Author: Steve Antipolo

It feels like it does sometimes. I often say how much I’d love to go out to work just for a break, I’m not kidding!

We’re still waiting to get any service at all for Zoey, it’s been months now. The Department of Works and Pensions just told me I have until 22nd January to apply for her Personal Independence Payment … which I just know they’ll reject first time around so I will have to appeal. When they reject it I lose ALL income until it is sorted again. I don’t mean it gets cut I really mean I shall have zero income. The amount Zoey will have left won’t even cost how much she actually costs herself!

Of course, I could just think positive and assume it will all be approved first time but, that’s not my experience in life, life, for me isn’t so easy. I have to fight for everything. I am supposedly very good at it but, why should I have to? Others seem to have really good and stress free lives, why is it I get picked out as the one who can’t have that?

I am entitled to a Carers Assessment to make sure my needs are met but, the only people who do that are Northamptonshire Carers and those who know me know why I can’t have anything to do with them so, I don’t get any support as a Carer at all.

To make matters worse, I can’t get a hug from the love of my life because he lives 7000 miles away and, yet more annoying, the internet connection has become totally unreliable the past week or so. I also have the uncertainty of whether or not he’ll get a visa to come here in the Spring or whether or not I will be in a position to bring him here next year. Other people don’t have these worries.

I have to trust that God or someone will not let my life continue being so difficult, that some help will be offered when it’s needed but, it’s tough to do that.

Yes, I know this sounds like one of those unattractive whinging posts, because it is basically but, sometimes I am all too aware that people think I am incredibly strong and can deal with anything and everything … they might think that, they’re wrong.

Been having a few posting issues recently, hopefully I should have it sorted soon.

 

At least there is one new one to read!””

According to pictures I have, my diary and my Facebook page … nothing significant happened in 2015 until June … really?

OK, So I dug a little deeper. I started the year off suffering from depression, that might have lasted a while as it seems I also went to the doctor for it and had some CBT along the way, this might explain why I seem to have been in a coma for the first 6 months. It does seem like my stubbornness turned things around though because in June life changed.

After the mess that was my failed relationship with Jo I was really very nervous of starting anything again with someone who wasn’t British and, as I find it rather difficult to form a relationship with British guys I’d all but decided that being single was me set up for life.

But, right at the start of June, Dennis reached out and, to be honest, I gave him a very hard time. All my anxieties about what happened with Jo got landed in his lap.

It would be fair to say that I was rather mean. Thing was though, he seemed so damn nice. He looks amazing, the profile he had was good and interested me. It wasn’t long before I decided to give myself a break and stop allowing negative experiences to rule my future. Me and Dennis have been speaking every day since June. Mostly we speak for a few hours on Skype but when that isn’t possible we do voice calls and when that doesn’t work, we sent messages. I don’t think one day has gone past when we’ve not communicated. More on Dennis later.

 

Also in June I got to meet up with some cousins down in Essex I’d not seen for a great many years, decades even and it was quite lovely if I am honest. It felt like I’d always been close to them somehow.

Went over there with Dad and, annoyingly I don’t seem to have any pictures but then, I wasn’t sure how good the reaction would be so didn’t want to be taking pictures of everyone.

Segway! A bucket list item was achieved thanks to Chris Tilcock. I finally managed to get a ride on a Segway after all these years and it was great fun.

Getting on it was my main concern. I’d imagined I’d step on and end up flat on my back but I remembered the old girl I watched use one in San Diego and just went for it. My attitude to such things is that if I am going to do it then I just as well do it 100%, no regrets!

I also decided to take a short break to Gloucester for some photography. Didn’t rate the city, thought it was really run down but I took a drive out to a castle, Goodrich I think it’s called and that was well worth the trip.

I also dropped in on Symonds Yat where I’d been before with friends. I couldn’t believe how much they wanted just for the parking so I just snapped a couple of pictures and left!

As we’re on about Bucket List items. I’d always wanted to go a festival. I couldn’t arrange overnight but we did manage, me, Daisy & Matt a Saturday at the Download Festival and what a list of bands we saw there! Muse …. I could stop there, Hollywood Undead … actually, I shall stop there because it was just awesome even with the mud and the rain! Taking nearly 2 hours to get out of the mud pit that was the car park was also part of the experience!

