I thought my head was going to explode yesterday, I don’t remember ever having a headache like it and just moving my head a fraction of an inch found me holding onto it just in case what I don’t really know. It had started when I woke up just on one side and not to bad, but as the morning went on, it just got worse. I didn’t write about it yesterday as well, I didn’t want to,at least until it had gone away, in all honesty I was scared by it, especially when it swirled over almost my entire skull, my instant reaction was to clamp both my hands on my head, holding onto it to ensure it didn’t go anywhere. I guess we all find ourselves think the worst when we don’t know why? Now, well I think for some reason I had a migraine, something I have never had before, and it wasn’t anywhere near either of my eyes, there were many things that did match up with what I found on line, either that or I had a stroke, or an embolism, both easily dismissed. I didn’t even mention it to Adam when he came home at lunchtime as I knew that he would have insisted on doctors and so on, when all I actually needed and wanted was to lie down, something I did manage to do for most of the afternoon.

It’s strange how when you are ill, no matter how much you love someone when you feel really ill, all you actually want is to be alone and to be left alone. Illness has to be the one thing in life where love actually makes us respond in all the wrong ways. None of us can bear watching those we love suffer, so we start to fuss, to hover around trying to do what we don’t actually really know. All we want is to find that one thing, that little change that will make them feel better, so we offer up food, drinks, fluffed pillows and cuddles. Yet when you feel really ill all you really want is to be left alone to quietly die, even when there isn’t the slightest chance of that actually happening. We desperately don’t want to be seen looking at our worst, or worrying what they will be thinking of us, we are at our worst and feel useless in every way. We knew we are causing them distressed and that hurts to watch and hurts even more because we know we are at fault. Love makes the carer want to be there every second doing what they can or can’t, but it also makes the one who is ill want to pull away and hide. There really is no simple answer or anyway of getting it right, it seems that who ever you are, you are bound to get it wrong.

Living every day of your life in that circle of not being able to do the right time is a strain on everyone. Adam and I seem to manage it somehow, although I know it has destroyed many marriages and it is all to easy to see why. I guess we have found a way of letting both of us do what is right for ourselves, I let him fuss and he lets me hide. It’s not always easy and yes there are times when there is a tension between us, but we seem to have learned how to deal with it and how to walk away until it has settled. I often wonder if the fact I became ill so early in our marriage and that it’s progression has been steady has allowed both of us grow with it. Somehow we both became slowly lost to outside world, both of us lost a social life and in many ways both of us have become housebound, he just gets out daily. He has learned when to offer help, to gauge that I don’t just need it, but I will accept it. I have learned to allow him to fuss and to care and he has learned to let me get on with it when I can. Our marriage is different because there is a third factor that always has the upper hand, it doesn’t matter what either of us want, my health dictates what can happen. From my side I have a sense of guilt, even thought there was nothing I could do to change it, but I know that our life could have been so different, most of all I know Adams life could have been so different. If I dare to say that to him, well he tells me it was his choice to marry me and as my husband it is his job to care.

If illness was nothing more than feeling ill, well I know life would be totally different, but being ill is a thousand other things as well and most of them, well most of them leave us feeling as though we are a fraction of the person we should be. I admire Adam, for the woman he married is a shadow now, I am a different person, stronger in some ways, weaker and others, but no where near the person he watched playing pinball after work in the pub. Love holds us together but as I said love also pushes us apart, illness put’s a strain on everyone but it also strangely makes us closer as our lives have to be shared in more detail than most would ever think of sharing. It’s not easy on either of us, but we have found our way through it somehow and I see no reason that that should ever change, but may be one day I might actually truly understand.