Category Archives: Helping self

Today We are 55

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Birthday tea time

Fifty five is the age of the season and a lovely age it is too. When I turned fifty I wrote a list of things learnt and as half a decade has passed I have decided to update my list :

Rodney Smith, Woman in Red Hat with Book, NY Public Library, NYC

Rodney Smith, Woman in Red Hat with Book, NY Public Library, NYC

Things learnt by 55

Quiet is good. Quiet is very, very good.

Being a grandparent is the world’s most wonderful gift.

Read to your children, for all else follows.

Don’t give up on education and reskilling, no matter your age, or the length of the road in front of you.

Grey hair means freedom from the recolour schedule and no more fear of looking like a skunk at important events!

Find a good beautician because the hair is not only on the top of your head.

Now is the time to organise the rest of your life.

If seeking a sea or tree change, make sure that amenities are not too far away. You may be happy to drive to shops and doctors now, but in 10 0r 15 years it may not be so easy. Think, how long will it take an ambulance to get to you? Also, if buying as a couple, what are the plans for when there is only one of you? Can you handle where you live solo?

Sometimes, perhaps more often than you would like to admit, your adult children know better than you.

It is still important to have a job that interests you and gives you some motivation and is not just a pay check. You’re going to be working for a long time yet.

Exercise has to be more than moving from one end of the couch to the other.

You can learn healthy eating habits from your children.

Try to be the mother in law you wish you had been given.

Declutter your house so that your children don’t have to do it when you can’t.

Know when it is time to go into care – and do it. Your children should not be asked to give up their lives for you.

Adult daughters can be your best friend. Know the boundaries.

Life experience builds wisdom and confidence. You also realise the rat race is a farce as your ego no longer needs materialistic props.

Needs become quality not quantity.

Sharing laughter brings more meaning to life.

There is no answer to life, and life itself has no meaning – we create the meaning in our lives.

Being in your fifties is a best time of your life.

Birthday

Jirí Jíru - Swinging grannies, Slovakia, 1966

Jirí Jíru – Swinging grannies, Slovakia, 1966

Birthday 1

Birthday balloons

birthday candles

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not titillating at all

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naughty thursday a Alfred Cheney Johnston 1

I tried to tell myself that this time it wouldn’t hurt, or if it did hurt it wouldn’t hurt as much as last time. Surely if I just relaxed my body and thought of my happy place the pain would be minimal.

Didn’t work.

This afternoon I had my biannual mammogram and I thought I was going to faint from the pain. The first breast was pummelled into position and then caught in the machine’s grip. I was told to hold my breath, easy enough when one is sucking in breath due to pain, but I survived somehow.

It was the second breast that had me seeing stars and wishing for a merciless end.

Now I know testing is necessary, and it is wonderful that the government makes it free for women over fifty, but does it  have to be such a painful method? Couldn’t the government be a little kinder and allow us to have ultrasound on the free list? Heavens, I might even consider voting for that little weasel Abbott if he gave us free ultrasounds. Maybe I could suggest the policy to him by squashing his little appendage with an amount of applied force in the  range of 49 to 186.2 N (median, 122.5 N). Actually as the pain seared through by chest I searched for my happy place, which oddly enough was a factory production line of all the men in the world having their appendages treated thus. And to think they are all worried of a little rubber gloved finger…

I vote one for equal opportunity compression.

time waits for no one

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old age 2

Australia has recently introduced plain packaging with very graphic images of the consequences of smoking in an endeavour to dissuade people from smoking. Perhaps we should introduce tours to care facilities for seniors as a deterrent in the same manner for those in the middle age category who refuse to take care of their health.

We received a call that Mum had taken another fall. It is as if her brain and feet no longer work in tandem, and even when we instruct her step by step it is a long and arduous task. I remember our Dad had the same difficulties towards the end of his life. One day he and I ended in quite a tangle when I could neither get him to sit nor stand, as he hovered between until we were rescued by nursing staff.

Nothing can stop the erosion of age, but in many ways my mother is responsible for some of what is happening to her. She was always resistant to going to the doctor for regular check-ups, was frequently difficult about, and in fact could not be trusted to take medication when she required it, and hid the true state of her physical and mental decline from the family. Before her collapse last year her doctor had asked her to return for a follow up and she did nothing about it.

