Learning to ask for help as a carer

When my dad started treatment, I became the person who remembered everything: appointments, medicines, which symptoms to report and which number to call at night. I kept a notebook and it filled up fast.

For the first few months I said I was fine whenever anyone asked. I was not sleeping well and I was snapping at people I love. A nurse on the ward noticed and asked how I was doing, not how Dad was doing. That question changed things.

She told me about a carers' group and how to ask the team for a written plan of who to call about what. Having the fever number written on the fridge sounds small, but it took away some of the fear.

Caring is still hard some weeks. The difference is that I no longer try to do it alone.