Cuidador: The Untold Story of an Informal Caregiver

There are 800,000 informal – and unpaid – caregivers in Portugal. Photographer Teresa Nunes’ mother is one of them.

On 13 March, my mother began quarantining full-time with my grandfather at his apartment. She cared for him 24/7 without any support at all; not even for a few minutes, to give her a break from the constant, exhausting routine. She lived with my grandfather from the 13 March until 31 May – ten weeks without a single break.

As the youngest in the family at thirty-five, my job was to be the one who went outside the house and risked infection. I took the garbage out; checked the mail; received online orders; and, at some point, began to go to the supermarket for groceries. Getting back home was, and actually still is, a whole lot of work. We disinfect everything before it comes inside: we leave our shoes at the door; I disinfect my phone; I change all my clothes and have a bath to clean off any potential residue. And when we get groceries, we wipe down every single item before putting it away.

Over this time, I have continued to take pictures – expanding the scope of my photo-essay to cover the weeks and months of the quarantine. But for me, too, it has been exhausting. At times, I have felt very anxious and a bit of a hypochondriac – constantly checking myself for fever and other COVID-19 symptoms – as well as spending weeks avoiding the news. Other weeks, I would check the news all day long. 

My grandfather – who is ninety-six-years-old – hasn’t noticed that the world has changed. Sometimes he says he wants to go outside for a walk and my mum says “no” because it’s forbidden. But she used to say that before, and I joke that at last she is not lying anymore.

For my mum, this has been a very exhausting time. She has always been teased by my father and I because she used to fall asleep anywhere and at any time, but now she can fall asleep even when leaning against the couch. In April, she began to experience severe stomach aches due to stress and exhaustion, and struggled to care for my grandfather while having to spend a lot of time in bed. I was very concerned because I had never seen my mother like that, and we were afraid to go outside to see a doctor. 

Even before the Covid-19 crisis, this was a very personal project for me. My mother is not only my grandfather’s carer, but was also my grandmother’s before she passed away. I started photographing because I wanted to raise awareness of the challenges that informal caregivers face. Many give up their former lifestyles to selflessly care for a family member while receiving no state support. In Portuguese, the term for informal caregiver is Cuidador, a bit of wordplay that comes from cuidar, “to care”, and dor, which means “pain”.

We hope you’re enjoying this article. Read the full version of this story in print.