Hi Lorie

I've been on both sides of this equation, both as caregiver to my first wife who had malignant melanoma, 10 years ago. and having my own couple of battles with oral cancer in the past 2 years.

Despite all the pain I had to deal with during my recent episodes, I think that it's easier being th paitent than the caregiver, at least emotionally if not physically.

Luckily during my wife's battle with cancer I had the support of a caregiver's support group, and the one thing we learned was that in orderr to be a good caregiver, we had to take care of ourselves, without guilt. That may mean every once in a while scheduling some "me time" May be something like a trip to the beauty parlor, workout at the gym, a few hours at the golf driving range (pretend the golf balls are cancer, or frustrations in life, and you are wacking them away)- Ok, maybe not the driving range in the middle of winter, but you get the idea, or some other activity you enjoy but don't get to do.

I too found that family support only lasts so long, then everyone gets tired of being good samritan and heads back to their normal sane lives, and leaves the primary caregiver to deal with the crazyness that life becomes.

Like Gary said, see if there's a caregiver's support group around, I belonged to a group called "Wellness Community" has chapters in several cities.

Dan, Gary, Mark, Super Bowl here was on on Monday morning, on China Central TV 5, with play by play in Mandarin. Forgot to tape it, and missed the whole thing. I could just imagine the state censors gagging on their tea and jumping for the cutaway button when the top came off.

Why doesn't anything like that happen at Man United games?