Can you tell us what's making you sad?

Is it bigger than a breadbox?

Grandad has been going downhill quite quickly. Over the last three weeks he's had multiple falls and become unable to get himself drinks or go to the toilet alone because of this. His appetite has reduced greatly and he has become very confused. He's called Mum in the early hours of the morning thinking it's lunchtime, and asked his Carers to put him back to bed thinking it's evening. Between us the family have been round three times a day and the Carers (paid staff) morning and evening.

So following another fall yesterday afternoon, he was admitted for observation at the hospital. So far, so expected - he is 89 at the end of this month and although it's sad to see things slip so quickly it ot a shock.

The upsetting thing is how badly the hospital is set up to cope with elderly patients. I've heard it before, but I hoped it was isolated cases, or something that was being worked on. That doesn't seem to be the case.

Mum went with him to the hospital at 15.30. He was given a temporary bed in a curtained off area of A&E. She stayed with him until a bed was allocated at 22.00. In all that time no-one came to check on him to see if he needed food, drink or a toilet break.

Visiting hours started at 15.00 today. When Mum arrived she found he had no bedside table (for drinks primarily) no water bottle or glass and as he as high sides to the bed he could not get out and has resorted to incontinence. In the three hours Mum was there the only time she saw the Nurse was when she came in with medication. Two assistants came and changed his pads halfway through the visit.

Dinner arrived - hot soup in a full bowl. Given to an 88 year old with Parkinsons. And a full cup of tea - in a cup rather than something with a lid. The food is not delivered to the patient by ward staff, so it's not their fault. It is simply picked up later by the catering staff with no notice taken as to whether it can possibly be consumed by the patient.

Mum washed Grandad and left him with water and an open tin of food supplemtn drink (prescribed by his Doctor for occasional use) with a straw in it. She also shaved him and combed his hair. Everyone is saying, "Well, he's in the best place..." No, he's not. He does not need specific medical attention (tests for infection have come back megative) but he needs care. There is no alternative place until he is assessed, but in the mean time this is a sorry state of affairs.

Grandad was unsure of where he was, and the ward doctor had not been to visit all day. "Perhaps tomorrow" said the Nurse. No-one can help with this of course.

I'm surprised they don't make the visiting hours longer on wards like this. Surely part of the Big Society would be allowing people to ensure their elderly relatives have basic needs taken care of.

Sorry, equally disgruntled and just sad really.

I feel so sad to know that Grandad is there alone tonight, unable to move, go to the toilet

Another death in the family: my older cousin's wife. Too young to die. I think it may have been complications from anorexia. She was always so nice, though I didn't see them that often.

I'm saddened what our minds do to our bodies. I'm sad that so much is placed and programmed into our wanna-be-pretty heads, that we are never enough unless we love ourselves inside and out. I'm sad how many succumb to eating disorders, and I wonder at how some of us manage to escape. But maybe we haven't. Maybe every diet, every lament, every meal just makes it all loom so large. So important. When it's so not. It's so not a part of who "we", each one of us, are. Not really. Not in the grand scheme.

Ladies, love yourselves. Love every wrinkle and roll and bone and freckle and toe and every speck of your individual mind. We are all different, and I wish we would celebrate our "selves" instead of wishing we looked like someone else. I wish we could all stand and say "I am beautiful, and I don't need you to think so to know it!" I'm guilty, too. :(

I'm sorry for the loss S123.
It is a really sad thing how many of us struggle with image and feeling good about ourselves.

SG: I'm sorry for your granddad, I hope he gets out of there soon!

Sundae - I am so sorry to hear about your Grandpa. I am afraid, truth to tell, there is nowhere equipped or staffed for his needs. My mum (who also had Parkinson's) spent several weeks in a hospital that was specifically a place for old people's mental state to be assessed, but because she was there "temporarily" there were no diversions so one day was identical to the next. She wanted to walk, for exercise, but because she was unsteady on her feet she was constantly told to sit down, and at one point restrained in a chair. She really withdrew there, and went downhill very fast. The goods news is that when she moved from there to a residential home she improved vastly. But in the meanwhile, it was the worst summer of her (and my) life.

