Right, now this is where I was about to get to this time two weeks ago, but I had too much to say on this subject and the sudden interruption from another, related, subject so I've had to do a little bit of temporal hopping to fit it all in. Anyway, I'm right at the end of my very last minute so this should be the end of the bouncing around and back to normal next week, so here we go.

Respite care. You may have heard of it. Here's the gist of how it works. You're a family of four, two parents and two kids. One of the kids has, let's say, ME and therefore the life of the family revolves, necessarily, around caring for the ill child. So once in a while they are able to take… we'll call him Nathan (he's the one with ME) to an excellent centre 20 miles away where he can spend the day feeling like a normal little boy because this place is full of people just like him, and he can be looked after and entertained by people expert in caring for children with challenging health problems. Meanwhile Mum and Dad and Sam can go for a nice day out at a fun park. No getting away from the fact that they're having a nice family day out without Nathan, but at least they can relax and enjoy themselves without the constant burden of caring to worry about. That's as good as it gets.

So that's the concept, very broadly. You get a bit of time away from being a carer, time to relax and enjoy yourself. It's a great idea and there is some Government money you can apply for to help you with this. Speaking from first and second hand experience, however, I can tell you there are a few problems:

I've been away from my wife overnight on maybe three occasions in the last eight years. I don't enjoy it very much, because I worry about her. I've explained in the past that for entirely irrational reasons I don't entirely trust anybody else looking after her, even if they are fully medically qualified. On every occasion I've left her there was a friend of ours staying with to reassure us both, but mainly me, that she would be looked after if anything went wrong. Even so, I can't relax, and since relaxing is the aim of the respite game, it doesn't really help.

Which sort of leads into my second point (moan). What do I want to do to relax in my free time? Well, funnily enough, I married my wife (she wasn't my wife when I married her, that would be overkill) in order that I could spend the rest of my life with her. Not every minute, I'm not that clingy, but basically if I was going to have a nice break and spend a day doing something fun, I'd want to take her with me. It's her condition I want to leave behind, not her. Sadly, they are joined at the hip, it's all or nothing. So if I'm going to have a relaxing time I have to be away from my wife and not worry about the fact that I'm not there to look after her, and she's not here to enjoy whatever I'm doing with me. Great.

But then I have it easy. My wife is basically functional. She can get by day-to-day. She has limitations, she needs a lot of help with pain, stiff muscles, getting her joints stuck, lifting anything remotely heavy and doing anything at all when she is too tired. But if she's in okay condition and I've sorted her medication for her before I go and nothing specifically goes wrong then she'll be okay without me for twenty-four hours. Some people don't have that luxury. Poor Nathan can't be left for that long. Luckily for his parents there's a respite centre nearby who can look after him for the day. But there's no guarantee. Such places tend to be charities and you can't be sure that anyone will be able do your caring for you while you take a break. The Government won't. That's a phrase you might want to get used to.

It's awfully whingey this piece, I'm afraid. I gave you a nice neat little solution and then tore it apart. It isn't always that bad, but it can be. That's what I'm striving to say. As in many things, there are solutions, but there are problems with those solutions. That mustn't make us throw up our arms and shout 'bugger it' and give up. It must make us roll up our sleeves and say 'Okay, how do we fix this then?'

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