Saturday 25 October 2014

No. 114. Shifting balance.

I'm pretty good at coping with the practicalities of this disease, helping Chris cope day by day, even planning ahead for all his needs in my mind. I think though it is a distraction for coping with the emotional side of things. Writing this blog is too.

This morning I had to get a bale of hay for our two retired old horses, now I'm a pretty rubbish farmer's wife, I never got the hang of driving tractors etc and Chris always helped with that side of things anyway. I did ask my brother-in-law, but he is pretty busy these days, so I thought I would try and fetch one myself. I got our little sack trolley and ventured off to the hay shed. I managed to pull a bale down, our bales are really heavy. I struggled though to get it onto the trolley and it weighed a ton dragging it to the field. Opening the field gate is tricky anyway, even more so with the bale and trolley. The bale fell on the floor, I ended up struggling in the mud trying to get it back up again, but eventually I made it to the little shed in the paddock.

Now why am I telling you all of this? While I was trying to get this bale of hay to the field I started to cry, partly because of frustration and anger, but partly because I realised how much I depended on Chris for so many things. I always did/do all the decorating, DIY and gardening with Jordan's help, but everything thing else outside the home was down to Chris. Suddenly everything hit me, that I was losing Chris bit by bit and one day it would be forever. Then the tears really started to fall.

I guess in every relationship we have our roles, I still can't bring myself, most of the time anyway, to think of when Chris will no longer be around, but I am already having to learn to be so much more independent of him than I was. The irony of course is that with everything I have to learn to do for myself, there is one more thing he has to depend on me for. That doesn't bother me at all, doing things for him, but I would be lying if I said I didn't miss Chris being able to do the things for me that he used to and I know he does too.

The balance has shifted, we will both adapt of course, but it is yet something else that MND does. It doesn't just steal things from Chris, but it inevitably steals things from me and the children too and eventually it will steal the most precious thing of all, my darling Christopher.

There is not a word strong enough to describe quite how much I hate MND.