THE UNSCRIPTED CARER PART 1

Let me briefly introduce myself and my “cared for”, aka my wife Nicola. I am Graham and we have been married for over 20 years, and I am 59, and cunningly married a sweet young thing 15 years my junior.

Nicola and I have both worked in IT all our lives, I specialised in Project / Program Management, and Nicola specialised as a support expert and ran a support team that provided 24*7*365 support across the world.

I won’t bore you with the companies we worked with, or their clients, suffice to say that any “canned” drinks have benefited from Graham’s work, and parcel deliveries have benefited from Nicola’s support.

We didn’t realise it at the time, but it all started to go wrong about 11 years ago when Nicola damaged her back / hips on a team building exercise! Although she was supported by her employer, she reluctantly had to give up work late 2004, and her condition has gradually got worse over time, until she is now nearly housebound and is constantly on medication. Her condition is diagnosed as instability of the sacroiliac joint, she also has a depressingly large number of food allergies that developed after catching a virulent bug on a training course, Nicola also suffers from Raynauld’s disease.

I found it increasingly difficult to balance the demands of my work, which required me to stay away from home two to three nights a week, with caring for Nicola. My employer let me work a 4 day week, but eventually this was not enough and I gave up work, having suffered from a lot of stress related illnesses.

I stopped work early 2007, and the two of us are now beginning to “get a new life” together, one that does not follow the “scripts” that we expected – hence the odd title for this blog!