Tom Coughlin, a former head coach of the New York Giants, on becoming a caregiver for his wife, Judy.
Tom Coughlin is best known as the head coach of the New York Giants, whose discipline and attention to detail led the team to two Super Bowl victories. Coughlin writes today for Times Opinion about a very different challenge — caring for his ailing wife, Judy, who has progressive supranuclear palsy, a brain disorder with no known cure. |
P.S.P. is rare — when I tried to find out how many Americans die from it each year, I couldn't track the number down. In 2019, however, it included my father-in-law, Walid Hindo. Dr. Hindo, who was born in Baghdad, moved his young family in the 1960s to the United States, where he became a well-regarded radiologist and an active member of his Syriac Catholic church. |
If you've ever cared for a seriously ill or grieving loved one, you'll understand how illness and death remake the world. P.S.P. is a disease that, as Coughlin details, steals your loved one from you, even before death. In his final years, Dr. Hindo's large extended family and church community pitched in to care for him — as well as numerous physicians, home health aides, specialists, therapists, nurses and social workers — but the majority of the work of coordinating his care still fell to his daughters and wife. |
As my colleague Michelle Cottle recently wrote, such caregiving can be an isolating journey for family members. But, according to the latest figures, more than 53 million Americans report providing unpaid care to another adult or child over the past 12 months. In publishing Coughlin's essay, we hoped readers who are among those 53 million might find connection and a little bit of solace. |
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