What made me cringe can now make me cry….

Tender Face

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Mar 14, 2006
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NW England
Had a very interesting conversation last night about how life changes, and consequently how our priorities and perceptions do …. sign of growing up and growing older generally????

Tuned into local radio this morning who were featuring ‘Christmas Number Ones’ …. and found myself bawling my eyes out to St Winifred’s School Choir’s “Grandma”.

For 26 years I have cringed every time I saw that variant of ‘Shirley Temple with a lisp’ aired on TOTP or elsewhere …. this morning it just made me weep……for my mum, for my son….. just for how life has changed….??? Dunno….

Sorry, just thought I’d share that….

Karen, x
 

nicetotalk

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Sep 22, 2006
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stretford
Hi karen

I agree with you, it is strange how you view things differently and even think differently when something happends in your life. My freind had a baby and she phoned me up to tell me. After i got of the phone i was so emotional just thinking about a knew life yet march my mums ended.

Take care
kathyx
 

Michael E

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Apr 14, 2005
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Ronda Spain
Calender

There is a 'tradition' in France that people like the Firemen, Postmen et al come round at this time of year to 'give' you a calender in exchange for 'dosh'!!!

Last year I was putting up a little calender, in our pantry by the living room, for Monique to put a pretty dodgy X on each day as it went by... After a little way into this year she stopped doing it ----- !!!! It was her last attempt to hang onto some sort of control of her life - to at least know what day it was...

This year there is no point in putting up a calender for her as she does not even know what year it is!! Really small thing really but it makes me very sad just to write this. Tears streaming down my face...

It is the small things that get you when you are not looking!!!

Just a bit of rather sad sharing...................

Michael
 

Brucie

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Jan 31, 2004
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near London
Hi Michael,

I really understand what you are saying, from experience. This thing strips us of everything, doesn't it? I come across things all the time - still - that shatter my times.

... and you are correct, it is the small things. Things others would think are bonkers.... because they have not been there. Sometimes the things are absolutely tiny.

Take care.
 

Nutty Nan

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Nov 2, 2003
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Buckinghamshire
.... like coming across an old Birthday card with my husband's beautiful writing ............. he has not been able to write for several years, and I had quite 'forgotten' how much I admired his handwriting which was so 'personal'.
 

Norman

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Oct 9, 2003
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Birmingham Hades
Peg is now on a new tablet,trying to calm the mainly verbal aggression.
If this does not work, what then into care?
I sat last night looking at the care homes on a web site with the tears streaming down my face,thinking what the hell am I doing this for.
This is my darling wife,we have only been apart for the longest period of 5 days in 59 years.and that was repite,she was still in her own home with a live in carer.
The thought of what I am thinking is breaking my heart (again )I did not think I could hurt any more,but I can.
She loves her home and although I am told "you must think about yourself",advice galore from the the many people AS, DISC,TP ETC ETC none of it helps.
I wish I could get the guilt monster of my back
Norman
 

Michael E

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Apr 14, 2005
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Ronda Spain
Norman hi,

Not good to be between a rock and a hard place but I can see there comes a time when actually you can do no further good.

In fact you might end up resenting what you are being asked to do - day in and day out. To end up hating the endless demands and that would be sad -

I have always believed there is a time to cut and run... Only thing is you do need to know where you will run to.. and that the timing is more or less right.

Watching the various posts about putting 'love ones' into homes it seems to me that it is one of the hardest things to do but once done actually appears to work for all of those involved..

Not sure where all the guilt comes from but most of us and I am certain it applies to you - we do nothing to deserve it.

Michael

PS. Norman I have had your 'post' in my head during the evening and last night and just wanted to add this... There are several people on this forum who have gone on for as long as they have felt able then put the person they are looking after into a care home. Some seem to have had a few 'false starts' but in the end have settled for the inevitable. They still post on this forum and the solution seems to have worked for them in the end despite the same 'soul searching' I suspect you are doing. They are still compassionate people and I suspect do the 'visiting thing' but now have lives again. Nothing at all wrong with that.
M
 
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connie

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Mar 7, 2004
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Frinton-on-Sea
Norman, my heart aches for you and Peg.

As you know Lionel went into care in Jan/Feb this year and it DID NOT WORK.
Wrong home for Lionel, wrong time, and I ended up an emotional wreck.

Carried on with extra help until 8th November, when once again, my dear Lionel went into care. New home, far more suitable, and after two/three weeks he started to settle down. I visit, look forward to seeing him, he so looks forward to seeing me. No guilt, I have come to accecpt that, physically I could no longer care at home.

