Getting older sucks doesn't it

I don’t mean myself although that sucks too, but i mean parents reaching “that” age.
Between the wife and myself we now have three parents that have memory issues, dementia, diabetes, all need constant attention. There’s barely a day goes by now without a crisis of some sort. Last week I defaced my fathers bank card so he could not give out his details over the phone (again), the very next day he tried to do just that for £430 pounds to a bogus caller. He finally agreed to let me keep it after that.
Sorry, depressing subject and it’s just gonna get worse
We love them dearly but it’s all so wearing 🙁

It can be incredibly hard work, and very sad to see the mental degradation that dementia can cause. Our next door neighbour died last month after two years of rapid onset dementia. To see this crossword devouring, witty man decline so quickly was really sad. As neighbours and friends we helped out (helping him turn his TV on several times a week as he kept switching it to Analogue after the signal went 100% digital).

+1.

We’re down to 1 parent left. She just fell off the stair lift because she didn’t do the seat belt up. Wife’s at the hospital now. AT least she’s safe at the moment.

haven’t had the same issues re dementia yet but I’m glad I moved to be nearer my parents 10 years ago — mum still here, fading in many ways, but still sharp as a tack. but yes, very week certainly there’s something “no rush, but” that needs attending to. Just as well I’m self employed, work from home, and don’t need to work all the hours in the week..

I’ve lost my kid sister, my dad, my mum, my stepdad of 30 years and my best mate is going to be gone within months and the oldest of my 3 dogs is about to go.
I get up some days and wonder why I bother.

It’s something that is playing on mind ATM, too. My parents are still relatively fit, though my mother has mobility issues as well as diabetes, but I can see in the not too distant future that they are going to need more care. Problem being I live 1500kms away in another country and I am their only child. Our family is quite tightly knit and one of my cousins lives a few streets away and regularly visits but still. Ho hum. 😕

Kcal ” No rush but” words that make my heart sink 🙂 You just know that if not dealt with quickly, there will be a phone call every hour.

Eddiebaby…so sorry 🙁

It’s awful, especially if it’s just you and you’re not physically close.

The scamming callers thing is a nightmare. Colleague at work, his mum paid scammers and now it’s almost every phone call. He’s put a phone block on, begged her not to answer the phone but it’s all to no avail, even got to the point where he has to give her cash. She’s now offering to post this to the endless number of scammers that call.

My Nan threw away a carrier bag of gold jewellery and sovereigns when dementia set in so that people could t steal them. I mean like a half full bag difficult to lift with the family’s wealth in. Left them with nothing.

Since my little brother died 2 years ago I’ve become a bit more aware of this. (knowing i’m going to be sorting it on my own)

My folks are 70ish, Dad is now injecting insulin due to acute pancreatitis and Mum dealing with rheumatoid Arthritis which is only going to get worse.
thankfully they moved closer to us a year ago so at least they are now only a 15 minute drive away.
They are also now in warden controlled sheltered housing which is good.
They are both reasonably sensible and no obvious history of dementia in either family so fingers crossed.

It’s horrible. My dad has advanced dementia and many of my parents’ friends and neighbours are in poor health or have died already: cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, lung disease, dementia. It almost seems like their generation is more unhealthy than my grandparents’ generation was. My grandparents lived til they were about 85 and were healthy to about 80. My mum’s stepmother is 95 and has shrugged off cancer and a brain haemorrhage. My parents and their friends are only in their 60s and 70s.

Tough times. Although I’m 52 my parents where themselves young parents so all ok at the moment as they are early 70’s. Sadly this is a side effect of geater longevity, in the past the body gave out before the brain.

@Eddiebaby you got people to talk with IRL? It helps to unload with mates or professionals. Don’t carry it all alone. Good luck.

Let me try to cheer you all up: my Mum, a former physiotherapist, is 85 and she leads Rambler’s groups once a week, goes to the gym once a week, has all her teeth, sings in three choirs, is a guide at the Salisbury museum and is almost never in when you call. When I can get her on the phone she complains about being pursued by randy old colonels. My sister lives in Salisbury so she’s going to be the one who cops it when it all goes wrong.

Meanwhile up here in’t north we are nursing my MIL who has ovarian cancer and is happy to sit around all day doing nothing, not even bothering to go to the bog, so our house stinks of wee wee.

My Mum’s 96 this year and refuses to move from her four bedroom country cottage in the middle of a field with the nearest village over a mile away, on her own since we lost my Dad a couple of years ago. She still has all her marbles, but is not very mobile, just about walks around the house with two sticks and has a stair lift. Unfortunately I’m 150 miles away from her and my brother is over 500 miles away. Fortunately, my ex still pops in to see her and do her on-line shopping order once a month, but she does of course complain that she’s lonely. What can you do if they won’t move? We really can’t afford to move near her, and then move again to where we really want to be.
She would definitely agree, getting old really does suck.

