The family rollercoaster
Well now.... misery loves company as they say. Feel free to skip if you've had enough bad news for today.
Yesterday, I had a very nice evening with friends to take my mind off current events, for which I thank them. Unfortunately today comes around to bite the asses of the entire family.
a) Grandma has to make The Big Decision today: doctors are suggesting a feeding tube into grandpa's stomach. The family thinks it doesn't help anything, but will merely prolong his suffering. Docs probably have a different opinion otherwise they wouldn't suggest it. But in the end, the only one who can say 'yes' or 'no' is grandma. And it's causing her no small amount of stress, as you might imagine.
b) After many tests and almost 15 (!) years of wrong diagnoses and wrong medications, finally a doctor took the effort of wanting to really discover what condition my mother has, instead of suppressing symptoms with Prednison. Today, my mom finally got a name to pin on the medical troubles she's had for so long: Churg-Strauss Syndrom (Dutch - English). Bam. There we have it. First course of action for treatment: Get mom back on the Prednison that's been force-fed to her for all these years. The 'medicin' her body got so used to that she actually had withdrawal symptoms when she stopped using it.
The only positive news today came from dad whose financial advisor has calculated that he can safely retire without having to take a step back financially. But right now money doesn't mean much when your wife is struggling with her health and your father-in-law is slipping away.
Yesterday, I had a very nice evening with friends to take my mind off current events, for which I thank them. Unfortunately today comes around to bite the asses of the entire family.
a) Grandma has to make The Big Decision today: doctors are suggesting a feeding tube into grandpa's stomach. The family thinks it doesn't help anything, but will merely prolong his suffering. Docs probably have a different opinion otherwise they wouldn't suggest it. But in the end, the only one who can say 'yes' or 'no' is grandma. And it's causing her no small amount of stress, as you might imagine.
b) After many tests and almost 15 (!) years of wrong diagnoses and wrong medications, finally a doctor took the effort of wanting to really discover what condition my mother has, instead of suppressing symptoms with Prednison. Today, my mom finally got a name to pin on the medical troubles she's had for so long: Churg-Strauss Syndrom (Dutch - English). Bam. There we have it. First course of action for treatment: Get mom back on the Prednison that's been force-fed to her for all these years. The 'medicin' her body got so used to that she actually had withdrawal symptoms when she stopped using it.
The only positive news today came from dad whose financial advisor has calculated that he can safely retire without having to take a step back financially. But right now money doesn't mean much when your wife is struggling with her health and your father-in-law is slipping away.