That’s me, a chuffin’ liability. Diagnosed ten years ago with “mild” PPMS. So chuffin (I love that word) mild I’ve not been able to live independently for most of them. I’ve deteriorated steadily. I can’t do much at all now. I was somewhat deluded back then, I really believed to NHS would look after me, that there’d be support and assistance.
I’ve learned that being disabled is expensive, I’ve been means tested and it’s been decreed that I’d have to spend tens of thousands of pounds before I’d become eligible for assistance. We have a modest bungalow, a mortgage, and a nice car, courtesy of a car loan, no savings left, but no one will tell me how they arrived at that figure I do get PIP which helps enormously and I am grateful. We both have occupational pensions, so we’re absolutely not poor, so I mustn’t grumble. I’ve paid for wet room and building work, including a ramp to make my home accessible.
When I married an older man I expected to have to look after him in his old age, not have him spend his old age looking after me, which incidentally he does wonderfully, with good humour and mostly without complaint.
That brings me to the liability bit. He’s I’ll in bed with gastro enteritis, probably the chuffin’ (there it is again) noro virus that’s doing the rounds. I can’t look after him. I’m a liability. I don’t care that I’m not showered or dressed, or that I haven’t had anything to eat. I want to cry because I can’t take care of the love of my life. He’d be better off without me.
I don’t have carers I’m not eligible for help, I’d have to pay, but we have been stubbornly independent thus far, congratulating ourselves that we’re coping without outside interference. We have no family, just each other, but that’s another story. People we thought were friends vanished soon after my diagnosis. I’m not very good at asking for help, and absolutely will not impose on the few friends who didn’t run for the hills. They have enough to do.
Thank you to those who’ve got to the end of this long post, I really have no right to grumble.