A peer support community, independent and not for sale. Since February 2024.

GLP CircleA peer support community

Carers

How I keep my own bloods monitored while managing his

Started 18 September 2025 · 14 replies · 138 hearts · read 2.2k times

SerenLlandudno, UK · 18 September 2025
10 months ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: How I keep my own bloods monitored while managing his

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

Practical question, and possibly a silly one, but the logistics of this are defeating me considerably more than the medicine is.

I would rather hear one person's actual arrangement in detail than five general suggestions, if anybody is willing to write theirs out.

No hurry. I have a fortnight before I need to decide anything.

46

IdrisCardiff, UK
#1

What I would say to somebody starting is to build it into something you already do, because anything additional will not survive a difficult month.

10

FitzLimerick, IE
#2

My sleep is broken for reasons that have nothing to do with this, and separating the tiredness has been the hardest analytical problem.

11

PipBristol, UK
#3

The appointments are the difficult logistics. Finding cover for an hour is harder than any of the medical side.

8me too 4

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK
#4

Holding a boundary kindly: we do not discuss what anybody should be eating in this circle. A couple of replies have edged that way and I am steering us back.

20

PamSouthport, UK
#5

Just marking that I read this properly rather than skimming it.

10

IzoldaVilnius, LT
#6

What I got right was keeping this very simple. No tracking, no apps, no projects. One thing, once a week, written in a notebook.

7

SableCape Town, ZA
#7

I have found the check-ins here more useful than the circles, because two lines on a Tuesday is what I can actually manage.

7

ÖzlemIzmir, TR
#8

Building on what Izolda wrote rather than answering the original question.

Something that helped was telling one member of the family what I am doing, so that somebody other than me knows.

8me too 8

BramberSteyning, UK
#9

The best practical advice I have had here was to prepare for the bad weeks rather than the good ones. Everything I built assumes a difficult week.

10me too 7

LinnetKendal, UK
#10

What surprised me was how much I needed somewhere that was not about him. This circle is the only place in my week that is.

5

KeeleyBlackpool, UK
#11

Building on what Linnet wrote rather than answering the original question.

The guilt about spending money or time on myself was the hardest part, and it is still the hardest part two years in.

9me too 5

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA
#12

I would say ask about a carer's assessment if you have not. Mine took an hour and unlocked things I did not know existed.

8

LandoLeeds, UK
#14

Keeley said something I want to sit with for a second.

My GP asked how I was doing as a carer, once, unprompted, and I cried in the appointment, which surprised us both.

7