Me

It seems to me sometimes (most of the time) that this has been filling my world for as long as I can remember. Days become weeks, weeks become months and months are becoming years.

This post is self-indulgently about me.

Reading old posts I am aware how my life became more and more about handling the details of Rosemarie's condition and reorganising my life around supporting her. I had to learn more about the workings of Local Authority and NHS bureaucracy than a sane person should have to, and struggled to develop new skills to cope with the manifestations of the disease.

I did not do any of this grudgingly, but I did not notice the accumulating toll it was taking on me.

I doubt if I got a good night's sleep for a good year before Rosemarie was hospitalised. For the three months before she was admitted I was lucky to get three hours at a stretch. Then I would get up, get her up, toiletted, cleaned, dressed and back to bed, get her breakfast ready and all notes, keys and preparation for the care worker, then out the door by 7.30.

I would drive through the rush hour to a full day at a stressful job, then race back home through the traffic (stopping off at the supermarket for a lightning-fast shop) to be home by 7 to minimise the time Rosemarie was alone. The whole evening would be about caring for her, cooking, trying to keep her calm and entertained, and doing the usual household and admin chores. I might get her to bed by 10.30, which would give me an hour (2 at the maximum) to try to unwind and do any personal stuff. If I was lucky I would get to bed and get an hour of sleep before she woke up for the first time.

Once she was admitted things got if anything more stressful. It was usually late evening before I got back from the hospital and I felt completely exhausted by the time I flopped onto the sofa. I would go to bed and lie there for hours turning things over in my mind, unable to get a grip on the future - how Rosemarie's condition was clearly deteriorating and panicking how I would be able to look after her when she was discharged.

Then on March 3rd (my birthday) I got a phone call from the company I had worked at for 29 years telling me I was in consultation for possible redundancy. This was not entirely unforeseen (and was nothing to do with any time I had taken off to look after Rosemarie) but was no less unwelcome for that. It gave me something extra to worry about in the dark trying to get to sleep, and would wake me with a taste of bile in the small hours of the morning.

Two weeks later it was confirmed (it was never really in any doubt) and after two weeks in the office I was put 'on gardening leave'.

This meant that I didn't actually need to get up early in the morning and the effect on my body was dramatic. It was as if the accumulated tiredness of the last three years was suddenly released. I regularly slept for twelve hours and woke up tired. I would walk down to the local supermarket to get some lunch but after I had cooked and eaten it I would have to lie down for a sleep on the sofa for an hour.

And other things were catching up with me as well. The pain and sadness associated with the deterioration I was witnessing in Rosemarie's condition had affected me all along, but now something deeper was coming out. It leaps out at me when I climb into an empty bed, when I wake in the morning with nobody to roll against and cuddle. The empty pair of slippers in the bedroom and the teapots she loved collecting sitting silently on the shelves.

The way the tears come unbidden when I write about her.

There is another tragedy in all this. I have lost the woman I have known and loved for nearly 35 years. A shadow sits sad and lonely in a care home, but something has gone forever.

It hurts.