I have had the last time ANYONE is going to tell me I have to try to get Ray to do his exercises. No I don't. They are his exercises. He is an adult male aged 63. He is not my child. I don't HAVE to do anything.

All my married life I have tried to get Ray to do things. It started with a "to do" list. I did the inside work, he did the outside work. I was half-way through my first pregnancy, grass up to my knees one day when the first person to tell me to "Try to get Ray to do" something was his mother. She was a sainted woman and I'll fight anyone who says she wasn't. She only had my best interest at heart.

She said:"Darling, just make a list of all you need done and Ray can cross off the jobs as he goes." My baleful look there must have stirred up something in her because she actually did have a word to Ray and the following weekend guess what? All those little jobs got fixed, the lawn mowed, the taps fixed, the clothesline wound up and down as it should. Was this the beginning of a new era? Nope. We went from argument to argument, my "to do"list remained just that. A list.

Somehow over the years we have kept our marriage going, our common faith has a lot to do with that, the support of friends, the isolation of some of the little towns we've lived in made up for by the warmth of the community. We raised our kids, helped our community, lived the life of respectable and respected citizens.

Ray's "to do" list became my training ground, I can do a lot of things now, because when I got sick of a job not being done I bribed or paid or cajoled someone else into doing it or I did it myself. I can't change a tap/faucet washer but both my sons can. I even helped to dig the foundations of our front extension. Ray didn't get to it and the bricklayer was threatening to go onto another job, so I did it. Luckily my Dad came along, saw what a terrible mess I was making of it and jumped in beside me, he even took the next day off work to finish the job. But it was done, as were the blocked pipes, the falling gutter and other "man" jobs about the place.

Well, you will say, what has stirred "St Sue" up this time, if she's done it for 38 years surely a few more years won't hurt. And some days you'd be right. Some days I just give a big sigh and get right in there and do it.

This morning the dear little Speech Pathologist rang, she has been studying Ray's swallow tests results and it is all a bit grim. He really needs to be on thickened fluids now. But that means giving up some of our social activities that revolve around a lunch or a supper out. I am reluctant to do that as it will break up the last of my networks of friend and supporters. It is true out of sight means out of mind. And I don't want to lose these groups of people because they don't see us any more.

This problem is not suddenly going to get better. The Speech Pathologist wants to give Ray some throat exercises but they will have to be done twice day. I have to promise to "try" etc and she will come and teach him the exercises. Now this is another task. I am already trying with the leg exercises, the bed exercises etc and I am lucky if I get it done once or twice a week. Frankly Ray is ready to let the world slip away as long as he gets meals etc served up. He is a typical nursing home patient now, not because of his disabilities but because of his inabilities. He wants that peaceful life depicted on the movies where the old fellow sits in a chair, nodding and smiling and is waited on hand and foot. And that is not reality.

At this point I would like to get in my car and drive 1000 miles away, ringing the family from some small coastal town and saying:"Your father, your problem." Of course that is not going to happen. ST Sue is also a martyr to the cause.