I agree. This morning he was doing his 15 arch back upwards exercise (without my having to tell him to do this and that in itself is a miracle). He also said "I feel a bit better". And I was up at 4:30 a.m. and noticed he was very still. He is NEVER still when he sleeps, his feet are always jumping and twitching. I had to take my portable light and I shined it on him to see if he was breathing. I kid you not. I have never seen him have an undisturbed sleep.

He feels the PT/Acupuncture is going to help him. So do I but it's going to take time. Just now he was in pain and is now napping.

So while (and I know this is just the beginning), I just hope that down the road he'll be in less pain, more active and able to do more stuff. For 14 years I have been the primary caregiver doing absolutely everything. And I have Osteoarthritis. It's all getting to me.

I know it's natural to get defensive and resentful but I'm at the point where all this giving and not getting is getting a bit much. I can't help him off the couch (even with him using the couch cane). my back can't take it and I told him.

Honestly, I think I'm just being used. It seems like that. He could never do anything like that for me. He admitted it.

I actually believe he would accept going to a nursing home and be taken care of. He has no idea what that would entail and that he would NOT be taken care of. He was in rehab for 6 weeks after his TURP (to get his muscles working better before being released). The nurses didn't do a darn thing. I had to help clean him, make his bed, believe me, it was not easy going back and forth with no help. Taking cabs every day.

And this guy thinks that if he lived in a nursing home, he'd do bingo and would be taken care of.

That's what the guy down the street from me thought also. He was 80 though, went from being a tough long shoreman to being a man who no longer could use his legs. He happily let himself be put in a nursing home. All he did was sleep, never called his wife. she would say "He doesn't seem to miss me, I don't know what to do". She was 20 years younger by the way.

Well, in less than a year, he died in that nursing home and now she's forced to move.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Sometimes it gets rather hard to be be doing everything.

I am now going to out and buy myself something. I mean, SOMEONE has to take care of me once in a while.

Melody