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Post by mossie on Mar 24, 2019 12:29:29 GMT
It was when I had to take over in the kitchen that I started to realise all was not well. I would come home and find something in the oven, but she had no idea how long it had been there or when it should come out. I was able to take over without any protest when for over 50 years she had been in complete command of the house.
Difficult days, and I sympathise with anybody suffering the same.
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Post by questa on Mar 24, 2019 12:57:58 GMT
It is the reward/payment we carry for living longer lives. How many of us would not have lived due to infections, illnesses that needed surgery, having (and losing) many babies, malnutrition etc. Life has become so much longer that now we are dealing with geriatric complications on a scale not seen before. Now the roles are reversed, the child looks after the parent, even if the child is ageing as well.
I wonder where it will end up when the wise elders of the communities take over.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 24, 2019 13:56:31 GMT
Most of our countries are beginning to take senior problems a bit more seriously but they are still hoping for some sort of deus ex machina (perhaps a huge epidemic?) to relieve the situation.
I believe they need to think about all of this as a medical emergency.
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Post by questa on Mar 24, 2019 23:46:23 GMT
Bill Gates et al are attempting to rid the planet from Malaria with noted success in many places. Has anyone thought ahead? While this sounds callous, malaria has been the biggest disease that has kept the over-populated world in some sort of balance. 2017 stats indicate about 435,000 died that year from malaria. What would happen if they had lived, adding to the population further?
Eventually wars will break out as people fight for land, water and fuel. Just as the 'Black Death' plague and the Spanish 'flu decimated the population, another disease will be needed to restore the population balance. Science fiction writers...the field is yours.
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Post by mossie on Mar 25, 2019 8:15:35 GMT
So true Questa. Last century we had two world wars and Stalinism and Maoism trying to check populations withlimited success. I’ll refer you back to my query to my doctor for a pill because I was becoming useless and a general nuisance. It has to happen
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Post by questa on Mar 25, 2019 13:04:36 GMT
Given the fact that stats indicate that the expenses in the last year of life are often greater than the rest of the lifetime, I guess it is only a matter of time before treatment will be limited to people at certain ages.
My neighbour is Senior Nurse in the Renal Unit. She told me of a woman of 87 donated a kidney to her husband of 90. When I said "Aww, isn't that lovely" my friend said they did it to top the record of live kidney donors and recipients. I wonder how much that little exercise cost the public purse. Pathology and radiology testing are terribly expensive. I feel they are used more often than can be justified. A patient in their terminal few days should not be carted off to have brain scans done, for example.
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Post by bjd on Mar 25, 2019 19:01:57 GMT
You are not 87 years old, are you, Whatagain?
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Post by lagatta on Apr 16, 2019 14:03:07 GMT
We had a co-op member in his 30s who was on dialysis. I think he has a new kidney now (they have moved elsewhere). Young and youngish people who are otherwise in good health get priority, as they should.
Brother makes more sense than wife, as in most cases, the husband and wife won't be close relatives.
I agree with Questa about overtreatment and medical heroics. Australia is a rich country, of course, but there are still health challenges. As in Canada, mostly among the Indigenous population.
The husband in a couple of friends is dying - do we have another thread more appropriate to that issue?
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 17, 2019 14:22:53 GMT
Not yet, but it would be appropriate to start one, since we are more and more prone to want to talk about medical issues that luckily do not concern us personally but which affect our lives anyway. You may recall my old report about my friend Donna who allowed herself to die rather than waiting for a kidney transplant. None of us ever understood that, since she was an illegal alien in France and yet had received 100% medical coverage. You can think of the title for the thread.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 17, 2019 19:29:46 GMT
There already was one with the succinct title Grief. I've posted at it. Yes, of course I remember Donna.
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Post by mich64 on Apr 17, 2019 22:16:32 GMT
We brought my dad to the hospital last week for a cataract to be removed from one eye. My brother will be there to help him in two weeks when the other eye gets done as we will be away on holiday. The procedure went well, I was a little worried as his blood pressure can get pretty high, but no problems!
