my longest week

Having reached my triathlon goal, I would have liked to have just taken a week off, put my feet up and bask in my own sense of accomplishment. But, NO, my parents arrived the next day for a visit.

Dad walked in the door, with his hand in front of face declaring "I am sick, no one come near me." He had a head cold. He couldn't manage to go to the Giants game that night, a tremendous disappointment for Evan who had to go to school every day of their visit, stay awake, or go out of the house for the next two days. Having Dad around the house might not have been so bad had he been well enough to wear his hearing aids, but apparantly hearing aids were not in the plan, and for two days the den television was on so loud my dishes rattled in the cabinet. The image that stuck in my head (on a loop which played over and over) was of an old war movie, a soldier yelling "incoming!" and me ducking underneath the kitchen table, coffee table, anything just to get away from the noise.

I gave dad a homeopathic remedy which he clung to for three days, and by the third day his horrendous head cold was down to a little rattly cough. Not too shabby! Go homeopathy! That is when Mom got muscle spasms. Her side seized up so bad it caused her to dry heave for hours, and hours. The poor woman had beet red eyes and a swollen face from all the pressure. She was in agony.

This had happened twice before, once sending her into the ER, where the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with her, so they sent her home. All she prayed for was a magic prescription she could take at the first onset of symptoms. I suggested she go alternative to find the source of the spasm and eliminate it, but she wasn't open to that idea. She likes her MD's. Too much, she takes a bucket of pills at every meal and I am certain that the muscle spasms are going to end up being a side effect of one of them. So, for day 3 and 4 while Dad was feeling a litttle bit better, Mom was writhing and seizing in pain. On day 4 we made the obligatory visit to my grandmother in NYC, and Mom seized up just as were about to take grandma out to lunch. She managed to make it through lunch, only in a moderate amount of pain (her threshold is high-tough broad that she is) then she spent the entire 1 hour car ride back home from the city rolling around either on the floor of the truck or on the third row seat. Every once in a while I would spot her in the rear view mirror bathed in sweat and grimacing in pain trying desperately to change positions and stretch out her side. Then on day 5 they left. I was a wreck by the time I said goodbye.

I am totally having a difficult time with my father being really old, and my mother being prematurely old, and not taking care of herself. I do not like to see them this way, and am trying to deal with a great deal of anger I feel especially towards my mother who seems not to notice that the other people her age are not nearly as old seeming as she is. I also deplore her blind trust in the medical profession. I feel like she is being led down this chemically dependent road to disaster. I want to scream. She thinks it can all be corrected with pills. AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!

Comments

[Debbie]

My parents are just entering the really old category too. Its painful to watch. Maybe reminds me of my own mortality and relentless aging. My husband is always so upbeat and tells me that getting old is better than the alternative. I just tell him to shut his pie hole. ;)

[SF Knitter]

hi,
i just saw my parents last weekend for the first time in four months, and my dad is not doing so fantastically well either, and it's SO HARD. in fact i am putting off calling them, and then i feel guilty for that, and .... etc.
My husband said the same thing, Debbie. I don't know which is worse, that, or what my dad says, which is 'don't ever get old.' OK dad, should i kill myself now or wait a few years?
sigh.
what i want to know is, why hasn't someone written a comprehensive text on how to get older and deal with your own aging, your parents' ageing, and how to spell age-ing? seriously though, IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE, why do we all have to go through it by ourselves like it's some uncharted country? Hello! It's the 21st century. Where's my manual?
SFK