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On being a Full Time Carer — 12 Comments

    • Thank you Elizabeth, but I would just see myself as a normal bloke.  Now if on the other hand I just left her to fester away in the attic I would see myself as a right bastard.

  1. I too am a full time carer and it’s bloody tough. Too think I used to complain about working when I was a teenager….

    • I suppose the toughest bit is the lack of a chance for a break? Maybe I should just dump her at a hospital entrance somewhere and sneak off for a week or so.  I might even collect her again, eventually…

  2. How I agree about ‘help’ and how it gets in the way! . As my wife and I found out in caring for our son , who is only 12 but has Autism Spectrum Disorder, and can do very little for himself, he doesn’t speak so you’re second guessing his needs all the time. it is indeed 24 hours a day, we get absolutely no help at all, without having to involve social services ,er , no thanks.  There are things out there to help but the route to getting them is shrouded in secrecy, which would make MI5 look gossipy . Like you say we aren’t complaining, we just have to get on b

    • My daughter is in a similar boat [there must be something in the genes?].  She has a teenage son who has Cerebral Palsy with no speech or muscle coordination.  He lives either in his wheelchair or his bed.  So I know something of the difficulties in bring up a disabled child.  Daughter actually gets quite good help in that he goes to a day-care facility most days which gives her a good daily break.

  3. What about a William Trevor-like approach and a series of stories inspired by the various characters who call at the door? Trevor could weave tales from moments as ordinary as someone sitting looking out of the window of  cafe in a town in the Irish Midlands.

    • The only people who call at our door are the postman [around 8am so I never see him], the meter reader [a taciturn bloke at the bet of times] and the rare God Botherer.  Friends call around to the back door.  I do my best though with people down at the coffee shop in summer, though they tend to be a boring lot.

  4. On top of the above, you need to be a dab hand at washing, cleaning, cooking, doing the dishes, dealing with annoying washing machines 
    And if like me you are the carer for someone with mental illness then it also helps if you can think in at least 3 realities at any one moment. Caring for someone physically is bloody hard work, keeping house likewise but caring for a paranoid psychotic  is soul destroying to boot. For like it sayeth “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” 

  5. God bless you, Grandad.  My wife was a carer for her father for a couple of years before he died. He had a stroke too. Hemiplegia resulted. She had the patience of a saint I thought and I admired her for what she did for him.

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