Hi,
I’m Elisabeth and I care for my daughter who has ME. I have a question. I’m finding it hard to understand what the doctors are telling me. It’s difficult to put it all together and work out what the actions are for me, particularly which medications to use and when. How do I go about clarifying it? Is this something our GP might help with?
Thank you in advance.
Hi E … welcome to the forum.
I’ll use my own experience here … 1997 … mother returned to me after a stay in hospital recovering from a mild heart attack.
Came back with 9 prescriptions … none of which I recognised … Internet in it’s infancy then , NO forums around.
Eventually , nurse from local gp surgery dropped in … checked on my mother … and then explained to me in fairly simple
English what each medication did … and signs to look out for if side effects were to be detected.
I did ask the question … " Hang on a mo ! Am I now an unqualified nurse / doctor ? "
" You are now your mother’s carer , it’s your job to know ! "
( The first time I learnt that I now was a " Carer " … ! The word PRESSGANGED springs to mind ? )
Things MIGHT be different some 22 years on … but , to what degree ???
How to be a carer ?
Nothing like stumbling from one crisis to another … one soon learns what few things work and the many that don’t !
Family carers … SWISS army knives … time for that " Definition " to be updated elsewhere on this site ???
Thank you Chris - sounds like you were dropped in at the deep end. Fortunately the GP rang me yesterday and gave me a kind of recipe for what to do when, so I feel more in control now. I remember pre internet days - had to hang on to every scrap of information, if you lost a bit of paper there was no guarantee you could get the info again!
Your welcome.
Deep end ?
More like the Mariana Trench at times !
Compared with many other readers … merely the shallows ?
If only the Royal Navy’s press gang had been only half as efficient as our one in times gone bye ???