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netgirl_y2kA little over a year ago I moved house to be closer to my parents in anticipation of them needing me more, this had been largely theoretical (outwith my mum texting to ask me to bring round pinot grigio) until early last week when my dad messaged to say that my mum had had a fall.
Brief aside: at what age do you stop 'falling' and start 'having had a fall'? Because I'm forty and fall down all the damn time.
So I hare round there like a frightened marmoset to find my dad in the kitchen on the phone to the dentist rescheduling my mum's lunchtime appointment for later that same afternoon. Oh, thank God, thinks I, it can't be that bad. So I run upstairs, and there is my mum with the most obviously broken leg I have ever seen (and I do this for a freakin' living.)
'Has anyone called an ambulance?' I say, assuming the answer will be yes.
'We called you,' comes the answer.
'Do I look like a fucking ambulance? Call an ambulance.' After what I feel like was an unnecessarily lengthy digression to admonish me for my language an ambulance is called. At which point my mum, who is in shock. tells me that I need to go downstairs and do the ironing before the ambulance men arrive and see, I try to point out that NHS Scotland do not care is she hasn't done the ironing in a couple of days. Luckily before this argument can escalate in ways that reflect badly on me as daughter the ambulance crew, who are in fact ambulance women, arrive. Now I have always found competent women in uniform immensely soothing but I think my mum was maybe hoping for strapping young men.
They take her to hospital, which is not the hospital near her house, nor the hospital near my house, but a secret third thing. She's got a badly broken femur (you have to be really trying to break a femur) as well as some issues with her blood pressure and haemoglobin. And, like, she's fine, it could have been a lot worse. But, also, this is my job, and I know just how often one bad fall in an older person can be the start of a spiral of other falls and worsening health problems.
Also, my sister lives abroad, but is a doctor and also knows more about geriatric medicine than she wants to right now, so she was messaging me about how we're going to handle our parents decline, but she forgot to swap from the family whatsapp group to the one that's just her and me, so our dad was replying all like, 'Stop telling people I'm dead.'
Speaking of, they're sending my mum home soon - she's not ready but obviously the hospital are worried about bed blocking. So I've moved home for the foreseeaable because she's going to need more help than my dad will be able to give her alone. And, like, I am typing this in my teenaged bedroom underneath a poster of Angelia Jolie as Lara Croft and looking at a DVD shelf that includes DEBS, Imagine You and Me, and But I'm a Cheerleader. How did teenaged me ever think she was fooling anyone into believing she was straight?
So it's just me and dad (and Freya the dog!) in the house at the moment, which is weird because my dad and I used to be really close but he's gone right down the conspiracy rabbit hole these last few years. And I'm trying to block it out, and not argue, and keep things focused on mum. But it does mean I've had a bunch of conversations that basically went 'Yeah, I think we could covert the junk room into a downstairs bedroom--No, I don't think the Ukrainians are planning to assassinate the President of France and blame it on the Russians--Sure, pizza for dinner sounds fine.'
IDK, when my dad says mad shit I'm not sure whether to just write if off as conspiracy brainworms or whether I should be trying to convince him to get tested. And that's the thing, my mum's basically fine, but before I was a professional carer I was a family carer for my grandmother in the last decade of her life while she struggled with dementia and cancer and numerous health problems, and this feels like the beginning of phase of my life that I don't want and won't like.
So, yeah, in case you were wondering why I'm not around, or am suddenly around all the damn time, this is why.
Brief aside: at what age do you stop 'falling' and start 'having had a fall'? Because I'm forty and fall down all the damn time.
So I hare round there like a frightened marmoset to find my dad in the kitchen on the phone to the dentist rescheduling my mum's lunchtime appointment for later that same afternoon. Oh, thank God, thinks I, it can't be that bad. So I run upstairs, and there is my mum with the most obviously broken leg I have ever seen (and I do this for a freakin' living.)
'Has anyone called an ambulance?' I say, assuming the answer will be yes.
'We called you,' comes the answer.
'Do I look like a fucking ambulance? Call an ambulance.' After what I feel like was an unnecessarily lengthy digression to admonish me for my language an ambulance is called. At which point my mum, who is in shock. tells me that I need to go downstairs and do the ironing before the ambulance men arrive and see, I try to point out that NHS Scotland do not care is she hasn't done the ironing in a couple of days. Luckily before this argument can escalate in ways that reflect badly on me as daughter the ambulance crew, who are in fact ambulance women, arrive. Now I have always found competent women in uniform immensely soothing but I think my mum was maybe hoping for strapping young men.
They take her to hospital, which is not the hospital near her house, nor the hospital near my house, but a secret third thing. She's got a badly broken femur (you have to be really trying to break a femur) as well as some issues with her blood pressure and haemoglobin. And, like, she's fine, it could have been a lot worse. But, also, this is my job, and I know just how often one bad fall in an older person can be the start of a spiral of other falls and worsening health problems.
Also, my sister lives abroad, but is a doctor and also knows more about geriatric medicine than she wants to right now, so she was messaging me about how we're going to handle our parents decline, but she forgot to swap from the family whatsapp group to the one that's just her and me, so our dad was replying all like, 'Stop telling people I'm dead.'
Speaking of, they're sending my mum home soon - she's not ready but obviously the hospital are worried about bed blocking. So I've moved home for the foreseeaable because she's going to need more help than my dad will be able to give her alone. And, like, I am typing this in my teenaged bedroom underneath a poster of Angelia Jolie as Lara Croft and looking at a DVD shelf that includes DEBS, Imagine You and Me, and But I'm a Cheerleader. How did teenaged me ever think she was fooling anyone into believing she was straight?
So it's just me and dad (and Freya the dog!) in the house at the moment, which is weird because my dad and I used to be really close but he's gone right down the conspiracy rabbit hole these last few years. And I'm trying to block it out, and not argue, and keep things focused on mum. But it does mean I've had a bunch of conversations that basically went 'Yeah, I think we could covert the junk room into a downstairs bedroom--No, I don't think the Ukrainians are planning to assassinate the President of France and blame it on the Russians--Sure, pizza for dinner sounds fine.'
IDK, when my dad says mad shit I'm not sure whether to just write if off as conspiracy brainworms or whether I should be trying to convince him to get tested. And that's the thing, my mum's basically fine, but before I was a professional carer I was a family carer for my grandmother in the last decade of her life while she struggled with dementia and cancer and numerous health problems, and this feels like the beginning of phase of my life that I don't want and won't like.
So, yeah, in case you were wondering why I'm not around, or am suddenly around all the damn time, this is why.