Stress levels are running high within my family at the moment, in response to my dad's health.
Ostensibly, he's doing better in the sense that he's in hospital receiving the treatment needed to rebuild him from his fall at the weekend, which was brought on by a combination of dehydration and a kidney infection, which made him hallucinate. The hard thing to contend with, however, is the patience needed to navigate his demands; I love him, and I'd do anything for him, but my God he's frustrating when he's ill.
What usually happens when he ends up in the hospital in an emergency is my mum and I are run ragged for the first few days as we try to make him comfortable and meet his often unclear requests. His patience with us is slim-to-none, and yet we have to blank out his forgetfulness about us. I sometimes feel like I'm Rosencrantz or Guildenstern to my dad's Hamlet, and that I disappear into the ether like a fine mist when I hang up the phone to his latest requirements. Just thinking this makes me feel guilty; I know he's struggling, but we are too, and we're juggling our own commitments so we can help him.
We also have to ignore the things he does to compound his situation. For example, he had a pendant alarm set up a couple of weeks ago, but when he fell, he didn't press it. Admittedly he didn't have it on him, which is one thing, but he didn't try to get to it either, because he thought the fact a key hadn't been put in the key-safe outside meant no-one could gain access. I know he wasn't thinking straight, but if he'd pressed it I would have been called, and he wouldn't have been on the floor all night.
Thankfully he now knows not to make the same mistake again, but if he looked after himself more as a general rule we wouldn't have to keep putting out fires, and he'd improve. He should remember this impacts our health too as, if he doesn't, we're all on a one-way ticket to rapid-ageing and baldness; you wouldn't think it, but I'm only seventeen.
Ostensibly, he's doing better in the sense that he's in hospital receiving the treatment needed to rebuild him from his fall at the weekend, which was brought on by a combination of dehydration and a kidney infection, which made him hallucinate. The hard thing to contend with, however, is the patience needed to navigate his demands; I love him, and I'd do anything for him, but my God he's frustrating when he's ill.
What usually happens when he ends up in the hospital in an emergency is my mum and I are run ragged for the first few days as we try to make him comfortable and meet his often unclear requests. His patience with us is slim-to-none, and yet we have to blank out his forgetfulness about us. I sometimes feel like I'm Rosencrantz or Guildenstern to my dad's Hamlet, and that I disappear into the ether like a fine mist when I hang up the phone to his latest requirements. Just thinking this makes me feel guilty; I know he's struggling, but we are too, and we're juggling our own commitments so we can help him.
We also have to ignore the things he does to compound his situation. For example, he had a pendant alarm set up a couple of weeks ago, but when he fell, he didn't press it. Admittedly he didn't have it on him, which is one thing, but he didn't try to get to it either, because he thought the fact a key hadn't been put in the key-safe outside meant no-one could gain access. I know he wasn't thinking straight, but if he'd pressed it I would have been called, and he wouldn't have been on the floor all night.
Thankfully he now knows not to make the same mistake again, but if he looked after himself more as a general rule we wouldn't have to keep putting out fires, and he'd improve. He should remember this impacts our health too as, if he doesn't, we're all on a one-way ticket to rapid-ageing and baldness; you wouldn't think it, but I'm only seventeen.