What makes me mad as a caregiver? Well everything at the moment. I am sad, I am mad, I am stressed and I am frustrated. Not necessarily in that order. It is mid-winter, I haven't had any kind of a break from Ray in a long time and I find that makes me build up stress until I want to go "Whoosh" like a small angry volcano. I know he was in hospital for eight weeks but that was not exactly a break as I was up and down to him all that time, 35 minutes travel each way, a couple of hours there and back home again.

And at the moment because of the wind storms I am doing extra yard work to try and sweep up all the debris. My potplants have fallen over and need some attention and there seem to be broken plants here and there that need taking out and replacing. It is what most caregivers have to do unless they can afford a yardman to do it, I know that, but now I am tired. Where is that fairy godmother who with a wave of her wand could put it all right again? Or maybe one of those makeover teams of muscular young men to prance about the yard with shiny red wheelbarrows giving me edged garden beds full of spring blossoming plants....wait on I think I am dreaming here.

The past couple of days have not been good ones. We have new service providers for Ray's shower and respite services and I think that is making for an awkward situation as they get to know us and we them. Having strangers in the house, however nice they turn out to be in the end does make for a unsettling situation. And having a male shower nurse/carer is strange too, I am always more at ease with women than with men and so I am on edge until I get to know them well. I'm not going to elaborate but a couple of incidents from my childhood have made me a bit wary of men.This new one seems nice and polite and I think he will work out okay but I still don't know him well so we will wait and see how I feel once a month has gone by.

Today's respite carer was 20 minutes late. I have a Friday morning routine and that means I want to be out of the house at a cetain time, so a lady who is twenty minutes late and then wants a tour of the house before she starts is a nuisance. So I didn't get all the things done I wanted to do in my time off today which means that some of it will be left till next week. That is not a disaster in the scheme of things, just another annoyance to add to the pile. After all she is being paid to be here set hours and they all carry a mobile so she should have had the courtesy to at least ring and tell me she would be late.

I went to my Dementia Support group today and we had an explanation of how damage to the brain, through stroke, TBI or dementia takes away our ability to perform certain tasks. It was very enlightening. I wonder why the stroke experts haven't told us some of this before. For instance, Ray's loss of balance, falls, slowed down walking etc shows that the damage from the stroke is beginning to affect his cerebellum although that was not the original site of the first stroke he had. Damage from subsequent strokes is working toward the back of the brain so he is losing more abilities in area which controls balance and co-ordination. This also controls sleep patterns ( he sleeps a lot still) and initiation. So when I tell him to do something he has previously known how to do he may not know how to start but if I show him how to do something he may be able to continue on by himself.

We are back in the "accident" season again. I expect it is because it is cold and Ray is reluctant to get out of bed that this is happening again. I don't think he has a a urinary tract infection and he seems okay healthwise so I think again it comes back to being slow. Whatever the reason extra bed linen to be washed adds to the load. And the "accidents" have been in both kinds so sometimes a change of clothes and an extra shower is in order. Yesterday the problem was at the shopping centre so I cut the shopping short and came on home. Very frustrating to have to shower him when he has already had a shower, hair wash etc that very morning. I am hoping the problem goes away again and isn't a sign of things to come.

So three more sleeps before Ray starts his two weeks live-in respite, five sleeps until I fly up to Cairns for my little holiday with my northern family. But I know how fast that time will fly by. So it is two weeks and two days before I am back in harness again. Hope by then the sad,mad, bad feelings have all retreated into the background for a while.