I spent last Saturday night not out on the tiles as is my wont, but sitting in my nana's kitchen talking about boys. My tales of romantic misadventure and misguided emotion cheer her up no end; she thinks I'm fucking hilarious. She'd had a difficult day and appreciated the company, her paramour's been giving her a hard time of late. Married for a gazillion years, they're going through a rough patch.
Grandad's health hasn't been good over the last few months and it's taking a heavy toll on both of them. He's been having bouts of confusion, small strokes that leave him disorientated weak and leave nana frightened and upset. He's lost his sense of balance and relies on a walker or his wheelchair for longer trips (occasionally confusing the two and perching imperiously on the handles of his walker, demanding to be pushed). His conversation is laboured as he sometimes struggles to remember the details of the stories he's telling, or the words with which to tell them. His short term memory is almost comically bad, he can remember stories from when he was a kid, but not whether or not he's eaten dinner today. Though invariably he'll tell you that he has; for some reason since his health has started to fail he has refused to eat properly and has become painfully thin. It's this more than anything else that has contributed to his health's decline and that has put a strain on their relationship, causing rows the like of which I've never known them to have. She's a great cook, you see, and she's lost a sense of purpose now that he's decided he's not hungry, ever. At first she started cooking all kinds of wonderful things to try to tempt his appetite back, but it's beaten her. Now she mostly cooks mushy things that she knows he might at least have a go at and in the spirit of solidarity and old lady thrift she eats the same goo herself.
On bad days he's like a petulant child, frustrated with his lot and he doesn't give a shite who knows it. She had a birthday recently and he sulked all day, jealous, didn't want to leave the house (sly dog used his get-out-of-jail-free card and said he was hungry... cue a frenzy of cooking, none of which the curmudgeon ate). On good days, he's the world's best grandad, taking the piss out of nana, embarrassing her with declarations of affection, flirting in mortifying fashion with the home help (he's right though, she is lovely) and talking interestedly to you about what you're at and how it's all going for you. He has more good days than bad.
Saturday was a bad one though. He had another small stroke. At this stage nana knows the drill and doesn't call for the ambulance; within a couple of minutes he's lucid again and has a bit of a headache, so it's off to bed with 2 paracetamol. It's happened often enough now and she has every episode logged for the next visit to the geriatrician. A notebook with times and durations of his lost moments and her most anxious ones.
They have great support from their 5 kids and their eleventy million grandkids, from the health services, the hospital, the next-door neighbours, the active retired committee, you name it. But it's fucking tough, and it'd break your heart.
Grandad's health hasn't been good over the last few months and it's taking a heavy toll on both of them. He's been having bouts of confusion, small strokes that leave him disorientated weak and leave nana frightened and upset. He's lost his sense of balance and relies on a walker or his wheelchair for longer trips (occasionally confusing the two and perching imperiously on the handles of his walker, demanding to be pushed). His conversation is laboured as he sometimes struggles to remember the details of the stories he's telling, or the words with which to tell them. His short term memory is almost comically bad, he can remember stories from when he was a kid, but not whether or not he's eaten dinner today. Though invariably he'll tell you that he has; for some reason since his health has started to fail he has refused to eat properly and has become painfully thin. It's this more than anything else that has contributed to his health's decline and that has put a strain on their relationship, causing rows the like of which I've never known them to have. She's a great cook, you see, and she's lost a sense of purpose now that he's decided he's not hungry, ever. At first she started cooking all kinds of wonderful things to try to tempt his appetite back, but it's beaten her. Now she mostly cooks mushy things that she knows he might at least have a go at and in the spirit of solidarity and old lady thrift she eats the same goo herself.
On bad days he's like a petulant child, frustrated with his lot and he doesn't give a shite who knows it. She had a birthday recently and he sulked all day, jealous, didn't want to leave the house (sly dog used his get-out-of-jail-free card and said he was hungry... cue a frenzy of cooking, none of which the curmudgeon ate). On good days, he's the world's best grandad, taking the piss out of nana, embarrassing her with declarations of affection, flirting in mortifying fashion with the home help (he's right though, she is lovely) and talking interestedly to you about what you're at and how it's all going for you. He has more good days than bad.
Saturday was a bad one though. He had another small stroke. At this stage nana knows the drill and doesn't call for the ambulance; within a couple of minutes he's lucid again and has a bit of a headache, so it's off to bed with 2 paracetamol. It's happened often enough now and she has every episode logged for the next visit to the geriatrician. A notebook with times and durations of his lost moments and her most anxious ones.
They have great support from their 5 kids and their eleventy million grandkids, from the health services, the hospital, the next-door neighbours, the active retired committee, you name it. But it's fucking tough, and it'd break your heart.
