Well, we have been thinking about what the psychiatrist had suggested and mulling over if there is any benefit to be had from his suggestions. One suggestion was Karen be admitted to hospital to sort her out. Mum suggested the Priory which has worked miracles for one of our family friends, but the thought of any sort of “hospital” visit turns her stomach.

I wrote to the Professor chap who is supposed to put things in place to help Karen. Within 15 minutes, I had a reply even though he was on holiday in Italy – very impressive. He is back this week and is going to “get onto it” straight away, which was good to hear. I have also emailed the great neuropsychologist who has done so much good for Karen in the past. No reply yet.

Friday, I stayed off work again as there was no way I could leave her in the state she was in. Adele came to clean the house etc, but apart from a short chat with her, she pretty much slept the whole day.

Saturday, we had agreed that she would try and get her sleeping patterns back in order as we felt that this would be the right first step. All in all, she did pretty well. She stayed asleep until about 10am. We had tried to set something to do for each day of the weekend. Today (‘cos of the weather) it was shopping at Sainsburys. She wasn’t in the mood for it. On the way round, we bumped into one of my workmates. Karen had met Helen a couple of times before, but seemed bemused as to who she was. I could tell Karen wasn’t in the mood for socialising and thankfully Helen picked up on this too, and moved on after a little natter – thanks Helen !!! Very perceptive !

We got halfway round Sainsburys, and got half of our shopping list, but kp had had enough and we went home.

She wasn’t going to make the full day so she went for a snooze.

We watched the film she had fallen asleep in earlier (“Inside Man” – very good), and then got ready for bed. In bed, we watched Parkinson’s favourite entertainers. It went through people like Ken Dodd, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire and George Best. Half way through George Best, kp was in tears and very upset. Parky was discussing whether George Best had a self-destruct button (with regards the alcohol etc…). kp felt that she might be the same as him (obviously, not with the alcohol). She was so upset, we had to get up and have a talk about it. There was probably 30 minutes of tears, that’s a long time when you’re living it. Eventually, she was calm enough to sleep.

Today (Sunday) has been a cracking day so far. The weather was glorious, we were up at 8am and off out in the car to a picnic spot we sometimes used to go to walk the dogs. I say we were up at 8am. I was, Karen had been up since 3am. We had a lovely walk. We couldn’t do the usual route for obvious reasons, but we got to the bit where the dogs could swim in the (fast-flowing) river. It was really special after so much heart ache recently. We even got to talking about the future. We didn’t finish the conversation but we are going to. kp is not back to “normal” by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a definite improvement, and I am hoping it is the start of a long uphill trend.