Alex and I are one of the few couples who are both on this forum. Alex has never posted but uses it as an information source whereas I am quite verbose. He says it's because I can type faster than him

When I first found this forum, I though Alex was dying, his doctors were interested in treatment and uninterested in side effects and minimised the ones they DID mention; his GP also thought he was dying and suggested that smoking dope may help him with pain; my mother was ringing me daily and telling me how stressed I must be; my bosses were telling me to take all the time I needed but that I was overdue on this task and that project; Alex had no financial support having gone on unpaid leave from his job the day after diagnosis; and Alex's ex-wife (at the time wife) had gone feral.

I needed some sympathy and understanding of my own.

I also felt that I was going through Alex's treatment actively and Alex was going through passively. Like Cookey, I was the one questioning the doctors, going head to head with the welfare agencies, researching the best treatments and hospitals, what he was entitled to in terms of assistance and pushing Alex to tie up loose ends such as wills, divorces and property settlements. The wife had been out of the picture for over 4 years and Alex hadn't quite got around to finalising everything.

Like Charm, I have often wondered why it is either the person with OC or the caregiver on this site and rarely both parties. I also note that the majority of caregivers are women whereas there is a more even split between men and women who are OC survivors.

I believe it is the basic difference between men and women as already alluded to with Allan Pease's theory on why "Men don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps". Women are the "nesters" who have social networks and are brought up to discuss everything. Men are the "hunter gatherers" who are brought up to "suck it up" and "not be a cry baby". This translates to stoicism when they are finally diagnosed with something life threatening (assuming we women actually managed to get him to the doctor in the first place).

I suspect the male caregivers do not think to check for a forum style outlet. Clinical trials, yes. Newspaper articles, maybe. Doctors, definitely. Mates down the pub whose great Aunt Lucinda had some weird stomach thing that was probably cancer, of course!

I was amused by Alex's mates' reaction to the entire ordeal. Alex had numerous complications with collapsed lung x 3, surgical emphysema, malnutrition so was hospitalised for most of April, May and June when he was undergoing chemo. I used to take him out of the hospital for a few hours to catch up with his mates (Alex refused to have them visit him in hospital) and they would treat him as if he had been there yesterday and did not look like death warmed over. "How you going, mate?" "Not drinking schooners today?" The second he walked away they were at me - "He looks good/shithouse today", You need anything done around the house?". Their way of saying they cared. The wives were the ones who stroked him and asked him how he was feeling, what the doctors thought, how he was handling the treatment etc.