Thanks, Curry, for your generous praise and encouragement. I am goimg to ask at the VA about support groups. People who've never done this can't really know what it's like. I certainly didn't know. Since he's much older than me, I always assumed I would end up his caretaker and thought I knew what I was in for. But I didn't expect he'ld be this dependent for such a long time - years. I didn't expect that years of my life would be so utterly consumed by his situation. I have no legal or moral obligation to keep taking this on. And our relationship wasn't so great, ever. But we have been very close, despite our ups and down, for quite a long time. He means a great deal to me, though, at times, I'm not even sure why.

Crypts, my dream is to have 24 consecutive hours all to myself. The person who was here today as a sitter tells me he's open to doing more short stints, even spur of the moment. That could be very valuable.

I'm no saint. At times, I'm irritable with him, beyond what him being snappy to me warrants. What's sad is that the care he gets from me, even at my worst, seems arguably better than what he got in the nursing home on the best if days. Nursing homes that are largely financed by Medicaid are not up to the standard of places with mostly private-pay patients, not that those are great, either. (I worked in some of the best, where the patients were all wealthy.) It makes me fear growing old.

Today I got out for four hours and I feel pretty good now. This instability of mood is wretched. I have to do matter at sticking to some routine.

Thank you for the posts above. A large part of my difficulty is that I am so isolated. Neither of us has family within thousands of miles. It helps for someone to hear and empathize.