Hi, I’m Nick age 72. I met an 86 year old fellow male at a cricket match in 2016 and gradually came to know him. He’s a widower since 2013, a retired professional living in his own home. He had three strokes twenty and more years ago, leaving him with significant speech impairment and some cognitive impairment. More recently. he’s had a triple by-pass and has a cardiac pacemaker. His adult professional daughter and her partner live a few miles away, but for various reasons are unable to care for him. I realised he was very lonely. I am single, living in the West Country. In 2018, I began to stay with him three nights a week. In 2019, after he had had several falls, I agreed to be with him five nights a week. He has some investment income, so we set up freelance carers to look after him when I was back home two nights a week. But then in 2020 Covid 19 materialised, and I realised that having several carers coming in and out of his house would be dangerous for him. Accordingly, I agreed to care for him 24/7, just checking my home once a month, and I have been locked down with him since March. We employ one freelance carer to do shopping, and to clean at social distance. I do laundry, cooking, driving him round in his car, interpreting what he is trying to say, managing his finances, being up with him at night when he wakes up confused, you name it.
Hi Nicholas, welcome to the forum
Just to let you know we are running series of online weekly meet ups for carers to get together and chat informally. People say they’ve found it really helpful and supportive and it’s nice to be able to take a little bit of time for yourself. There’s no pressure to share any more than you’re comfortable with. Join up details are here:
https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/get-support/online-meetups
Do join if you’d like to
best wishes
Ingrid
Hi & welcome Nicholas
What a good friend you are.
Has your friend every had a needs assessment from Social Services.
Has your friend every applied for attendance allowance.
You really do need to also look after you. We all need our own time etc. Is there no way someone or a carer could provided overnight stays.