Michaela felt a sharp pain shoot from her hip while she bent over to water some plants in early May 2025. Then she fell over and couldn't get back up. Her husband called an ambulance and she spent the night in a hospital, where, at 57, she found out she had a mass on her spine. It was metastatic breast cancer.
As young carers, they felt disconnected from their parents' compromised behavior, and the heavy weight of coping with it by themselves. They at once loved and resented having to take care of them. One participant shared: "I hated to spend all the time caring for my father, accompanying him, having no 'me time'. I still loved him, enjoyed the closeness with him, never wanting to lose him, even if he was so dependent on me."