I am not happy right now. Life has changed again and I am not coping with it. It is for all kinds of reasons. For example: Ray has always had "wife deafness" but now that seems to have really cut into our time. I say to Ray: "We need to go out so will you go to the toilet please." I then move off to do something else, come back, Ray is still in the chair. So I restate, he looks at me and looks back at his puzzle book. He has no understanding of the time factor or the need to make one move after another. So we are late for appointments again.

Ray and I went off to church this morning and after the service we usually go across to the church hall for morning tea. This gives us a chance for little chats with other congregation members and I always enjoy it. This morning, halfway through the service I realised that we coudn't do it - Ray is on thickened fluids now. I know some of you are going to say, that's okay, just take some you prepared before with you, and maybe I will in the future. But for today I just put Ray into the car and came home. Some days I can cope, today wasn't one of them.

We had our son, his wife and our three grandchildren here for dinner last night. It is Father's Day today and Ray's birthday tomorrow so they wanted to come for a visit and bring a small gift. I knew it was to be a short visit as Pam had to work last night. She only does three shifts a week but her hours are whatever no-one else wants to do. Halfway through dinner Ray started to choke. I managed to stop him before he was actually sick but I think that spoiled the meal for the rest of us. It is certainly unpleasant to watch. Now I know why some people fed their survivor or an elderly parent before the rest of the family eats, it is to avoid that "loss of appetite" that comes with watching someone else be sick.

If this sounds like a vent, it is. I have gone back to the "why me, why him, it's not fair" stage for a while. I know it is not good to sit on the pity pot and I have to flush but I can honestly say that right now I am not coping real well with life. It is the new deficits, the hard work needed to maintain the same level of living and the thought that future social events etc are now probably in doubt. I would not write them off just yet but I suspect that going out to the Lions dinners, social events where there is eating and drinking involved etc is all going to be too hard to maintain for any length of time. And that fills me with sadness.

Trev has taken on a few new tasks to help out but I can see that he is wanting to give up on his Dad. I guess nothing was more obvious than the fact that he didn't say: "Happy Father's Day." this morning. He went out after the others went home after dinner last night. He came home, went to bed late and was still not up when we went to church. That didn't happen in the past so I guess that is another sign that all is not well. It is harder for the adult children who live at home and witness the day-to-day struggles than for those who live at a distance. I know in his case he would rather it all went away... and I can echo that sentiment. But we all have to live with the reality of stroke survival and all the other illnesses etc that followed in Ray's case. I don't know what to advise him to do, I guess for his own mental health he may need to move out and move on now.

I may not be on the computer for a few weeks. This one has some problems and has to be rebuilt and the other one I have is still waiting for my other son to install some programs. He keeps promising to get it done but doesn't get around to it. I don't know what to do about that either. After all he has family now and three little people plus a wife to please. Maybe I need to just go buy another computer or have it "fixed" by someone else. Of course Trev might get this one going within the week, or so he says.

The good news is that after two days of very heavy rain the sun is out again. Makes it so much easier to get about. I have one last class and my "seven week" (four hours on Mondays) course is finished. I can't send Ray back to Daycare until he has been re-assessed but because I am doing something that is considered part of a "retraining program" I managed to get a six hour emergency aide for tomorrow. Thank goodness for Federal government programs aimed at getting caregivers back into the workplace (eventually).

I think I might go out and sit in the sun. I could fill in an hour or two watching the weeds grow in my garden, right?