An End, the Start but not a Beginning

Denis' blog - click to view. Checkout his Pageview count!

A year ago Denis Wright, author of the very well-regarded My Unwelcome Stranger blog died. There were many wonderful things in Denis' blog but what particularly engaged Ros and myself was some of the posting and commenting about the gritty innards of the Carer/Care Recipent relationship. 

That relationship, always difficult, becomes a horror in its own right when the two participants love each other. To put it bluntly, how can the love outlive all the other stuff.

Eighteen months ago things were easier, and we wrote in Unwelcome Stranger and realised how much we needed to read other people talking about this stuff, and vice versa. We had the idea of this blog as a place where that could happen.

Now we have talked it up enough to make certain that we do it so welcome to It's You and Me B abe

I am Dr David Stratton and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1996. I am now Secondary Progressive and quite profoundly disabled - more on that later.

Ros Hart is the love of my life, my wife and happens to be my Carer - much more on that later.

The third person in our bed, and how useful it is to see things this way, is Mr MS.

We will each write in different fonts so that you can tell who is speaking. This font (Times New Roman) is for me and Arial is for Ros. For the moment we are not sure if Mr MS needs a voice - we will see.

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Denis and Tracey --with  this blog we honour him

Yes. We have Denis to thank for this blog. Please check out his exquisite blog (linked by Dave above). It is profound and lyrical and literary and deeply engaging. It is regarded highly enough to have been selected for preservation by the Australian National Library in its Pandora Archive. So,it's a big "thank you, Den....I think!".He urged us to get on with starting this blog but I've procrastinated. 

You will see quite a lot of the conversations we had with Denis and his other blog-followers ( I was going to say "devotees" because that's what we all were as far as Denis Wright was concerned - we were all thoroughly devoted).

This isn't going to be easy. We've been talking about doing a blog for years because the whole living-with-a-chronic-illness-and- increasing-disability-experience has been so interesting. It's challenged us to the centre of our selves - and has challenged the very centre of our relationship.

I have been reluctant to start because it's much, much easier to get on with the business of every day, than to stop and reflect on what has happened, what is happening, and what will probably happen.

Dave has been urging me to get on with it.
It's only through his persistence that this is happening. If I could say no to him, I would because this will require a necessary pondering upon incremental grief.

But here we are at the start of a blog. I look forward mostly to the honest, respectful, sometimes funny, often moving conversations that, hopefully, will unfold here. Please join us.