6 things to consider
when illness or injury
affects your LDF
You’re living apart, talking everyday, seeing each other regularly, then BAM. You slip on the ice and break your arm. Or come down with the flu. However, your spouse is miles, or even oceans away. What do you do when there is an illness or injury in your long distance family?
I’m speaking from my own experiences about this situation, so for simplicity, it will read as the home wife or child is injured, while the traveling husband is away.
We are a relatively healthy family. One of us may come down with the occasional cold or sinus infection due to seasonal allergies (or in my case, bronchitis). But what if something more serious happens? How will we handle that when we live 1600 miles apart?
Jack (16) is competitive in taekwondo sparring, so there’s always the chance he’ll get hurt. So far, knock on wood, he’s just had a sprained ankle, a few bloody noses, and a lot of bruises. He broke his hand once, but that was during a well-rehearsed fight scene when he was on the demonstration team. It wasn’t bad, but it kept him from sparring in the US Open that year.
After a demonstration, Jack came home and said his hand hurt because of the way he fell when being thrown during a fight scene. We learn how to fall properly in our taekwondo classes, and he knows exactly what he did: He caught himself on the ground by using a closed fist instead of tucking and rolling to limit injury. It didn’t look bad, and he assured me he didn’t think it was broken. So he iced it and may have mentioned the pain a couple of times over the next week or so.
Two weeks later
Two weeks later, he held up both fists and noticed his pinky knuckle on the injured hand looked different than the other. A little out of place. Since we had their annual doctor visit coming up in a week, we decided to have him look at it.
The doctor sent him across the hall for an x-ray, and then gave us quite the tongue lashing. His hand was indeed broken near the pinky knuckle. This break is commonly known as a boxer’s fracture, even though it can happen to anyone who hits a hard object with a closed fist. The floor, in Jack’s case. But we were three weeks into the healing process. It was important for us to see an orthopedic surgeon ASAP to ensure that it healed properly so there would be no long-term issues.
Luckily, it was healing properly and he only needed to wear a cast for three more weeks. Dennis was working out of town this time, and we kept him up to date with the entire situation, and he certainly didn’t need to come home for it.
Another serious situation
There was another situation that was pretty serious. I have a rare condition known as spontaneous pneumothorax. Pneumothorax means lung collapse. Spontaneous means that nothing seemingly causes it. I know that I have this condition because one day, I was sitting at home eating lunch. All of a sudden, I got a pain that shot through the right side of my chest, but I could also feel it in my back. It was like the pain went straight through. The pain wasn’t excruciating, just enough to let me know something was not right. I called Dennis, who was still working in town at that time, and he said, “Go to the ER and I’ll meet you there.” Even though I knew there wasn’t a lot of heart disease in my family, he didn’t want to mess around when he heard I had a chest pain.
The ER admitted me quickly, but then just as quickly, the doctors were able to rule out anything with my heart. So they took a chest x-ray. At first, they didn’t see anything. Upon closer inspection, they noticed the culprit: A small collapse in the top part of my right lung. When I heard “lung collapse,” I remembered my dad had the same thing happen when he was younger. Nothing caused his collapse, either. But his was a full collapse that required surgery. Luckily for me, my collapse was small enough that it didn’t even require a chest tube. They kept me overnight, checked to make sure it wasn’t getting bigger, and sent me home certain it would heal by itself.
Fast forward a few years
Fast forward a few years, when we’re both living in Colorado. I felt the familiar pain in my chest and this time, had trouble breathing. Though bigger than last time, the collapse was still small enough that it didn’t require intervention. I was sent home to rest for a couple of weeks so it could heal on its own again.
My spontaneous pneumothorax is always in the back of Dennis’s mind. Especially when I have a cough, do more cardio than usual, or when we go into the mountains at elevations higher than normal. He is ready to drop everything to come home, and to call in help from one of our parents to stay and help me with the house and kids.