She did tell one of her sisters, but swore her to secrecy  Her sisters are just as resistant to maintaining their health, but if that sister had just phoned one of us, maybe our mother would not have become so ill, collapsed, or had the heart attack that followed. The sister she told has experienced two bouts of cancer; one breast, the other bowel cancer, and so surely she knows the value of medical help. Then again, she refused follow up treatment after surgery for the bowel cancer. It is if they would rather die than trust medical treatment.

A visit to a seniors’ care facility shows not only that the old become invisible and neglected by the government they supported all their lives, but is also a sharp and painful reminder that age comes to everyone, and not always pleasantly. We can’t stop getting older, however we can do a lot about how we age. Keeping our minds occupied, our bodies moving, maintaining relationships with family, friends and the community, assessing support and medical treatment and being honest with yourself and others, in my opinion will go a long way to improving the quality of an old age.

Well may my mother have argued that it was her life and she would do as she wished, but the truth is, her life wasn’t her own. She was dependent on my sister for so many things in the last few years, and was only able to live alone in the family home because of my sister’s diligent care; her sacrifices. Yet so many times my sister’s efforts were met with anger and hurtful words.

No on has the right to expect another person to give up their lives for them. Parenthood is not a reason to expect children to exhaust themselves caring for parents who don’t play fair by doing their best to maintain their own health and independence.

Most children, especially daughters, do the caring though. Year in and year out they worry, and feel guilt because they can never do enough to hold back time. They carry the burden of walking behind and taking care of the details when plans and decisions are neglected until it becomes an emergency. They go home and weep for what has been lost, and for what is approaching.

The cycle of life goes around, but we need to take responsibility and plan to have an old age of quality and one that not only we, but our families may enjoy too. Plan for it now, no matter your age for it comes tapping on the shoulder in the blink of time.

Try it, you might like it!

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For those of you who suffer from diverticulitis, or struggle with bloating, IBS or just weight issues this might be the blog for you. Written by Deb Poole,  a Brisbane personal trainer (daughter’s trainer until she moved to Perth), the blog speaks honestly about being “sick and tired of being sick and tired” and of Deb’s efforts to find the right diet for her.

I know that feeling and the utter frustration of always feeling in pain, or living in fear of the pain returning. Maybe, you will find some wisdom and common sense in her writings as I did.

Link : here

 

 

Regrets? Not a one.

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New Year 31

2012 Resolutions:

I must change.

I must remove all the excess. 

I must get rid of all the clutter.

I must eat healthier food.

I must exercise.

I must read more, for pleasure and professionally.

I must watch less TV.

I must be more active in my own life.  

Well, we are in the last few hours of 2012 and like millions of others, I feel a little tug to pause for reflection on the year that has been. I am not making any resolutions this new year, having decided that I am about as good as I am going to get (and hey, as a goddess, that is pretty damn good!)

At the turn of 2011 to 2012 I made the  resolutions listed above. How did I go? I blitzed it; of course not!

Well, I changed. Who doesn’t as they live through another year, notch up another year on the birthday totem? We also started a new life, a country life; and I gained permanent employment in a role that I always desired, but took the long route to achieve. Happiness off the scale has been my reward.

Excess? Well, it was a slow walk to a crashing crescendo on that one. Budget cutbacks achieved some trimming. Moving achieved even more (do I pack the shit, or do I toss the shit? After packing about a gazillion boxes that question becomes way easier.) The final cut to excess was achieved through a mind shift that minimalism brought me more joy and far less stress.

Yes, indeed moving got the toss out regime into high gear, and we managed to downsize to a smaller house, but it is still obvious that I need to cull more than a little bit more. It will happen, the die is cast. It has become a mindset and a need, and so clutter has been controlled as well.

Food? Well, I would have classed that a big fat F for failure until the last few weeks when I think I finally got the light bulb moment. After yet one more bout of diverticulitis, and a pretty severe one, I have really looked at my diet. I have suffered from diverticulitis for over fifteen years now, and I do not believe that my diet really plays a large part in my chronic condition, though I avoid certain things as a precaution; anyone who has suffered the pain of an attack would do the same.

