A Lesson from Dolly Parton for Caregivers: Don’t Skip Your Own Care

In October 2025, Dolly Parton posted a video to set the record straight about her health. Her sister had written publicly about praying for her, rumors had spread, and Dolly wanted people to stop worrying. “I ain’t dead yet,” she said, smiling, from a set where she was filming.

In that same video, she said something quieter. During her husband Carl’s illness and after his death, she had not taken care of her own health.

Carl Dean died in March 2025, after nearly fifty-nine years of marriage. Dolly died in August 2026, of cancer. She was 80.

Her words point to something I often see in my practice: caregivers who put themselves last.

Why Caregivers Put Their Own Health Last

Caregiving is not a known cause of cancer, and nothing Dolly shared publicly explains what caused her illness. What her own words describe is narrower, and something I see often: a caregiver putting their own care last.

Deferred care can affect timing. When caregivers postpone screenings and explain away symptoms, problems may be found later than they otherwise would be.

Dolly Parton had resources that most caregivers do not. She had money, staff, and access to excellent medical care. And still, by her own account, she let her health slide while caring for her husband. Access isn’t the whole problem. When someone you love is seriously ill, their needs feel more urgent than yours, and your own health slips down the list.

Your Care Is Part of the Care You Give

In my work with caregivers, one thing I hear most often is some version of this: I will deal with that when things settle down.

The appointment gets made after the surgery. The physical gets scheduled once the new medication is sorted out. The thing you noticed gets looked at when there is a quieter month. But, there is seldom a quieter month, because the caregiving schedule does not include your self-care.

What I would offer instead is this: it should include your self-care. Taking care of yourself is what allows you to keep caring for your loved one. It belongs in the same category as their medication schedule and their appointments, because it holds up the same thing.

What Caregiver Self-Care Looks Like

In practice, it looks like this:

Keeping your own medical appointments, including the ones that feel optional
Getting the screenings appropriate for your age, on schedule
Mentioning the symptom you noticed rather than waiting to see if it goes away
Letting someone else cover so you can go to medical appointments
Treating your own prescriptions and follow-up with the same seriousness you apply to theirs
Having somewhere to put the emotional weight of all of it

Most caregivers can recite the person’s full medication list, every specialist’s name, and the date of the next infusion. Ask them when they last saw their own doctor and they will have to pause before answering.

How to Ask for Help as a Caregiver

Caregivers often describe asking for help as something they have to justify. It usually goes better when the request is specific and practical.

Someone can sit with your loved one on Thursday morning. Someone can take the 2 p.m. call from the pharmacy. Someone can drive your loved one to an appointment so you can go to yours. People who want to help frequently do not know what to offer. A specific request is easier for a friend to say yes to than a general one.

If there is genuinely no one, that is worth naming too, because it changes what the plan needs to be.

You Can Start This Week

Please take seriously what Dolly Parton said. Starting this week, you can:

Keep your appointment.
Make the call you have been putting off.
Ask someone to cover Thursday.

Dolly’s generosity was a defining part of her life. Her Imagination Library has mailed more than 330 million books to children since 1995, a program inspired by her father, who could not read. After her death, her family asked for donations to the program in place of flowers.

Her openness may have been one more act of generosity: she told us plainly that while caring for the person she loved most, she stopped caring for herself. We can all learn from that.

Psychotherapy for Caregivers

Caring for someone you love is demanding in ways that are hard to explain to people who have not done it. If you are finding that your own life has quietly moved to the bottom of the list, that is worth talking about.

I work with caregivers on exactly this: what is sustainable, what support you actually need, and which parts of your own life you want to protect. My page on caregiver stress and compassion fatigue covers more of what that work involves.

I offer a free phone consultation. You can reach me at (845) 202-9774 or through the contact page.