Not easy, but in our case it was definitely the right decision at this time.
Keeping you always in my thoughts and prayers, love
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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london
Sometimes the things are absolutely tiny.


Like seeing a peace of paper flying down from no were in the kitchen,( after bring mum back from hospital ) must have been the wind , that blow it from the top of our high fridge as I bent down to get something, as I pick it up it’s a old littlie photo of my father , was it a sigh I don’t know that all is going to be ok , was not mum time

Mum had a fall in the street bad bump to back of head, taken to hospital , sent back home , then vomiting sick , which look like blood, phone doctor he tell me could be blood clot in head , rush back to hospital they do CT after they saw mum vomiting blood . CT scan all clear, oh AZ gone lol, no they say. They were not looking for that.

Guilt come from the stress, our interpretation of events depends of many factors ranging from history to present circumstances. Sometimes during periods of anxiety or depression we lose some of our clear thinking negative events grow in importance and dominate our lives and we cannot tell that our thinking is out of perspective, ( don’t tell me its not depressing or negtive to see our love one with AZ )
There negative thoughts seem to take hold and we became trapped in misery , anxiety or anger you know your doing the right thing, just can’t bring your self to do it, at one stage or another we know its going to happen ( going in to a care home ) if you forget the I , looking after yourself you still feel guilty, if you don’t undertand what is happening to you .

read up on stress management if amazing , give to an insight about what is psychological (physical ) effects of stress in our caring role , that is making us cry at a song and letting go of the past and stopping us from all moving on with our own reality of our hear and now.

Norman if I remember rightly you took a respite in September like me, was that your last respite? Away from the situation of seeing peg the way she is .
I am now feeling like I need one also, but can’t take the stress of when mum gets back and is all confused, so I have a friend who sits with mum a lot while I can get out , but I still want to run away from it all , even if mum was in a care home or not .


So am wondering if you took a few days out, you may see that you’re doing the right thing or not for you , just a thought .




The reality is that our priorities and perceptions change as we grow up , because that just it , we all have our trun in life, of being young no reasonability, if we was lucky to have had that . , as we grow up we gain knowledge or not learn from it or not , we all would love to be like peter pan, never grow up , but that not what life about . ( not being rude ) Just saying what I feel about life
 
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alex

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Apr 10, 2006
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Hiya Karen

I'd agree that things happen in this life that suddenly make you change your perception of life.

This time last year, my life was sorted, it was safe, i knew where i was going, what i was doing and what my future held..........or so i thought!

Now...............haven't got a bl**dy clue!

I was talking to someone the other day and they said ' it makes you grateful for what you have!'.............oh yeah?.........i know i've got a lot of things i should be grateful for .....but am i?............. what i found was that it does make me wonder.......where i'm going? what does the future hold now?, where will i be this time next year?.............it makes me realise that i shouldn't take things for granted...........but who doesn't?................it makes me realise that everything has a question mark at the end of it!

I don't mean this to sound down and negative because i'm not...........its a challenge and i do like a challenge, but because of the question marks, its a scarey challenge!

I suppose i'm just going the long way around the old saying 'the only two things in this life that you can be sure of is being born and dying' i guess anything inbetween is a challenge!:rolleyes:

Love Alex x
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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london
That’s just it , we plan so much for the future , all map out that when it all go wrong we just don’t know how to cope , they don’t teach that at school do they. Or did they

I know we should have goals, so in a way life is like a football game, we some time do not get that ball in the net, do not active those goals. I sure miss a few goals along my journey in life because of people dieing around me or geting ill See life as challenge sounds all so positive; and the reality is its normal to feel down , that people don’t see it as a positive , but a negative

May be I was lucky I did not have much schooling , I had to teach myself so had quite a few knocks on the way in trying to score my goals in the net , I never map out my life , plan for the future( not talking finically). but I always got back up , but then I am a optimistic person , even with death looking me in my face and not only my own now .


Yes life is just one long challenge and if that given challenge went wrong , give me another one , because I well always try to kick that ball in the net , even if I do not score that goal
 
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Lila13

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Feb 24, 2006
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No, most of the things I learned at school were not relevant and long forgotten now.

Hope your mother has recovered from that fall, Margarita.

When are you moving into the new house?

Lila
 

merlin

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Aug 2, 2006
139
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Surrey
Norman hi

I relate entirely with your situation (although I can only boast 41 yrs). I recently had to consult with our GP on the subject of my wifes aggression and posted a thread on the resultant change to a different medication which turned my wife into a zombie.

