My dh is ill at the moment. He is crippled with arthritis and sciatica, can't walk or stand and is dependent on me to get his food/drinks as he cannot feed himself at the moment. He is diabetic and needs regular food and medication, and as his powerful pain relief makes him dopey I'm having to monitor him and make sure he's taking his medicine at the right times. He also had a heart scare at the weekend and got taken to hospital with chest pains and breathing problems which was really scary even though they couldn't find anything obvious. He cannot drive so needs me to take him to his medical appointments and do all the errands we normally share. I'm happy to look after him, after all he's my husband and I love him dearly and I know he'd do the same for me. Thing is, we have his 3 kids living with us and while I don't mind doing general stuff like shopping, cooking and some of the laundry I absolutely do not want to take on responsibility for ferrying skids to school and back and to appointments etc and doing all the things that dh normally does as their parent.

Luckily, it's school holidays at the moment so ss9 and ss10 are with bm for the next 10 days. Their uncle came to pick them up as dh couldn't drive them the 70 miles to bm's house, and he's offered to bring them back if dh is still struggling. We've only ss16 at home this week and he's actually been quite helpful, helping keep the house tidy, fetching and carrying for dh and helping look after the dogs. Before ss9 and ss10 went to bm's, last week was a nightmare. I'm not in the best of health myself and work part time. I had to work, look after dh, run skids to school and back and take them to dentist and opticians appointments plus doing all the shopping, cooking and chores on my own (skids helped a bit). I was totally exhausted and was so relieved when skids uncle offered to come and pick them up, as I was expecting to have to drive a 140-mile round trip to get them to bm's. I pray that dh is better by the time the skids come back and school starts again, as I'm feeling so stressed at the thought of having another week like last week. I could feel myself getting more and more worn out as the week went on and I dread having to take on dh's responsibilities when skids come back if he's not well enough. I feel selfish for saying that, but at the same time I know I have to look after myself and can't afford to risk making my own health worse as it's not good to start with. I have already told dh that the skids are going to have to do a lot more around the house and he agrees. They're not too bad and will help with stuff, but dh isn't always good at enforcing and following through and tends to forget about things. I've told him that his previous sloppy attempts at enforcing chores is not good enough and, ill or not, there are no excuses and he needs to become much stricter.

Our options for getting help from elsewhere are very limited. We have no family in the area that could help with the school run and there's no other way of getting there than driving them because it's a few miles away and not on a direct bus route. Taxis are out of the question as we're on a really tight budget and struggling to make ends meet already. Same goes for getting a cleaner - I'd love to, but we just can't afford it. Terrible as it may sound, I have it in my mind that if dh turns out to have a long term problem which isn't going to get better anytime soon, he's going to have to seriously consider letting ss9 and ss10 go to live with bm. She desperately wants custody and is at the moment trying to drag us back through court to get them, despite them living happily with us for the last 6 years. She's a crap parent who is mentally unstable which is why dh got custody in the first place, but if his health means he is unable to do his routine parenting duties, then we're probably not going to have any other option but to let her have them. Our only other option would be for me to give up work and become a full time carer to dh and take on skid duties but that is the last thing I want, plus the fact that here in the UK the government have made it nearly impossible for families in genuine need to get any state help so we would be destitute, not to mention homeless as we live in tied accommodation which comes with my job, so if I left my job we would lose our home too. I can't get these worrying thought out of my mind and it's driving me crazy!