Everyone I know is dying.

My heroes are almost gone.

The woman I love will always look to me the day I first met her. Yet she looks old in reality I’m scared of losing her.

My Mother has terminal cancer.

My Father looks I’ll, weak and thin – far from the big muscled guy I knew as a kid.

My beer belly is annoying and I’m going grey.

The next few years are scary and full of loved ones passing.

I’m off to buy Coke and Hookers – lets party like 1999!

My 60th birthday on St George’s day. I’m going to stage a bike race on a local circuit for about 14 cycling friends then we will ride over to a cafe where the owner is putting on a barrel of Bowland Brewery Hen Harrier and a slap-up roast dinner.

I don’t think I have the fortitude to post details on this thread right now beyond “yup.” It’s shit. Guess most of us are around that age.

Just to be really cheery, I live in fear of the day where I’m crossing out ‘parents’ and writing ‘friends’ in this situation.

Lady Gresley. They are lonely even if you see them every day
Frankenstein. That’s the spirit 🙂
globalti. Awesome, seriously.

Yeah, my mum is 86. Last year she had lymphoma and needed chemo. She still has a lump on a kidney. Find out if anything else needed after her three months appointment comes up in Feb.

The old boy is 81. Two years ago he had a pulmonary odema and needed a double heart bypass. He’s got some kinda chest/lung issues atm and was in for biopsies and fluid samples earlier this week. Be a couple weeks before we find out what.

They are both type 2 diabetic and have half a pharmacy to take a day.

Looks like this year is going to be fun….

ETA: also recently found out an old friend (who I’d lost touch with, long story not for here) died suddenly and unexpectedly. Makes me extremely sad we will never meet again. Sorry I missed you Sal 😥

You know, we all have our experiences. And, they are all relative to us. Empathy works and it’s good to read on here.

My little piece is that life is about loss. Or more importantly, how we deal with loss and continue on our path, which is the same path as those who have come and gone along the way.

I often wonder if it is all a ‘test’ that we’ve all been sent here to endure this pain because we’ve been bad entities, either in the past here, or in some other world/parallel universe whatever, but life does send it’s swerves. I’m not going to bore you all with mine, but we somehow struggle on and hope it’s going to get better and of course it doesn’t, not on it’s own, you do have to get back on the bloody horse so to speak and hope next time it doesn’t buck you off, it isn’t as painful.

It’s funny how things that seem awful at the time can work out reasonably well in the long term.

In January 2009 I was elated to escape from 33 years employment and get early retirement. Within a couple of months, my father was suffering badly from cancer and I was immediately thrown into a situation of being part-time carer, driver, shopper etc. Part of me reckoned it was fate bringing me back to earth with a bump. In Jan 2010 he passed away and all my focus then went on to my mother who was badly grieving (in her way) and nine months later the Big C got her too. While I was devastated to lose both parents in such a short window I look back at it now and count it as a blessing. My mother had just been waiting to pass away so her time of grieving and suffering was cut short, as was mine. Neither did I have years of having to care for her.

My Dad is getting old and VERY set in his ways, he lives 250 miles away and when I saw him last year I thought he had aged.

Mrs M’s parents had tried moving next door to us, after a massive rant by me they are now a mile away. I am desperately trying to move us +250 mile from them as I want nothing to do with them. After the shit they put my wife through as a kid I want her as far away from them as possible.

My parents died over 30 years ago. Mrs Z’s mother died before we met. I’m grateful in a small way for this. I don’t think I have the disposition to deal with dementia in a loved one. Fingers crossed that Mrs Z doesn’t get it.

The FIL has dementia, but luckily he lives in Ireland. We’ve scarcely exchanged a civil word in 37 years, so I’ll not shed a tear for that arse now.

During all that I’ve been through with my father, I came to realise how bloody lucky we are in the UK to have the NHS. I’m sure others have different opinions but where i am they have been brilliant. It’s been theraputic for the wife and myself to read your stories, thanks and stay strong 😀
Eddiebaby I hope you’re feeling more positive today

This sad thread is just a reflection of the fact that people are living longer nowadays, meaning that many more of us have parents who are elderly and frail. Fifty years ago our parents might have died younger from a sudden heart attack or in an accident or quite quickly from another undetected and untreated (or untreatable) disease. Nowadays we have the ability to detect disease and treat it and lifestyles are generally healthier.