to have reached a new low? Life sucks.

[kittycat37]

This is probably the wrong place to post but I don't know where else to.

I'm at breaking point. Thought things were ok until two days ago. I have a DD of 3 and another of 8wks.

My Dad has MS (badly - paralysed apart from one hand). My Mum has been his carer with help from social services for last 18yrs. Me and my brother help out a bit.

Two days ago my Mum was taken into hospital having had a stroke. She'll be there a while.

I came straight to parents house (2hrs from where I live) with baby as BF, DH stayed in London with 3 yr old. My bro is in USA for a week with work.

I'm struggling - managing to keep it together in front of parents but crying by myself rest of time. Am totally overwhelmed. DH coming here tonight thank God although he'll have to commute to work so I'll have kids and parents to look after next week. Nightmare as visiting hrs at hosp mean leaving Dad on own (not good) and they don't let kids on the ward.

Just tell me I'm reasonable to be finding it tough. Please, before I lose the plot.

You poor thing. It sounds horrendous. We had something similar in Jan - dad had a quadruple bypass and I went home to stay with mum (I live in Hungary, family are all in Dublin) and while there Mum had a few falls and was very confused. We suspected a stroke (she had one 2 years ago) so got her into hosp. Because Dad was in hosp and also even when out would be unable to care for her and he needed caring for, they both ended up in nursing homes for a week. But we had to be tough about and say that there was nobody to look after mum - I had to get back here and although i have 3 sisters and they did as much as they could they were all constrained by jobs and babies.

I would be hesitant about moving closer really. Not a decision to make based on emotions at the moment.

But you do need to sit down with your brother and talk about what is possible for both of you with regard to caring for your parents and then you need t sit down with your parents and talk about the future. Your dad will preumably get to be too much for your mum to manage. And she will not get back to normal for some time (if at all - strokes can leave personality changes and debilitating tiredess).

Yes Buda - you're right about not deciding about moving at the moment I think. Did your Mum make a full recovery from the stroke? How do your parents manage now? It's comforting to hear similar experiences.

Hi kitty. My mum was lucky with her stroke in that the only residual damage is speech ephasia (where she gets words wrong). She also gets headaches and is constantly tired. However with my mum a lot is self inflicted in that she does nothing and goes nowhere and won't get up and do anything to help herself. She was like this way before the stroke. She is only 72 but acts 92!

My Dad recovered well from his op and he does the looking after her and does everything in the house. My sister has just managed to get district nurse involved so we will see what (if anything) comes of that.