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Post by whatagain on Apr 17, 2019 23:32:12 GMT
Good ! Cataracts removed can mean a revival of a sort. Suddenly one can read one see ...
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Post by mich64 on Apr 18, 2019 1:09:31 GMT
Good ! Cataracts removed can mean a revival of a sort. Suddenly one can read one see ... Indeed whatagain! I talked with my parents tonight and he is so pleased with the improvement that he is excited for the other eye to be done. He had been told he should be happy with the results but I think he is surprised at the degree of the difference the surgery has made. Great news!
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Post by mich64 on Apr 18, 2019 23:28:25 GMT
I was checking in on my father last night and my mother said he had been complaining about a possible boil on his back and lower left abdominal pain, we both thought kidney stones. Since the pain was worse this morning, he called the doctor and was told to go in and see him. After being examined the doctor told him he has shingles. The doctor hopes it will be a milder case since he had the vaccine. I did not want to worry him more but I am concerned that he just had the cataract surgery, I hope it does not affect his eyes.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 19, 2019 3:35:34 GMT
My grandmother had shingles when she was in her eighties, and it was definitely unpleasant for her. However, it was not nearly as bad as in a younger person. I saw the back of a friend who had shingles in his twenties, and I would have guessed something like "radiation burns" if I had not been told what it was.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 19, 2019 3:40:52 GMT
Oh gosh, Mich! Try not to worry about that, especially since he's now been seen by the doctor.
What is done to alleviate shingles?
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Post by bjd on Jun 8, 2019 16:50:36 GMT
Are you sure "celebrating" is the right word, whatagain? I guess your mother-in-law doesn't bother to understand as a way of coping with her husband.It must be tough.
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Post by mossie on Jun 8, 2019 17:16:03 GMT
Tough whatagain, M-in-L has the right idea, in my experience trying to help can only confuse matters more.
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Post by Kimby on Jun 8, 2019 17:29:53 GMT
“We don’t try to correct them. We just go with them on their journey.” Wise words spoken by caregivers at Mr. Kimby’s dad’s nursing home.
My Dad spent many of his last days “fishing” - in his living room! He must’ve been hallucinating pretty mightily, as he casted, reeled in, and released the “small ones”. The caregivers didn’t try to correct him, they just admired his catch.
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Post by lugg on Jun 16, 2019 20:34:49 GMT
Just caught up with this thread... many wise words of wisdom and experience. For me my MIL is happier and healthier than she has been for a long time . The social aspect of the care has really made a difference first and foremost for her but also for the rest of us.
As an aside someone who I worked with for a long time who is younger than me ( approx. 57) but completely retired has started turning up for work whenever her husband is away or takes his eye of the ball .. heart-wrenching.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 16, 2019 21:01:26 GMT
Absolutely thrilled to hear that, Lugg! It so closely parallels my mother's experience. You are a champ for sticking with the situation until it was resolved.
That really is tragic about your former co-worker. It sounds as though her husband is aware of the problem, but it's impossible to be vigilant every hour of the day.
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Post by Kimby on Jun 17, 2019 2:08:28 GMT
The only good thing about my parents having passed on is that I don’t have to make those difficult phone calls anymore. Each of their 3 daughters called twice a week, though toward the end we got no response and usually chatted with the caregivers for a few minutes. Although at the time I dreaded making the calls, now I’m frequently thinking “I must remember to tell mom about that”.
Here’s an article on the subject from the New York Times.
Should I Call My Father? By Nana Asfour June 13, 2019
“ This Father’s Day, I’m not sure if I should call my dad. I had the same misgivings a few days ago when it was his birthday. He turned 87. It’s not what you think. I have a wonderful father and we’ve had no falling out. But I anticipate that the phone calls will be more distressing to him than heartwarming.
