My name is John. I’m 76 years old and I care for my wife Jane who is 81. I’ve been caring for Jane for 22 years. I was on the lorries working as an HGV driver. I was going up and down the road and she fell in the back yard on a really wet evening when I wasn’t home. Fortunately, she managed to get herself back into the house, but she suffered terribly. I thought ‘that can’t happen again!’ It wasn’t long after that that I had my heart attack. My doctor advised me to stop working. I became Jane’s carer. Jane has heart failure, a pacemaker, osteoarthritis, a stent in her kidney and asthma. She really struggles with her breathing. She’s on tablets to stop fluid from getting on her lungs. We are stuck in the house a lot and she thinks she holds me back. It would be nice to be able to go on a holiday. We used to go and stay in a cottage and use that as a base and go on different excursions, but we can’t now because of the circumstances. We don’t go out much. Occasionally we do, but Jane has to go in a wheelchair now. Occasionally we go out and have a meal at Craighouse.
Jane was in hospital from December to March. We’ve had carers in twice a day since last year. Jane gets a shower in the morning, and they get her into her jammies at night. That helps a lot.
I get up in the morning at quarter past six every day, give Chico (the dog) his breakfast and I take Jane a cup of tea. I have porridge every day. I do the housework and the cooking and the washing. I clean the floors every day. Jane can stick the washing in the machine, but she can’t hang it out. I can remember the days when I put a wash on, and she’d say “Ye dinnae peg it out like that…” Now it doesn’t matter. I’d say to her, “The wind gets it whatever way round it is”. She’s calmed down now. When I’m cooking, if there’s something I don’t know how to do, I just say to the gaffer “How do I do this? How do I do that?” The first Sunday breakfast Jane made me, I thought, this’ll do. The size of the plate was absolutely massive!
Someone I’ve known since I was at school, he was telling me about The Men’s Shed and I thought I’d give that a bash. And I just blended in. There’s two or three boys I’ve really befriended and get on really well with. Different functions came up. Someone at the Men’s Shed told us about Raj and his group (Carers of East Lothian – Men Who Care Group). I really enjoy the men’s group because I’m going to places I’d probably never manage to go. We were at the Railway Museum in Bo’ness. And we’re actually going to Falkirk on the barge. I can get a bit depressed not getting out much. I go to the men’s shed on a Tuesday and a Thursday 11 in the morning till 4 and Raj’s group once a month.
I like going to the men’s shed because there’s lots of different projects. If you can’t do it, you just stand and watch. There’s boys making guitars, a violin. Majority of them are making planters, wishing wells, big garden seats. There’s a pool table there as well. I used to like snooker a lot, but there’s not any snooker places in the vicinity. I used to go with a mate to Gorgie before Jane was really unwell. I used to love going down there. The tables were brand new. But it just fell away because of circumstances. There must have been 20 plus people at the men’s shed on Tuesday. The banter’s good.
Raj’s group is great. You’re meeting other people and they’re in the same circumstances as yourself. It doesn’t matter what you’ve got, there’s always somebody worse off. If I met someone who was a carer, I’d tell them, if they can get the time, to join a club, join the men’s shed, or join Raj’s men’s group. The men’s shed, you don’t need to be capable of doing anything. Boys go up there and sit and read if they want. You can sit and blether to your pal. If you don’t feel like doing anything, you don’t do anything. Maybe you’ll be doing nothing, and you’ll see somebody making something and they might need an extra hand. Me and Jane can go for a long time without talking. We’re like bookends. It’s important to have some time out. To have some me time.
I’d like to tell anyone who is a carer, or who is in a similar situation to me, don’t hesitate to get in contact with Carers of East Lothian. I don’t have a bad word to say about any of them. They’ve certainly helped me tremendously.