A Carer ’ s Guide to :
Help and support
A Carer ’ s Guide to :
Recognition
Gillie , a Carers UK member wrote a guide to surviving as a carer on an online group . Other carers loved the guide , so Gillie ’ s son produced a poster that people bought and used the words as their mantra when they had stressful days . We asked Gillie to turn her inspirational words to create a guide to recognising yourself as a carer .
Caring was always in the background to my relationship with Phil – both when we were friends and after we got together 18 years ago . I always knew what might be in store as my husband has had type 1 diabetes for over 50 years . As time has gone on he has suffered from several other conditions that have arisen as complications of the diabetes – heart failure , high blood pressure , balance problems , bowel issues and his hearing is not as good as it used to be now either .
I originally gave up my job as a teacher to care for my dad who was terminally ill seven years ago . Around the same time , after a distressing prognosis following a consultation with a neurologist , I began to realise that my husband needed more support , reassurance and care than he had before . I then started to monitor his diabetes , manage his pump and help him with his medication . Once the kidney failure
“ I originally gave up my job as a teacher to care for my dad who was terminally ill seven years ago ”
“ It ’ s taken a lot of learning to get to grips with the complexity of caring for someone who has multiple serious conditions ”
started I checked that he was eating what he needed to manage his diabetes and kidney function well .
Then one day , he had a hypoglycaemic shock and was unconscious , I couldn ’ t get an ambulance out to us quickly enough and I had to take charge of the situation and take care of him . That ’ s when I realised that I was his main care giver and that I needed to have more control over his care .
It ’ s taken a lot of learning to get to grips with the complexity of caring for someone who has multiple serious conditions such as kidney and heart failure , but I always read up on his conditions , ask a lot of questions and feel well informed .
We ’ ve also been very lucky that the Bournemouth diabetic centre has been great , as is our renal nurse – Phil is very close to starting dialysis , which has lots of additional complications . I can just call our
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