For months I have been trying to cut back on sugar in my diet. Yes, I of the chocolate and jelly baby eating sweet tooth. As my children joke, “Mum thinks lollies are a food group!” I eliminated sugar from my one coffee a day at work – woohoo! To cut a long food saga short, in the last weeks of 2012 I just didn’t want to feel second rate anymore, I want to have more energy and so I really working on what I eat; and when it is something not so good, at least the portion size. So, maybe not an F, but more of a D+.

Reading, well the professional reading went up off the scale; so much to learn. I started a professional Scoop.It to curate the information and to share it with colleagues. Along the line I joined a bookclub that has forced me to read things out of my usual comfort genre (biography and memoir), but I didn’t cut out the television watching as much as I planned. Heck, there was that ongoing sideshow called the US Presidential Election and I just couldn’t drag myself away. Then to have it followed by the Fiscal Cliff, what a gift for a comedy lover!

Exercise came with the move to the country, where just walking to the mailbox is more than I used to walk in a week living in the city! Exercise also came with the arrival of a puppy named Augie Dog, who loves to play, well he loves to play all the time, and any game! He also lowered our stress to levels not experienced in years

And the last resolution; to be more active in my life? I am, I know I am. I am grateful for and I appreciate everyone in my life, and everything I have. My blessings are many and I try to embrace each moment. I even try to be nice, even though it goes against my natural inclinations, for I find nice exhausting; but I do try.

Life is rarely what we hope or wish, but all we can do is our best and try to be resilient. I have tried to ride the roller coaster and yet set my own path at the same time. Win some, lose some, for sure, but I try to stay true to myself, and try to stop others setting my life agenda. Life? I am in it.

happy drink

life, love and everything

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1961_fashion_simone_d_aillencourt_1957_pierre_balmain

It’s all a little bit over, isn’t it? Christmas, I mean. It hurled through the week like a train rattling down the line, and shot through faster than an express. I guess it always does.

Not that I am complaining, as we all know my capacity for niceness is severely limited and I can only be trusted in a social setting for a certain amount of time before I need to go and lie down somewhere quietly by myself.

We did have a lovely Christmas day. Mother Flamingo Dancer managed to stay with us until mid afternoon, when it was obvious that she was tired and needed to return to her care facility. She was fairly coherent in the morning, but once lunch arrived she started to hallucinate a little. I was sitting with her after lunch when she reached her hand out to me and asked me to help her “shut it”. Obviously she imagined that she was holding something, and kept asking me to help her close it, so I stroked her finger a couple times and told her it was now closed and she seemed happy with that. Later she held out her empty hand and asked me to give something to my sister, so I just pretended to take whatever it was from her hand, and reached over and handed it to my sister, who didn’t bat an eyelid as she continued her conversation. It all felt a little like when you play tea parties with little ones and drink imaginary tea and cakes.

There are funny moments though. Mum has developed two distinct behaviours. She either wants to give away things, or to take things. She developed a great liking to a little pair of Santa salt and pepper shakers that Daughter2 had found for me in Holland. On several occasions as we ate lunch she turned to my sister and instructed her to make sure she took them before she left. “I’ll take those when we go.”

Later she was picking at her blouse, trying to get the buttons off. She wanted to give them away. I said “But Mum, everyone will see your underwear!”

“That’s all right” said my once very prim mother.

“What if you’re not wearing your best underwear?” I joked in reply.

“No matter,” she returned, quite unconcerned.

Most times Mum appears to know me, but some times she asks for “the other one” and that means me. I guess my sister is the main support and I am the back up, the other one.

We are going to try one more Grandma Flamingo Dancer outing to our house on Saturday, when my niece, and her young family will join us for a late Christmas celebration. Mum adores the little people, so I hope she can find some enjoyment in the day. After this I think her visits will be limited as we have a great deal of difficulty getting Mum out of the car, and also to use the bathroom; so we will make the most of her time while we can.

Having two parents suffer from dementia, in two entirely different ways, does make me wonder what the future will hold for my siblings and I. It also makes me realise just how important living in the moment, and appreciating what I have, is.

AE-LiveInTheMoment

All Mum has now is the moment, and all we can do for her is make sure she feels our love and to preserve her dignity. Never does she ask about any of the contents of her house, and she no longer asks about her house. The care facility is now her house to her. The “stuff” that she hoarded and thought so important, the “good things” she kept unused for some special occasion are all now meaningless. It is a life lesson, well and truly. “Stuff” means nothing in life; love and family are everything. Everything.