before her stroke. she had accomplished a lot, and wrote a book of fiction, where mary went, to pass on her family stories as an indigenous woman. mama lynne’s grandmother was taken from her family to a residential school in brantford, ont. the book is about an indigenous woman after residential schooling and how the experience affected her life.
kish’s dad had died when she was 12 years old, so mama lynne was a single parent for her growing kids for many years and the heart of the family. she and kish have always had a very close relationship, but the blood pressure condition wasn’t talked about.
hypertension is known as a “silent killer” with no clear warning signs or symptoms where your heart is working much harder than normal to pump oxygen and nutrient-rich blood through your blood vessels. because of family history, aging and unhealthy lifestyle habits, it’s one of the most common chronic conditions that poses a rising burden on the healthcare system.
the heart and stroke foundation of canada says that one in four adults has hypertension in canada. it’s the number one risk factor for stroke and a major risk factor for heart disease, so left untreated it can be fatal or lead to disability. the message for canadians is to get your blood pressure checked, know your numbers and talk to your healthcare provider about treatment if needed.
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adapting to life as a caregiver
caring for a stroke survivor is challenging. kish is a singer-songwriter who often travels to perform. her wife, jen, a personal trainer and former rugby olympian, sold their house just outside edmonton, alta. so that kish could be in charge of her mom’s health and rehabilitation in ontario where kish had grown up. they bought a house in fort erie, ont. about 45 minutes’ drive from thorold where her mom had been living before her stroke, and made extensive renovations to accommodate her mom’s wheelchair and other needs, including adding a home gym.
she had tried various rehab centres for her mom in the months that followed the stroke, but the pandemic made everything that much more challenging because programs weren’t operating, visiting was limited, and she was often just confined to her room. “she just wasn’t doing well at all and became very depressed,” kish says, adding mental health is still a hurdle.
at their fort erie home, she has her own setup with a writing space and her bedroom looks out into the forested backyard. they sing together and are active on social media to share their journey. the couple is now getting ready to have a baby, so there’s even more complexity to come in 2024.
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“[caregiving] is a massive responsibility. i feel a lot of the time the pressure to not let her down. because she still has dreams, which is what we want, which is what we’ve worked so hard for her not to lose that sense of hope. and sometimes i feel an overwhelming responsibility to just see that hope for her so she doesn’t get down and think, ‘why did i live?’” the emotional part of caregiving is more difficult than the physical aspects, she says.
“sometimes it feels like i’m kind of keeping up with my own life and my own hopes and dreams right alongside her.”
her older brother is busy with his own life and four kids, she explains, but lives only a half-hour away, so if there’s something urgent, he’s there to step in. her younger sister has a baby and a lot on her plate trying to manage, but still comes to stay with the family one or two nights a week, so there are extra hands. there’s also a nurse who comes in three times a week to help with bathing and other tasks, and jen stays home when kish travels for her work.
coping strategies as a caregiver: ‘be kind to yourself’
what has helped manage her role is her music and an established routine, with everything scheduled and labelled, so the family all knows what to expect. her mom especially does well with structure with meals at the same time, tv at the same time and therapy on tuesdays.
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“performing helps me, connecting with people and writing music helps me. being creative is something that i very much use as a therapy,” kish says, along with physical exercise like yoga. it can be a struggle to take time for herself when she gives so much time and energy to her mom. coping strategies, as we all know, take time and effort, too.
“for me, it’s just trying to find some time to step away. i need to go do something that makes me feel strong and makes me feel good about myself. and then i can come back and focus on what i need to do.”
what advice would she like to give to other caregivers like herself?
she pauses, thinking it over. “be kind to yourself. because no matter what, it’s just not going to be easy. it won’t be easy taking on something that most people are too afraid to do. it will come with challenges, some that will leave you feeling hopeless. but what i hold onto dearly in the hardest of times – and we have hard times – but what i hold onto most reminds me of the reason why this is all happening,” she says of her choice to take on the caregiver role.
“it’s the knowing that however long from now, whether it be five, 10 or 20 years from now, i want to be able to look back and i want to say that we had that christmas together,” she says of plans for the coming holiday. “we got to bake cookies on that one saturday morning and that was a good memory. and she’ll get to spend time with my child.”
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