See, my father has dementia, and this year it’s gotten much worse. He can’t get dressed without supervision, can no longer make his beloved Turkish coffee, cannot recognize that a tissue paper is a tissue paper and sometimes, when he wakes at night, can’t find his way back to his bed. He’s walked out of the house several times and gotten lost (the police helped bring him back).
Like all dementia sufferers, he has moments of lucidity but when the cloudiness hits, I’m not sure he knows who he is. I’m not sure he knows who I am. When I ask him, he says: “Of course. You are my habibti” (my love). And I think I see a flicker of recognition in his eyes. But I can’t say for sure.
I thought that I was an evil anomaly in my hesitation to contact my father. But then I read about a recent survey by the Alzheimer’s Association that found that over 40 percent of respondents said it was “pointless” to keep in touch with loved ones who could no longer recognize them.
Advocates urge family members not to give up on their ailing parents or grandparents. They insist that these contacts lift the spirits of dementia patients. The only one who is suffering during these interactions, it can feel like they are saying, is the young and healthy family member who finds it too painful to be around someone who now can’t tell his child from a total stranger. That may be the case, but for me it’s a little more complicated.
I used to think that if my dad no longer recognized me, I would be devastated. But weirdly, I’m not. Or not as much as I thought I’d be — or should be. And I’m not sure why.
What pains me more is his own distress when I am trying to interact with him, which I can sense when I talk to him on the phone.
For his birthday, I eventually called him. This is how the conversation went:
“Hi Dad, it’s your daughter Nana. Happy Birthday.” And then I started singing the song. I had read that songs help put Alzheimer’s patients in a good mood.
He interrupted me, clearly irritated: “I can’t hear you. Your voice is very low,” he said in Arabic.
In English: “I’m singing you Happy Birthday”
“I can’t understand you. Your voice is too low,” in Arabic.
Louder, in Arabic: “It’s your birthday today. I’m telling you happy birthday.”
“Mine? What?”
“Yes, it’s your birthday.”
“Whatever you say but did you say something is secret?”
“No I said it was your birthday.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you are mistaken.”
He was clearly distraught. The only kind thing to do was to end the conversation.
“O.K. Dad. Let me talk to Margot.” Margot is my mother and the only person he seems to always recognize.
Later I tried to understand what it meant that my father didn’t know that it was his birthday, that the concept of a birthday seemed irrelevant to him now. Maybe, I realized, my father no longer inhabits the linear world. Much like the internet, all times and dates of his life now exist on the same plane.
It was just yesterday that he drove to the Beirut port to fetch the equipment delivery for his business, only to be told that the militiamen who have overtaken the port have confiscated the shipment for the unforeseeable future. It was just an hour ago that he met and fell in love with my mother, and he wants to ask this beautiful woman who sits beside him now if she’ll be his wife. It was only a week ago that he quit his job as a real estate agent in Maryland. Didn’t he just come back from playing bridge with a group of businessmen he’d met in Saudi Arabia?
Does it matter that he cannot remember that he is 87 now, and not any of the other ages he’s been? It matters to me, of course, because I am aware that it’s his birthday and still want to celebrate it with him. But does it matter to him?
That is the most troubling part of Alzheimer’s: We don’t know what someone in the late stages of the disease thinks or feels. My mother reassures me that he’s unaware and unconcerned, but I’m not so sure. I am pretty confident that my call didn’t do any good.
In-person visits can be traumatic for him as well. The last time I went to see him, my older brother Gabi also came. Several times during our visit, Dad asked me who the stranger talking to our mother was. “Why is that guy here?” he would say. I told him it was his son. “If you say so,” he replied. When we sat at the table for dinner, I could sense that he was struggling to understand who we were and to follow the conversation. Is it good for him that we put him through these episodes?
The Alzheimer’s Association says that the time that families spend with a sufferer “has a lasting, positive impact” and it offers some guidelines for families about how to communicate with the patient — like not asking him or her to identify you, as I can’t seem to help but do, to be patient, calm and reassuring. I will try harder to follow those directions the next time I see my dad.
