Physical intimacy; subthemes and direct quotations
| Physical intimacy | |
| 1.1 An overwhelming exhaustion | ‘… if I was tired I wanted to go up to bed. I’ll be thinking, ‘right I might go up to bed and get some sleep here’, you know rather than that [implying intimacy] at the time. Until people have not had some sleep it’s hard to explain how bad it is!…This was hard for me to try explaining to my partner; she thought that … I was pushing her away. I wasn’t’ (ID1/M/34) |
| 1.2 A third party | ‘My Bricanyl pump‘s… a big part of our relationship as well, we have to manoeuvre the pump around the actions in the bedrooms. There’s times when he has to hold the pump, so it’s like three people in the relationship’ (ID5/F/32) |
| 1.3 Palpitations and Paramedics | ‘Then you get to that peak where I basically feel like I’m going to die, if you know what I mean… I’m getting light headed because your body’s doing all sorts and your heart’s racing. There were some scary times to the point where [my partner said], “we’ll have to phone the ambulance”, I’ll [say] “No, are you mad?” We can’t do that, when they say, “well, what happened, what have you done to her?” … But I do have panics’ (ID12/F/48) |
| 1.4 Adaptation and experimentation | ‘I have now noticed that I can’t take the weight on my chest; so we’ve experimented. And all I can say is thank God for cushions and pillows, because you can sort of wedge yourself upwards and help with different positions which are comfortable for your chest basically. And it is experimentation’ (ID9/F/47) |
| 1.5 Practical Difficulties | ‘There’s certain parts that you do like, you know, intimate things that you have to be really careful about because obviously they’re restricting your airways and you can’t breathe’ (ID13/F/59) |