Thank you mtp. That was very kind of you to take the time to say. You're a good person.

We jump all over people who dare diss the naked people, but when someone puts their heart out there in the form of dead kitties or dead or ailing relatives, there isn't a lot to be said, right?

Oh Shaw that is so sad. I am sorry for you loss.

SG getting old sucks and watching this happen to our relatives is not easy. Sending you and Shaw a {{{{{{{HUG}}}}}}}}}}

I'm sorry for your loss Shaw and for what you're going through Sundae.

Virtual hugs for both of you.

so sorry to hear about your loss Shawnee.

And SG - Thank god your mom is there to be with him. :comfort:

sad days.

Shaw, I'm sorry.
I've been close to people with eating disorders, but haven't lost one yet.
I do know the damage people put their bodies through though, and that the complications are far-reaching.

I came back to say things are far better with Grandad and thanks for the kind words.
He's part of a long-ish post about school in the Happy Thread. Lots to be thankful for today.

So sorry Shawnee.

I'm not quite sure why everything is bringing me down today, it just seems to be.
Skimmed a letter form one of Mum's friend's yesterday. I wasn't being particularly nosey - it was on the kitchen table and I know her reasonably well. She lives in Spain now, so they only correspond by letter.

Anyway, the PS was - Hope C has finally sorted herself out?

Nice.
It wasn't even a proper question.

And then today I fond one of the cats had peed in the downstairs toilet.
Not only is this automatically Diz, but it is because he tray is dirty (it wasn't). Also, we pay this backwards and the problems we had with one of the cats peeing in the living room last summer was also Diz. Despite the fact the problem ended when we got HER cat some more Feliway for the bedroom.

Oh and we know all this because Maureen told her I don't clean his tray out enough. Because her cat won't go in a tray he has used once.
Despite the fact that Diz is not benji. Despite the fact that neither Mum nor Maureen know how often I empty the tray (Mum made a comment about the smell in the first couple of months so I never do it when she is around). Despite the fact I use a very different litter, because I have to sleep in the same room as the litter tray.

It's not the fact of the matter. It's the fact that Mum had a conversation about my cat with someone who knows nothing about the set-up and made her decision based on that.

Urgh. Her bloody friends.

And this whole thing with Grandad and Mum being a cross between Mother Theresa and The Lady of the Manor. Yes - there were BIG problems to start with. No he was NOT getting the help he needed and it was a dreadful situation. But now she's just finding things to get worked up about. She then phones up all her horrible friends to tell them what she is having to do, and how hard it is on her, and how no-one is giving her any support as usual. She screamed that at Dad the other night after having a particularly harrowing call telling someone how this would see her into an early grave and she didn't know how she was going to cope much longer.

Her friends have told her to go to the doctor and get some help. What help they can really give a furiously angry and frustrated woman I don't know, because that is her main problem only she won't acknowledge it.

Sigh. I'm doing the same to her as she is to me I suppose. Bitching about how awful she is behind her back. But I can't bear to provoke another incident like we had at Christmas.

I just wish she'd stop taking it all on herself. She does get a kind of low down pleasure from it. She doesn't have to go and feed him every night. The nurses will do that, they know about that. And she knows I will do it for her - I'm doing so tonight. If she really can't trust me to get it right, how come she's not going to Mass on Sunday instead of Saturday so I don't have to? Oh I know - because she knows damn well I've offered to help and can do - as has my sister - but she needs to maintain the fiction that she is all alone in this.

I do feel sorry for her - honestly I do. It's a horrible thing to go through. But I can't break through the shell that she's put up around her vulnerability. I never have been able to. All I get to do is try to make sensible suggestions. And that would work FAR better if I wasn't living here.

Yeah, so back to the top.
I know perfectly well why I'm unhappy today.