This is a vent so be prepared.

Ray and I went to the Community Stroke Support Service's Group Education program. This was week two, we missed week one because we were away.

All the people there had come because they had a need. We certainly do as I found out today that the second care provision group appointed to find me a three hour respite has also run out of funds for our particular classification (it is a funding thing, where have I heard that before?) so my problem once more is frustration. FRUSTRATION!!!! x 100.

In Australia we get care if we QUALIFY. Do Ray and I qualify? YES. But we go on a waiting list and then if care in our category (?) is AVAILABLE then technically we get carer respite, home care, whatever. Does this system work? NO. Why not? Because the demand for carer respite far outstrips the supply, so there are always people waiting, waiting waiting. Most carer respite is funded for Veterans, then extreme aged, aged and frail and lastly what is called under-aged care. That is Ray and me. Ray is under 65, I am under 60. If Ray was under 45 we come into the disabled working aged care and that is funded differently again.

So off we go for our Group Education program. And there are ten people, six survivors who have had strokes of various kinds and four caregivers, three female, one male. All the survivors have different problems, different leves of disability/ability. ALL the caregivers have something in common though. FRUSTRATION!!!!

So the four paid professionals start the 2 1/2 hour program, luckily it is the sweet little speech pathologist in charge. Today we are going to look at Memory, then at Communications and then the survivors will be assessed (again!) and the carers will have a little talk on Emotional Reactions. So far only two people have broken into tears and we have just started.

I've got to say that although I had heard most of what was said before it was well done, bold print, words and pictures (one chap has aphasia and apraxia) and slowly and allowing questions. We manage to pass the first hour in safety. Again only one survivor cries as he cannot express himself, and he isn't the person with aphasia. A couple of the caregivers are starting to express their frustrations loudly and so is one of the survivors, the ST is trying to calm us all down.

Now the group is split into two and I assume from what Ray said that he went through the sme assessment as he did before Christmas and he said it went well.

So here were are looking at Emotional Reactions. The regular Social Worker is away ( thanks be) and a nice older lady who works with the Parkinson's group is our facilitator. It is soon on for young and old, we are shouting in our frustration and she is trying to shush us, keep us calm. Fat chance of that. She shuts the door and moves us up the other end of the room , hoping I think that the survivors will not hear the outpouring of raw emotion. I think I was the quietest at this point as let's face it I have worked through a lot in 15 years since Ray's initial stroke, and seven years since his majors.

This is all raw and untended emotions, not suitable for a quiet room in a suburban shopping centre. It is more like the group therapy you see in movies about people coming down off drugs. The room becomes quite hot with all the emotion. And for a couple you have the feeling that this is their first opportunity to express some of this hurt. And then the ST puts her pretty face around the door and we are invited down to afternoon tea. Isn't that nice?

So off we all troop for afternoon tea ( coffee, tea, cake and fruit) and there are our survivors looking a bit tired from their exertions but quite happy. But we (well me anyway) are all churned up with the angst and frustrations we have expressed and nothing to do but breathe deeply and drink our beverages like good little boys and girls. And then it is back into the main room for the summing up and we are off home again.

So how should I feel now, a couple of hours later looking back on this experience? Remember when you had a sore and you picked at it and it started to bleed and hurt and throb and your mother said to you:"Stop! You are only making it worse."

Well that's how I feel right now.