About Your Parents Thread

My mother had this down-the-street neighbor/client (my mother was a CPA) whose husband had terrible emphysema, with the oxygen tanks, etc. And he wouldn't quit smoking. One day, he actually blew himself up (not fatally) by smoking WITH THE OXYGEN FLOWING. Terrible burns, etc. And you know what he did when he got home from the hospital? Yep ... right back at it.

And I'm sorry about all you're going through with regards to your mother. You know this, I'm sure, but it gets better. Not completely, of course, but it does get better.

 

My grandma -- mom's mom -- was diagnosed with dementia two years ago. It hasn't gotten worse in that time, which I find a bit strange, but she has her moments where she'll forget who she's talking to and call me by my uncle's name. When she was in the hospital two years ago, I walked into her room and she started talking about something my uncle did some 30 or 40 years ago, and asked where I had been.

Five minutes later, she was as lucid as could be. I'm worried for what comes ahead with this. She's my last grandparent -- my dad's parents passed away before I was born, and my mom's dad died in 1998 when I was 13.

 

A secretary of mine got tongue cancer and had some of it sliced off because of it (smoker). I bet not more than 6 mos after all the radiation/chemo, yep lighting up again. Still cannot fathom it. Of course, I'm fortunate I've never been a smoker.

 

My dad smoked up until he was admitted to the hospital for what turned out to be the final time.

The more time passes, the more I believe he saw the writing on the wall at least a year before he passed, and knowing it was inevitable, just didn't bother with trying once he got sick.

I quit more than 4 years ago, but I smoked for 20 years. Hopefully there's enough time to reverse and regenerate everything.

 

Thanks dq. I do know it gets better, simply from dealing with the loss of my father 17 years ago. This is more difficult because I was much closer with her, but the process is similar. That birthday was just emotional, even moreso because my brothers were visiting, but not all in a bad way.

 

My uncle with Alzheimer's is particularly bitter for my cousins, because his mom (my grandmother) is the one who lived to 99 and was perfectly sharp to the last day. He's actually in good physical shape for his mid-80s -- he rode a street bike until a couple years ago.

My dad eventually died of cancer which spread to his brain (among other locations), but he was still mostly aware up to the end. Dealing with extended dementia just has to be an incredible burden.

 

I know most of you can't stand his politics, but George F. Will on dementia ...

"Families seared by a loved one's dementia face the challenge of forgetting. They must choose to achieve what dementia inflicts on its victims -- short-term memory loss. They must restore to the foreground of remembrance the older memories of vivacity and wit."

 

This is why Will is still the most boring columnist in America. There are better ways to paint the picture. Paint, George!

 

Well said.

 

My dad posted on Facebook that I should get a hobby instead of trying to make jokes on there.

So I called him and told him he was right and that I signed up to do stand-up comedy.

He cracked up at that. So I got one laugh in my back pocket before I make my debut next week.

 

I make a strong effort to do the opposite of what he did. I can have conversations with my Dad where there is a guy in there who is pretty cool and a person with a good heart that is fun to be around. He recognizes this but can't get past petty shit that keeps him miserable.

Everything is somebody else's fault. The economy screwed him, the neighbors screwed him, former friends screwed him. Too many memories of him being in a bad mood over something so the rest of us would have t be on pins and needles.

He and my mom split when I was around 3. My mom died a few years later and my dad remarried. He treated my stepmother like shit, told her she was stupid, constantly critical, can't count the number of times I told her that if she was that miserable she should leave. Years later when talking to my Mom's sister she told me that my Dad never made my Mom feel good, one of the reasons she left.

We've got a 15 hour drive between us and he hasn't seen his 5 year old grandson in 4 and a half years. Tells us we should send our 9 year old daughter out to spend part of the summer with them but she doesn't know them at all either.

Shitty to say but when they pass I hope it is close together so I don't have to go back and sort their estate stuff out more than once.

 

Today I've had two opportunities to not be just like my father ... I've batted 0.500.

MommaQuant and I flew back in from a mini-vacation today, my son's 20th, with him scheduled to take a noonish bus back to Deploraville for a birthday/DaughterQuant concert/Mother's Day weekend. Unfortunately, he didn't pay close attention to the bus reservation I made him and didn't notice the station location had changed. So, he missed his bus (he'll catch one later, but he'll miss the concert).

Here's how I wasn't just like my father: I didn't raise hell at him and go on and on and on at him about he's always doing stuff like this.

Here's how I was just like my father: I was driving as he and MommaQuant talked and talked about what-if-this and what-if-that, and I realized he hadn't even spoken to anyone at the bus company! "GODDAMMIT, QUIT FUCKING GUESSING AND TELL HIM TO GO TALK TO SOMEBODY WHO MIGHT KNOW SOMETHING!" So MommaQuant's pissed at me.

Hey ... I gotta be him ... I mean me.