Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America

"Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America The story of one woman&8217s struggle to care for her seriously ill husband&8212and a revealing look at the role unpaid family caregivers play in a society that fails to provide them with structural support.Already Toast shows how all-consuming caregiving can be, how difficult it is to find support, and how the social and literary narratives that have long locked women into providing emotional labor also keep them in unpaid caregiving roles. When Kate Washington and her husband, Brad, learned that he had cancer, they were a young couple: professionals with ascending careers, parents to two small children. Brad&8217s diagnosis stripped those identities away: he became a patient and she his caregiver.Brad&8217s cancer quickly turned aggressive, necessitating a stem-cell transplant that triggered a massive infection, robbing him of his eyesight and nearly of his life. Kate acted as his full-time aide to keep him alive, coordinating his treatments, making doctors&8217 appointments, "