This got me thinking.

Thanks to the wonderful Amoxycillin (or however you pronounce it) I'm now feeling an awful lot better. I just need to get this blinding headache under control and I think I'll be back to normal - whatever that is lol. I also mentioned to my doctor about our last appointment with the consultant and she was just as ruffled as I was. She offered to speak to the consultant for me, but I asked her not to this time, but that I felt happy that she had noted my concerns because that way it's written down and if it comes back to bite me on the a**e, then I can say that I've voiced my opinions and that they were ignored.

Anyhoo. Watching Coronation Street tonight the Hayley and Roy story got me thinking. I know the illness is different, but what if my hubby brings this conversation up?Hmmm. Which side of the fence would I choose to sit on? About two years ago when he was told he couldn't drive anymore and there was the prospect of him not getting his licence back he told me that if he didn't then he would finish it there and then because without his licence he had no life. I responded by saying that I understood, but if he did that whilst I would understand he would also have to realise that I might have the girls with me when I found him. Now in hindsight this might seem a very simplistic response to a very complicated statement, but I was thrown, I really was. He got his license back and I haven't thought about that conversation since. Until Coronation Street.

There's two ways that I can see that I could respond to this statement if he made it again. There's there "ok - if that's what you want" way or the "don't do that, I don't want you to" way.

Sitting thinking about both of the above and I realise that both are quite selfish. If I say "ok", is it because I'm thinking of him and what would be better for him or is it because it would make life easier for me? It would cut out a lot of the crap that this illness brings with it, and whilst we're nowhere near what a lot of people deal with on a day to day basis I know it will come. It would mean that we wouldn't have to go through the cruelty that dementia brings with it, that we get to the end without the long, hard slog. Yet if I say "don't do that" is it because I'm thinking about him or because I'm being selfish by wanting to keep him till the very end even though it means that he will be so ill and confused and "not him" but he'll still be here.

I can not see an easy way to answer this as a partner of the person who wants this. I don't blame anyone for wanting this. I understand their reasons, I really, really do and I think that if I was in a position like this then I would probably make the same decision as Hayley is, but then this doesn't make it any easier does it? It doesn't make it any easier for any of the people involved. Whichever way you respond to this you would be left thinking "are you doing the right thing?" or "have you done the right thing?" and gosh, I just think that it is such an awful position to find yourself in, a no win situation that you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

I don't think that there could be anything worse that my husband could say to me than this - and I hope to God that it isn't said in the future (because we skated over it first time round), and hoping that this conversation doesn't arise makes me selfish, again. Y'see Dementia? I know we win the odd battle or two but I also know you'll win the war, but in the meantime we'll put up a bloody good fight - just so you know.