Falling Down
My grandfather fell.
So hard he dented the wall.
He insists he didn't fall.
So he refuses to go to the hospital.
And due to his general incoherence (he had a tumor the size of an orange removed from his brain a few years ago) it is difficult to tell if anything is wrong. My mother was unreachable for several hours & my uncle has declined to give out his phone number so it was just me trying to figure out what to do.
I can't really _do_ anything from this distance but I worry about him. So much.
Every few months he cuts our conversations shorter, I think because he's realizing that's how short his memory is. He asks questions that I told him the answer to just a few minutes ago. He frequently calls me by my mother's name & every once in a while will tell me something like I'm my grandmother.
My mother is taking the brunt of his paranoid complaints and having to deal with his money affairs which include the various firms taking advantage of his senile dementia. Every once in a while she reaffirms to me that she wants to be shot if she every gets anything like him. I don't think she's kidding. She's even planned what stage of dementia it needs to be done at. I've learned to deal with her telling me that she wants no treatment & to die while she still has some quality of life (which meant I would likely have to help her against the will of everyone else in the family) because I know she had to watch two of my grandparents die very slowly from their cancers. I don't want to end up like my grandfather either, but having her mention that she might kill herself so regularly is starting to get to me.
But enough with the depressing. There are many good things in my life.
It has now been 2 years since anyone I know has attempted suicide (that hasn't been true since I was in the 6th grade).
My grandfather's accident made me realize that in the last few months I've only fallen for no reason once - a great improvement for me.
This weekend I'm planning to go to the first Renn faire in San Francisco - the first faire under an hour away from me.
I have two fuzzy kitties to go home & pet.
Most of the construction is over (summer = construction time here), and the plants are in bloom, and it's not too hot so I have a very pleasant bike ride ahead of me.
I think I'll go do that now.
So hard he dented the wall.
He insists he didn't fall.
So he refuses to go to the hospital.
And due to his general incoherence (he had a tumor the size of an orange removed from his brain a few years ago) it is difficult to tell if anything is wrong. My mother was unreachable for several hours & my uncle has declined to give out his phone number so it was just me trying to figure out what to do.
I can't really _do_ anything from this distance but I worry about him. So much.
Every few months he cuts our conversations shorter, I think because he's realizing that's how short his memory is. He asks questions that I told him the answer to just a few minutes ago. He frequently calls me by my mother's name & every once in a while will tell me something like I'm my grandmother.
My mother is taking the brunt of his paranoid complaints and having to deal with his money affairs which include the various firms taking advantage of his senile dementia. Every once in a while she reaffirms to me that she wants to be shot if she every gets anything like him. I don't think she's kidding. She's even planned what stage of dementia it needs to be done at. I've learned to deal with her telling me that she wants no treatment & to die while she still has some quality of life (which meant I would likely have to help her against the will of everyone else in the family) because I know she had to watch two of my grandparents die very slowly from their cancers. I don't want to end up like my grandfather either, but having her mention that she might kill herself so regularly is starting to get to me.
But enough with the depressing. There are many good things in my life.
It has now been 2 years since anyone I know has attempted suicide (that hasn't been true since I was in the 6th grade).
My grandfather's accident made me realize that in the last few months I've only fallen for no reason once - a great improvement for me.
This weekend I'm planning to go to the first Renn faire in San Francisco - the first faire under an hour away from me.
I have two fuzzy kitties to go home & pet.
Most of the construction is over (summer = construction time here), and the plants are in bloom, and it's not too hot so I have a very pleasant bike ride ahead of me.
I think I'll go do that now.