Blather about aging parents and stuff
May. 14th, 2014 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsThis post contains photos of my Mum's zombie arm and my icky eye, so don't read on if you are squeamish. LOL
Staying at my parents is not exactly relaxing. Although Mum is being ridiculously self sufficient for a nearly eighty year old with a nasty broken arm with a scar about 6 inches long (see below for it's full glory), she still struggles with some things, and won’t ask for help. Then when she does ask for help, she joins in, which defeats the object really. For instance, today the neighbour on the right hand side hopped over the fence to set up her bean poles and prop up her lovely tree with the red leaves that blew over in the storms a few months back, and had fallen down again. Did she leave him to get on with it? Nope, she was down the bottom of the garden, weeding and giving him directions.
Mum's zombie arm
Then Handy Alan mowed the lawn and departed, leaving me to plant the beans. Except that meant Mum had to show me how to plant them, which in turn meant she was digging holes with me, one handed. Sigh. Doing that planting reminded my why I don’t do gardening any more – it kills my back.
To compensate for the horribleness of the bodyshockpics, have a photo of Mum's glorious garden.
The gardening saga doesn’t end there though, because she then told my Dad he had to go and do his bit – which was to tie the bean shoots to the beanpoles. I think she gave him this task because she is aware that he is upset that their neighbours are now doing things that he used to consider ‘man’s work’ and his job.
I let them both head off down to the agricultural end of the garden and waited – sure enough about twenty minutes later Mum appears saying “He’s down.”
So I have to go and help pull him to his feet from where he’s sitting in one of Mum’s vegetable beds. Fortunately he’d just toppled over backwards and scraped the backs of his calves on the wooden surround, and got soil on his back, but otherwise seems undamaged. Given that he can’t bend over these days without teetering dangerously, and his fingers don’t work for something as fiddly as knotting, I don’t think allowing him to do this job was Mum’s best idea. Once he’s down, he has no idea how to get up, let alone have the strength/coordination to do it.
He had a phone call from the hospital/doctors yesterday while we were out, saying something about the neurologist appointment, but he wasn’t sure what they’d said or even if it was the neurologist. Fortunately he did seem to think they said they were sending him a letter so hopefully that appointment will come through very soon. Mum’s first physio appointment is tomorrow while I’m in London, which is a pain because I’d have liked to have gone with her, just to make sure they write everything down for her, and treat her like a human being not an old person.
To top it all, my eye is nasty again today, when I’d thought it was clearing up yesterday. I can feel it – kind of bruised and raw, and sure enough, it’s become more bloodshot again. I meant to try and ring the Eye Clinic but only just remembered now at 10pm.
My icky eye
The scary thing about this pic, even though it's out of focus, is that you can clearly see the cloudiness on the cornea that is the damage the inflammation causes when those blood vessels bleed over the edge of the cornea and across the eye. Meep! Hopefully there isn't any of that happening again at the moment, but it's hard to tell.
So tomorrow I have to travel down to London for a meeting, I have to be up at 5:30 and probably won't get home to the parents' until 8:30-9pm when I have to pack ready for Birmingham and Asylum 12 on Friday. Oh, globbits. I am not ready for this at all!
Staying at my parents is not exactly relaxing. Although Mum is being ridiculously self sufficient for a nearly eighty year old with a nasty broken arm with a scar about 6 inches long (see below for it's full glory), she still struggles with some things, and won’t ask for help. Then when she does ask for help, she joins in, which defeats the object really. For instance, today the neighbour on the right hand side hopped over the fence to set up her bean poles and prop up her lovely tree with the red leaves that blew over in the storms a few months back, and had fallen down again. Did she leave him to get on with it? Nope, she was down the bottom of the garden, weeding and giving him directions.
Mum's zombie arm
Then Handy Alan mowed the lawn and departed, leaving me to plant the beans. Except that meant Mum had to show me how to plant them, which in turn meant she was digging holes with me, one handed. Sigh. Doing that planting reminded my why I don’t do gardening any more – it kills my back.
To compensate for the horribleness of the bodyshockpics, have a photo of Mum's glorious garden.
The gardening saga doesn’t end there though, because she then told my Dad he had to go and do his bit – which was to tie the bean shoots to the beanpoles. I think she gave him this task because she is aware that he is upset that their neighbours are now doing things that he used to consider ‘man’s work’ and his job.
I let them both head off down to the agricultural end of the garden and waited – sure enough about twenty minutes later Mum appears saying “He’s down.”
So I have to go and help pull him to his feet from where he’s sitting in one of Mum’s vegetable beds. Fortunately he’d just toppled over backwards and scraped the backs of his calves on the wooden surround, and got soil on his back, but otherwise seems undamaged. Given that he can’t bend over these days without teetering dangerously, and his fingers don’t work for something as fiddly as knotting, I don’t think allowing him to do this job was Mum’s best idea. Once he’s down, he has no idea how to get up, let alone have the strength/coordination to do it.
He had a phone call from the hospital/doctors yesterday while we were out, saying something about the neurologist appointment, but he wasn’t sure what they’d said or even if it was the neurologist. Fortunately he did seem to think they said they were sending him a letter so hopefully that appointment will come through very soon. Mum’s first physio appointment is tomorrow while I’m in London, which is a pain because I’d have liked to have gone with her, just to make sure they write everything down for her, and treat her like a human being not an old person.
To top it all, my eye is nasty again today, when I’d thought it was clearing up yesterday. I can feel it – kind of bruised and raw, and sure enough, it’s become more bloodshot again. I meant to try and ring the Eye Clinic but only just remembered now at 10pm.
My icky eye
The scary thing about this pic, even though it's out of focus, is that you can clearly see the cloudiness on the cornea that is the damage the inflammation causes when those blood vessels bleed over the edge of the cornea and across the eye. Meep! Hopefully there isn't any of that happening again at the moment, but it's hard to tell.So tomorrow I have to travel down to London for a meeting, I have to be up at 5:30 and probably won't get home to the parents' until 8:30-9pm when I have to pack ready for Birmingham and Asylum 12 on Friday. Oh, globbits. I am not ready for this at all!
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no subject
Date: 2014-05-14 09:36 pm (UTC)*takes over your post to complain about own parents*
I'm glad your father wasn't damaged in his fall. And that is indeed an absolutely gorgeous garden. Good luck with all the stress and traveling.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-14 09:42 pm (UTC)It's great that they are independent, but boy, it does make things difficult sometimes! Dad falling over is such a common place thing, as is his propensity for doing the most ridiculously dangerous things - like turning the light OFF on the stairs before going up them to bed. Mum has to go up first now, so she can turn on the light in her study and leave it on, so he can't go up in the dark. Argh!
Your annual mouse dropping clean up always provides a challenge, eh?
no subject
Date: 2014-05-14 10:38 pm (UTC)Bless your Mum and Dad, it's really hard when you've got a limb out of commission (trust me I know) and it sounds like your Mum's being really positive about the whole deal; just make sure she isn't too positive, and end up doing herself some damage ... and I'm glad your Dad wasn't hurt by his tumble into the beans!
no subject
Date: 2014-05-15 01:11 am (UTC)