His first question when one of us is sick or injured is always, “Do I need to come home?” I’m no martyr, I will be completely honest if I think we need him here. So far, we haven’t. And hopefully we won’t have an illness or injury that will be that serious. But his question is a great starting point.
6 things to consider
1. Do you need to come home?
The healthy partner (in our scenario, the healthy partner is the out of town husband) should ask, “Do I need to come home?” If it’s serious enough, the healthy partner needs to start making plans. Getting coverage at work, booking a flight, whatever he needs to do to get home to you. It goes without saying that this is after you’ve gotten yourself to the ER, or made an appointment, or bandaged your injury, whatever needs to happen immediately.
2. Don't be a Martyr
The sick or injured wife should honestly explain what has happened. She should not try to be a martyr. Don’t downplay what is going on so as not to worry the healthy spouse. Think about what you would want him to do if he were ill or injured. Would you tell him to go to the ER? Urgent Care? Make a doctor’s appointment? Then you need to do that.
3. Check in, but don't overdo it
The healthy spouse is going to worry and feel helpless. But he needs to remember that, in order to fully recover, she needs rest. So definitely check in, but don’t overdo it. And keep the conversations light. This is not the time for anything heavy and absolutely no big decisions, unless they have to do with her health care. Make sure she is resting, taking her meds, following up with the doctor, doing her physical therapy, whatever she needs to do to recover.
4. Be proactive
Before something happens, each of you should already know someone local to the other who can check on them. In our case, Dennis can check with the kids, and I encourage him to do that. I’ve been known to downplay my symptoms to keep Dennis from worrying and we both know that about me (I’m getting better about that, I swear). And I can check with his roommate or co-workers if I need to.
5. Let Food be thy medicine
While he’s feeling helpless, the healthy partner may want to do something nice for the sick spouse. So he may decide to send a care package. While a care package sounds nice, how long will it take to get there? Why not send her favorite pizza or Chinese food delivery? Or use a food delivery service like Uber Eats or DoorDash to send her some comfort food like chicken soup.
6. Encourage and Support
The healthy partner should not downplay the sick spouse’s symptoms. It probably took her a lot to tell you since she knows you’ll feel helpless. Otherwise I’ll loan you my brother-in-law who tells me I am only going to the doctor for attention because I’m not getting enough at home. He’s totally kidding! I think…. But at the same time, don’t be over the top, either, and think that you need to take the next flight home because she sneezed over the phone with you. Encourage and support her in an amount that you know she will appreciate. You’re her significant other! Who knows her better than you?
Stay healthy and safe out there!
We all try our best to stay healthy and safe out there, and I can honestly say that being in a long distance family (LDF) helps me remember that. Neither Dennis nor I can afford to not see a doctor when we’re sick. We’re both approaching 50 and you can bet we’re warming up and stretching before working out. We wear our seat belts, look both ways before crossing the street, and lift with our legs. He’s the sole breadwinner and can’t take too much time off work to recover, and I’ve got the kids and the dog! They depend on me being healthy.
While I gave you advice if your family is affected by illness or an injury, there are a couple of scenarios that I did not touch on because I have absolutely no experience with. Number one, serious emergencies. I hope that if this happens, you, and we, will communicate to whomever we need to in order to keep our job safe, keep our children and pets attended to, and get to where we need to be as soon as possible. I realize that this won’t always be the case depending on our location, our responsibilities or the exact nature of the emergency and I hope that none of us is ever in this situation.
The second topic I didn’t touch on is birth! We didn’t become an LDF until our kids were 6 and 8, so that’s not something we got to experience. But I know that many of you have (no one I know, personally) and I would LOVE to hear your stories! Contact us to have your story told, because first of all, many others can relate, and secondly, I think it’s totally bad ass and will make a great story for the kids.
I think it would have been tough being an LDF when the kids were babies. I applaud all those single moms raising babies on their own. I know we both relied on our hubbies so much back then.
I love this site. Each article is so engaging that I feel I’m right there with you. They are relatable on so many levels!