Let me start by saying, isn’t that a stupid term? ‘Carer’. Of course we care, everybody cares but I suppose ‘looks after-er’ is a bit of a mouthful.

Over the Christmas period, I was left asking this question, ‘who cares for the carers’? Actually it’s been on my mind for a while, since a nurse dealing with my husband asked me in a rather patronising tone, ‘aw, is he nervous’? He was going for what they call a nuclear study which is when he had a radioactive substance injected into him and then he was scanned to see if the cancer had spread. Of course he was nervous – but so was I.

I hadn’t slept well either and I was doing the driving. I was in the waiting room with nobody to talk to and only a book for company which I found my eyes scanned over the same page several times and I hadn’t read a word.

This isn’t a new feeling. I’ve been labelled ‘carer’ for a while but there is something I’ve discovered: No-one asks ‘How are you‘?

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a ‘poor me’ post or a shout for attention sort of thing. It’s an observation. Carers are the invisible cogs that keep the machine working. While we do the usual things like the shopping, cleaning, cooking and so on, some of us also do the home-schooling, the dealing with all things car, financial and the other problems that pop up which we wish someone else would tend to. But there is no-one else to do it. Then we have the caring aspect. The appointment keeping, the tablets/medication tracking and ordering, the washing, dressing and the other physical aspects.

We also have to be the counsellors, the listening ear, the support – whether we’ve had sleep or not. Whether our own stress levels are so high we find ourselves bursting into tears when we look in the fridge and find we’ve ran out of something.

It’s the little things that would help like someone making me a cup of coffee. You have no idea how much I would like that some days. Just a cup of coffee and maybe even a wee ‘here you go’.

This doesn’t mean I get no help at all. Our son is actually great at helping with the housework and the dishes but there is only so much I can put on him. So I try to be the shield as I know so many other carers do. I’ll carry the burden and pretend this is normal life so he doesn’t feel it so much.

And yes, there is an organisation here which offers information and advice. I believe they have a drop-in group once a month where you can go and sit with other ‘carers’. It starts at 10am. Sorry, I’m not getting anywhere at that time of the day unless it’s an emergency! Besides, I really don’t feel like sitting in a room of strangers discussing how they cope with their autistic child – I realise how that sounds and it’s not how I mean it. I just live in a different world to that.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this post other than to raise the question in the title. Maybe if you know someone who has the label, ‘carer’, you could make a point of asking them how they are, or better still, make them a coffee so they don’t have to.