Lesson 15,150-Aging Parents

Okay, so I have entered a new chapter in my life.  It's the hard part of life that everyone will eventually face.  In our 40's, we have our own children and families to take care of, friends who are in need of support and the part of our lives where we have aging parents.  In the past couple of months, I have attended a few funerals of people who I never even knew but they were one of my friend's parents and I had to be there for my friends, while also taking care of my family and aging parent.  Some of us are blessed to still have parents that are in good health at 90-something and some of us have parents who are 60-something and in failing health. This is tough.  So, in between taking care of our families, we make time for our parents who are aging and make casseroles for friends who have lost a parent.  We drive our children to soccer practice and drop off a casserole.  We go to the grocery store and run an errand for a friend in need.  We go to the doctor because at 40+ our bodies are falling apart and we need mammograms and colonoscopies and start having blood pressure problems and then we go to our parents house and fill up their medicine boxes for the week.  We take our parents to the doctor and pick up kids from school.  Some days we don't even get our beds made because we have so many things to do.  Some of us work and still manage to find time to do all of these things and still make time to bake a cake for a friend.  It's almost humorous the things that we find time to do with everything going on.  We have to find humor in these crazy times in our lives.  Throw in a load of laundry, take a shower, put the clothes in the dryer, go pick up the kids, restart the dryer, help with homework, restart the dryer, cook dinner, restart the dryer, get the kids ready for bed, restart the dryer, take my nighttime meds, load the dishwasher and go to bed.  Wake up in the morning, restart the dryer, take the kids to school, restart the dryer, call you sick parent, finally fold the clothes in the dryer.

Some of us have elderly parents or elderly in-laws who live with us.  I have tried to get one of my friends to write a blog about her "Adventures With Mom" but she won't but boy does she have some good ones. You have to see her act out what her Mom does for it to be funny.  Her Mom is a hoot and she doesn't even realize it!! She is in her 80's so she lived through a lot of things in her life.  She has lived through lots of Presidents, wars, the Civil Rights era and Women's Lib.  She has probably washed clothes on a washing board and couldn't figure out how to use her daughter's high-tech washing machine.  She lived before TV's were in every room. She lived when there weren't phones in everyone's home and before cell phones.  She probably doesn't know how to turn on a computer.  She probably sat around a radio and listened to The Lone Ranger.  She probably listened to Frank Sinatra on a scratchy record player.  Her Mom has to be a tough to have lived this long but she is getting frail and needs supervision. Same thing with lots of our aging parents.

My Dad is in his early 70's and has health issues.  Everyone will tell you how sweet he is and how much they love him and he has tons of friends but if he needs something, he only wants his daughters there to take care of him.  Getting him to understand medical jargon is up to me.  Getting to understand his finances is up to my sister. He takes medicines which have side effects so he has to take another medicine for a side effect and then that medicine causes him to have another issue.  Tack on surgery to that and then there is another side effect and more medications to combat all of those side effects.  He gets dehydrated easily which effects his kidneys.  His kidney tests are high and he doesn't understand that because he has never had problems with his kidneys.  Then he takes a medication for diabetes and it has side effects on the kidneys. He has to take fluid pills and that has side effects on his kidneys.  His feet are swollen and he won't keep them propped up and argues with me when I try to explain that gravity is not his friend when he has fluid built up so he has to keep them elevated above his heart.  That just makes him angry to have to sit around with his feet propped up and sleep with his feet elevated.  Then he needs to eat more protein so he calls me every 2 hours to see if it is okay to eat something like peanut butter or bacon.  Salt isn't your friend when you have fluid overload but he likes bacon and he likes grits with salt so he's going do what he wants to do and then complains about the fluid!!!  "Well, Daddy, the swelling won't go down if you don't keep those feet up and lower your salt intake!!"  And at what age do you start counting your bowel movements every day?  "If you have one, Daddy, you're fine!!" If he has only one, he gets worried that he is constipated.  If he has three or more, he's worried that he has diarrhea.  So, I pray that he has 2 every day!!  I'm quite sure that I will do whatever I want to do when I am in my 70's!!  If I live to be 73, and I want bacon and my sodium level is high and I have fluid on my ankles, I am still going to eat bacon!!!  Then I am going to call my son and ask him why my feet are swelling!!

We have to find humor in our aging parents!!  We have to be there for our friends when a parent passes away.  Nothing meant more to me than looking over and seeing 2 rows of beautiful ladies at my stepmother's funeral.  (She was my Mom for 24 years. My Mom died in a car accident when I was 9-years old so Katherine was my mom for much longer than my real Mom.  Of course, I will always love my real Mom and Katherine because she treated me as her own.  She saw me graduate, get married and have my son. She wiped my tears when my heart got broken.  She gave me advice about life and she was always right!!!  Of course, I didn't think she was as smart as she really was until I was about 25-years old and then I realized that she wasn't stupid!!  She was right!!)  We have to be there for our family.  We drive kids hither and yon.  We help with impossible school projects.  We cheer for them at sporting events in the freezing cold and the scorching heat.  We have to keep the house and clothes clean, no matter how many times we restart the dryer.  We have to take care of our spouses.  We have to be there for our siblings. We have to be there for friends, family and loved ones.  We have to do things to better our community.  We have to make sure our children know that not everyone lives like they do.  There are people who have it way better and way worse.  That's Life!

This time of life is definitely the hardest. Being there for everyone is tough and sometimes a juggling act.  If you find time for a little exercise and a nap occasionally, don't be hard on yourself.  Take some time for you!!  I need a manicure and pedicure really bad so I am a little bit glad that it is winter because my toenails look horrid!!  My eyebrows look like a caveman and my wrinkles have not been Botoxed in quite some time!!  Sorry, I look like this but I've been taking care of  "My People"!!