NO CRYSTAL BALL is maybe a good thing

[Breezey]

Thanks Charles

So am I Charles! Looking forward to my new toy.

[ontheverge]

@breezey - I can feel your pain. My Mum's only gone 70 but she looks so old and fragile and frail now. She's the youngest in her family - her 82+ year old siblings are still knocking about and seem a lot younger than her.

I try to do the best I can for her but it's tiring and draining. I just can't turn my back on her because she was the only one that did everything for us growing up. Dad was absolutely useless and was an egotistical bully. Mum brought us all up and gave us so much love.

I stupidly read BowlingBuns signs of death and Mum ticks most of the boxes.

I'm just taking each day as it comes and don't think about tomorrow as it gets too much for me.

I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. When it gets too much for me, I'll go to bed, watch horror movies and eat lots of crisps. It's happening every night at the moment. That's the only thing that keeps me going.

I know Mum will go one day like we all will and I will be in pieces but it's too hard to think about. She's like my best friend in a weird way.

I'm glad you have friends to chat and offload with. 99% of my friends won't talk about it. My best workmate told me she has no idea how I do it day in day out. Her Mum had a hip operation and helping her got too much after 5 days so she just booked a holiday and cleared off. Lol. She was only helping with the very basics and all.

Warm wishes from me to you.

[Henrys Cat]

Sending hugs to you Breezy. I thought I was prepared with my dad as I was concentrating on his main dangers which would have been fairly immediate & life or limb threatening (complex serious heart & vascular issues) but he suddenly went blind and (excuse the pun) it blindsided both of us as he's too old to re-learn how to do everything. Then he recently had a fall and fractured his back - he can now transfer but initially it was looking like he'd be bed bound. We still don't know if he'll ever be able to get in a car again & between that and him struggling to chew much now he's losing pleasure in food & getting out, which is pretty much all he has left as he can't hear much either. If we'd had prior warning over any of this would it have changed anything? Well we might have been able to put things in place for when he went blind so that had a chance of adjusting but if we'd known it was coming we might have been able to head it off (he didn't get seen in time...)

7 months ago Dad was living independently other than us driving him places. I thought I would either get 'that' phone call from someone, it was just a case of who, or that he'd very slowly decline. I was very naïve! He's lost chunks of himself since then starting with the blindness and I'm struggling to adjust to what might come next now that I know it could be anything & that it could be totally unrelated to any of his current health issues! Children get taught about puberty, pregnancy & the menopause but nobody teaches you about what to expect when your parents get old do they?!

[Melly1]

Breezey and Henry's cat - sending you both (((hugs))).

Melly1

[Breezey]

@breezey - I can feel your pain. My Mum's only gone 70 but she looks so old and fragile and frail now. She's the youngest in her family - her 82+ year old siblings are still knocking about and seem a lot younger than her.

I try to do the best I can for her but it's tiring and draining. I just can't turn my back on her because she was the only one that did everything for us growing up. Dad was absolutely useless and was an egotistical bully. Mum brought us all up and gave us so much love.

I stupidly read BowlingBuns signs of death and Mum ticks most of the boxes.

I'm just taking each day as it comes and don't think about tomorrow as it gets too much for me.

I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. When it gets too much for me, I'll go to bed, watch horror movies and eat lots of crisps. It's happening every night at the moment. That's the only thing that keeps me going.

I know Mum will go one day like we all will and I will be in pieces but it's too hard to think about. She's like my best friend in a weird way.

I'm glad you have friends to chat and offload with. 99% of my friends won't talk about it. My best workmate told me she has no idea how I do it day in day out. Her Mum had a hip operation and helping her got too much after 5 days so she just booked a holiday and cleared off. Lol. She was only helping with the very basics and all.

Warm wishes from me to you.

Thanks
Folks live within their own experiences and some just want to be in a happy bubble, or protect their boundaries or whatever else.
Music is my mainstay, playlists, watching concerts and the radio including radio 4.

When the inevitable happens it might be a relief depending on how she is, it was for my grandad.

[Breezey]

Sending hugs to you Breezy. I thought I was prepared with my dad as I was concentrating on his main dangers which would have been fairly immediate & life or limb threatening (complex serious heart & vascular issues) but he suddenly went blind and (excuse the pun) it blindsided both of us as he's too old to re-learn how to do everything. Then he recently had a fall and fractured his back - he can now transfer but initially it was looking like he'd be bed bound. We still don't know if he'll ever be able to get in a car again & between that and him struggling to chew much now he's losing pleasure in food & getting out, which is pretty much all he has left as he can't hear much either. If we'd had prior warning over any of this would it have changed anything? Well we might have been able to put things in place for when he went blind so that had a chance of adjusting but if we'd known it was coming we might have been able to head it off (he didn't get seen in time...)

7 months ago Dad was living independently other than us driving him places. I thought I would either get 'that' phone call from someone, it was just a case of who, or that he'd very slowly decline. I was very naïve! He's lost chunks of himself since then starting with the blindness and I'm struggling to adjust to what might come next now that I know it could be anything & that it could be totally unrelated to any of his current health issues! Children get taught about puberty, pregnancy & the menopause but nobody teaches you about what to expect when your parents get old do they?!

I was pondering on that recently that you are not taught such in schools. Perhaps that is a parenting subject in their views, but parents protect your innocence and hide a lot of it from you, unless you are living with it.
Sorry to hear about your dad, that must have been harrowing time when it happened.
I hope he remains stable.

[bowlingbun]

I have often said that we are taught about "bringing up a baby" but never any mention about what it is like to be a "fifty something" with all four parents disabled and approaching the end of their lives. No one EVER tells you never to put things off until tomorrow because you might not live as long as you think, Parents want their children to look after them because then they can pretend to the world that they are fine, and "can manage" when they are neither!!