OK, there were some things I didn’t like about it. Mosh Pits and Drugs being the two main ones. Both should be banned and only serve to increase the enjoyment for a tiny minority whilst adding nothing for the majority and potentially ruining the experience for some.

In July we ventured over to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see a Butterfly farm, it was also pissing down with rain there but thankfully it was mostly indoors.

I sped passed the cockroach thing rather quickly, even behind glass those things freak me out, I don’t know why, just something about them.

Come August and I had a trip to the RAF museum with Robin. It was also raining there, seems to be a theme going on here! Anyway, good to see the vast array of aircraft on display, glad to have Dennis join us on Skype too!

Had a drive back through London (in the rain) which was also interesting.

August was also the time when things went wrong with our Zoey. We don’t know totally for sure what happened but believe it was a Urinary infection which went out of control and affected her thinking, as things sometimes can. She turned quite nasty and the NHS totally failed to treat her appropriately, all way too interested in passing her on to someone else because they were not set up to deal with special needs.

You can read the entire saga as it played out in earlier blog entries.

She was in hospital for 2 months and we still have no package in place for her so she gets bored most days.

In September I finally found an Organ I liked at an affordable price. These things retail second hand at around £3-400 but I managed to get it for £119 on eBay because their listing was awful. Only issue was that it was in Eastbourne!

Chris joined me on the trip and we had a good overnight stay … it was raining.

 

Sean’s sister Kelly was in the last stages of her cancer during September. It was a really stressful time for everyone dealing with her illness and subsequent loss alongside Zoey’s continued incarceration in a Mental Health Hospital. It was a tough period.

Thankfully, a very good friend, Steve Charman visited and we had a good chat. He kicked me up the backside and told me that if airfares to Manila was the price they were, I could afford them and I really wanted to physically meet Dennis that I should just do it which I did later the same day. He reminded me how impulsive I normally am.

So came home in October, Kelly was laid to rest and I don’t think anyone really fancied doing so much that month.

November and I went to Thorpe Park with Matt. We had great fun. I got coastered out quite early but managed to squeeze some more in anyway. I really don’t like it that I can’t handle many when I mentally love them!

As always I was online with Dennis, can’t miss a day

That month also and through into December I finally got to meet and spend time with Dennis. I knew already I was in love with him but this somehow allowed us to make it all the more real, to be able to see each other just as we were, good or bad and I know it changed me from really liking the idea of wanting to spend the rest of my life with Dennis to needing to. Of course I am still hoping he might some day get around to a proposal but I can’t wait as long as it takes.

Other things happened throughout the year. We met Jermaine at a very wet car racing event in Rockingham. I went to see Fall Out Boy with Anne. A farm with Daisy and the kids to name just a few.

I am very much looking forward to 2016. So much can go wrong but, just like the Segway, the only choice I have it to take the chance, get on and enjoy the ride.

I believe this is the single greatest issue for carers.

They (we) stop being and individual and become someone’s Carer and little more than that. It’s almost worse than owning a dog! Invites dry up because of concerns the Carer might being the person they care for. The Carer doesn’t get a break because the person they care for is always there. No phone call is ever private, if they can read then nothing written or typed is private either.

Everything, and I mean everything, is about the person being cared for. Going out the house is a messy business, it needs to be well thought through. Actually, I am about to be interrupted again so will need to stop …

… life is like that. Grabbed moments in between intense moments of Caring. I am not even talking about hands on physical caring but more the complete lack of ‘self’ type of caring where the Carer has long since allowed themselves the luxury of putting themselves first because, even if they are doing something for themselves, they are always on the ready to get ‘back to work’ again.

It is just so incredible stressful especially for those who don’t get a break where someone qualified and capable takes over, I mean, a worry free break where they can feel comfortable not answering their phone!

To make it worse, the stress lowers the immune system so often the Carer feels quite poorly too. Again, they are avoided by many because few want to ‘get involved’.

Ironically, the Carer is often the first person others turn to because they know that the Carer has probably been there and already solved the problem so they are useful. Once they’ve been helped, they walk away again totally oblivious or uncaring toward the plight of their ‘rock’.

There are a great many pleasure but, to enjoy them the Carer needs to recharge batteries and there are very few charging points!