A friend suggest I blog about our journey, a carer’s insight to daily life and struggles. It will always be honest, sometimes there will be a rant and frustration but I will try to bring a sense of humour to it all.

So here I am a 50 something caring for both my parents, it started caring for my Dad who has primary progressive Multiple Sclerosis and now other issues such as heart failure, it’s a cruel disease that in the last two years has taken so much away from him and us. When this part of my journey started in 2018 it was help with house chores, the garden, cooking, driving to appointments etc.. these days it is full on 24 hour a day 7 days a week 52 weeks a year palliative care. Mum these days has her own multiple age related issues and needs more help, spondylitis of the spine, arthritis, heart failure all of which take a fair amount of management and mobility is an issue.

Becoming a carer is rarely a conscious choice it just happens it starts slowly and suddenly there you are caring full time dealing with broken systems fighting for your loved one to be treated with dignity and respect. I’d never encountered care companies, adult social services or even really the NHS in this capacity before this, it’s been eye opening. If you haven’t been involved with these services before you probably think great there is someone to help when our vulnerable family need it and take it for granted there would be. As one adult social care worker told me care has always been bad, it is bad and it will always be bad, and if you get one good carer you are lucky, it shocked me but she wasn’t wrong, I have also had adult social care workers lie to me and Dad has not been looked after properly. So here I am his full time care giver and managing everything with a little help for personal care. Let me tell you it is tough, really tough but it does deepen bonds with your loved ones and can be very satisfying, humbling and an honour to care for your loved one. If you have a tribe to help all the better….

I promise to get better at this….. to follow anecdotes, why I do this and issues we’ve run into