#7: Dealing With Long-Term Health Conditions

On Monday hubby and I went to London to attend a meeting about BIL. Beforehand, we visited Kenwood House, which was really rather lovely in the autumn sunshine. We arrived at the hospital just before 2pm; I hadn't seen my BIL since late August and if I'm honest, it was a shock. He looked really awful, well I guess that's really to be expected: he has only recently been moved out from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to a normal ward.

He was less communicative than usual and it was difficult to maintain any level of eye contact. The hour crawled by. At one point I picked up a copy of The Radio Times and read interesting (well, I thought so) snippets out loud, but BIL seemed on another planet.

The case conference or hospital pre-release meeting then took place. The attendees were, as follows: the Doctor in charge of the case: who was a respiratory expert; the two discharge Nurses; BIL's Social Worker; the Residential Care Home Manager, plus hubby and me. Phew! It was clear that BIL's health has deteriorated over the past fortnight and much has to be done to rectify this, so it's a case of engaging the community physiotherapy teams, the Speech and Language Team and various other support services.

At least it's not down to hubby alone any longer.

#6: When Disaster Strikes

This Monday was like any other really - pottering around doing housework, however mid-morning my husband's old mobile phone rang and it was one of his brother's care workers.  My BIL had been taken to hospital after suffering from breathing problems and was currently waiting in A&E.  We had too many family commitments to go up there that day, but on Tuesday hubby went up there and poor old BIL was hooked up to all sorts of respiratory masks and tubes - it was pretty horrific.  He has pneumonia and the scoliosis of his spine reduces his lung capacity.

Wednesday went by in a flurry of telephone calls and pleas from the carers to visit BIL, but hubby and BIL's relationship isn't the greatest and as he's scared of hubby, his blood pressure shot up as a result.  It's a lose-lose situation.

Yesterday hubby was undertaking one of his regular telephone calls to the hospital when he was informed that BIL had been placed into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) because he couldn't breathe.  It was pretty serious.  Since then things have been very strained indeed at home.  I am being as supportive as I can.

Today is Friday, hubby visited him in the ICU, but he's been sedated and is hooked up to a series of wires and machines.  Flipping heck.

#5: The Aftermath of Placing Your Relatives In Care

Apologies that I haven't written for ages, it's mainly because of time constraint and the need to maintain my seventeen other blogs.  Well, let's have a quick update - my MIL and BIL are both safely in care - the former in an council-run old peoples' home and the latter in a supported living collective.  My husband feels guilty, as many people would I've no doubt.  As a woman with Asperger Syndrome sometimes I don't view the world in the same way.

I feel the need to write about my experience of being a secondary carer in much greater detail than this. I think that I may.