For what it is worth I still feel very guilty but it does ease my way back into the day centre and the ability to have a single carer instead of two as insisted on by the care agency. I can now finally try to take on board the multitude of advice to "look after yourself". Such advice at the time did not of course tell you how!

Her change in personalty, I hope, will also make the eventual move into a care home easier for both of us as she really has little idea where or who she is and is calmer. Being cynical, I feel most care homes probably do the same thing to make the client more manageable.

Hope things get better for you but try and not feel too guility. In such a situation you are in fact, as Michael E said, between a rock and a hard place.

merlin
 

Norman

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Oct 9, 2003
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Birmingham Hades
Hi Merlin
at the present time Peg is on only a half tablet.
Consultant believes in starting low and then finding an ideal dosage.
I think? things are a bit better,but we have had a couple of tantrums so far.
Fingers crossed
Norman
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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london
Thanks Lila for asking , mum seem more Quite all of a big shock for her, but she going to daycentre tomorrow that motivates her , we move Jan 17
 

Cate

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Jul 2, 2006
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Newport, Gwent
................ like going shopping with my mum for a new dress for a Christmas party, me saying, its fab, but I shouldn't spend that much............... mum saying............ go on, spoil yourself you look 10 years younger in that, the colour suits you etc. etc. Then going for a nice lunch, carrying all our Christmas parcels and planning the festives ahead.

I'm sat here tears streaming down my face, because this year I had to go shopping with a friend.......... what did I buy............ nothing. Its just not the same. Mum doesn't notice the silly things anymore, thats what really gets to me, such as when I visited her last, she didn't notice I had about a ft cut off my hair. Stupid I know.


Guilt, I have it in spades, challenges,................ just getting out the front door on my own............... and having to swallow anti depressants every day.

I want things back as they were, mum living in her own home, us doing the mother/daughter things we always did.

I KNOW mum is better off in the NH, she has settled really well, better than I could ever hope for, doesn't help though, better for her yes, better for me, no. But we just have to come to terms with it when it's the right thing to do.

Love to you all
Cate
 

Dave W

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Jul 3, 2005
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Bucks
For Margarita

Just to say good luck in the new house, and I hope everything goes well. And thank you for a wonderful optimistic posting too - a ray of sunshine on a grey winter's day, bless you.

Was thinking about this thread title this morning. We had a lovely birthday celebration with Mum last night. The staff had covered her door in balloons and birthday banners, baked her a cake, taken her out for the day, and made her a special lunch. Her room was full of flowers and presents - she could bathe in nice bath oil till about 2107, I reckon, and she has enough chocolate to feed a nation. We brought in fish and chips (because she loves it) and a bottle of wine and had a lovely, if slightly surreal, evening. By the time we left, she was a litle tipsy, a lot tired, and very happy.

Today I'm finding it hard not to cry into the keyboard - a year ago the thought of last night would have terrified me, but at the time I was glad to be able to help make her birthday happy and special for her. And today I'm realising she's the only family I have and I'll never have a sensible conversation with her again - she's far too confused for it. She may have been a feisty, cantakerous lady in her time, but at least we could have had a good debate slagging off Tony Blair or arguing about Thatcher. And now she thinks World War II's still on and Buckinghamshire is in South London. Feeling very sad for her, and oddly lonely, even if I'm glad she's happy and in safe hands.

Head down, on to the next challenge. Wish I knew where the net was :)
 

Tender Face

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Mar 14, 2006
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NW England
Tissues for keyboards?......

More than anything I have read on this site for a long time ... these few words have struck such a nerve.....

Dave W said:
Feeling very sad for her, and oddly lonely

Karen, x
 

Nutty Nan

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Nov 2, 2003
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Buckinghamshire
Dave .......... this is why it is a jolly good thing we don't know what's ahead of us, and yet, because in the AD world we have a bit of an inkling, we know that this is as good as it will get, which may help us make the most of the present.

Crikey, I sound as though I had been at the Christmas Sherry already - but you probably know what I mean. Maudlin goes with the season. Better get busy before the floodgates open!
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
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Kent
Oh Dave, how I understand the feeling of lonliness. However much support there is from friends, family and even TP, nothing can compensate for the closest most intimate relationship between partners, or a parent and child.
As Nutty Nan said, it`s as well we don`t know what`s in store for us.
Take care, Sylvia