And on Sunday, I will call him, because he’s been a supportive, loving father and I want to celebrate his fatherliness. I will not say “Happy Father’s Day,” because he will not be able to process what it means and I am fine with that because I have to be. If I’ve learned one thing from the last phone call, is that the markers that we as a society live by are too tied to our existence and are less important for our living. “
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Post by bjd on Jun 17, 2019 7:21:41 GMT
I guess I am quite lucky. My mother will be 94 next month and still has most of her wits about her. She occasionally forgets a name or else claims I haven't told her something I did mention several times, but in general she can carry on a normal conversation over the phone. She recovered really well from the episode last October when I had to fly to Canada thinking that she was on her last legs.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2019 18:11:24 GMT
Wonderful to hear, Bjd. I can easily imagine you will be quite sharp in your 90s and beyond.
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Post by mich64 on Jul 9, 2019 2:33:59 GMT
Oh gosh, Mich! Try not to worry about that, especially since he's now been seen by the doctor. What is done to alleviate shingles? Sorry Bixa that I missed this question! My dad recovered quickly from his bout of shingles, they think because he had the vaccine shot, but they are not sure how he came down with them. He was given medication but I am not sure what it was. I came back to this thread tonight as my dad convinced my mom to go to the hospital this morning. He admitted to us tonight that he had been trying to get her to tell him or her doctor what has been wrong/what has been happening to make her feel so poorly for the past 6 months. When we got to the hospital they had already admitted her to a surgical floor after many tests were done in the Emergency Department. From what I understand, the CT scan showed some sort of a blockage in her abdomen, they are not sure yet it if is in her bowels, or my father is not telling us everything. I am worried but more tests will be done in the morning. She is quite angry with my dad and seems to be in denial that anything could be wrong. I told her they do not admit people without good reason but she is not willing to listen. I think she is scared so I told her they will find out what is wrong and begin a plan to resolve it. I am really concerned by the time I get back to the hospital tomorrow morning she will have signed herself out refusing tests/treatment. My father says he will not let her, but I do not know if he can stop her.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 9, 2019 2:48:41 GMT
Oh Mich ~ you must be so worried. And this is coming right on the heel's of your husband's surgery, something that was surely very stressful for you. Let's hope a doctor, a compassionate nurse, or the hospital social worker can talk to her in such a way that she can feel back in control of the situation. The fact that she was admitted to the hospital doesn't mean anything dire, just that they wish to observe her some more. Of course your mother is scared, as you so sensitively discerned. I hope she starts feeling less agitated and can get some sleep tonight. You try to get some too.
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Post by mich64 on Jul 9, 2019 3:25:22 GMT
And this is coming right on the heel's of your husband's surgery, something that was surely very stressful for you. Yes Bixa, I am very concerned about my husband as well, his heart rate has been high since the surgery, to be expected for about three months post surgery we are told, but it was really high tonight. I told him tomorrow that he can drop me off at the hospital but that he should go home, I will stay with my dad while they do the tests. I hope you are right Bixa, I hope they are just being cautious and diligent in observing her while they complete more tests. I hope she is in the midst of a good sleep right now.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 9, 2019 3:29:19 GMT
Oh dear. Can you take a taxi to the hospital tomorrow, so he can stay home?
It does seem to make sense for them to admit your mother, rather than getting her to come back & forth for more tests. Yes, I hope she relaxed enough to be able to sleep well tonight.
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Post by mich64 on Jul 9, 2019 3:50:22 GMT
Oh dear. Can you take a taxi to the hospital tomorrow, so he can stay home? I would have no luck in trying to convince him to agree to me calling a cab. I will be lucky if I can convince him tomorrow to go home, I think he was just trying to cajole me tonight. All I can do is wait to see what tomorrow will bring and keep watch over him as well.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 9, 2019 3:59:54 GMT
Well, if he is going to stay home and fret about you and your mother, maybe he might as well stay at the hospital with you.
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