What saddened you today?

[Breezy_Pete]

Very sorry to read that BJM.

[Markos72]

The third anniversary of my brother's passing coming up this weekend- he had been ill for a number of years and had a double lung transplant in 2016 at the Freeman in Newcastle. After some complications and being transferred back to Scotland he got home in summer 2017 but was still unwell albeit slowly improving, being able to go out and about again in his wheelchair and stuff. Unfortunately he had a massive cardiac arrest and passed away in 2018  at 40 years old. When I see films like Dune being released I think we would definitely have gone to see that together as we both enjoyed big epic movies like that and Bladerunner 2049 ( the last movie we went to see together at IMAX) 

Edited 4 November, 2021 by Markos72
typo

[AnnoyingPentium]

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, @Markos72. That must be horrible to have to go through.

[Markos72]

2 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, @Markos72. That must be horrible to have to go through.

Incredibly difficult, but we have a good family network. Worst of it was he was my back up and support with 3 sisters- now I'm the one they all bully

[AnnoyingPentium]

I'm on day and year god knows what of trying to find my late father's wedding ring. Managed to keep it safe for at least 5 years (I received it from my Mum as a young lad and it didn't fit, so I put it in a small box, it's not in the box) and then I went to look for it and it wasn't where it was meant to be, and isn't in various places it was in. There's a couple of other places in the house where it could be (such as the loft, or in the wardrobe of my brother's room), but otherwise I've had this house upside down trying to find it. 

 

I still haven't found it and it's a massive kick to the teeth to this day as I'd now be able to wear it, and I'd have like to have done so.

[AnnoyingPentium]

Pretty minor but yeah... My good tea mug broke this morning when I was taking it out of the dishwasher, handle sheared straight off. It was a Big Country one I got custom printed many moons ago now, that was my favourite one too, it's like we've all got mugs for our tea (or coffee) but there's always a very good one that's "mine".

[Breezy_Pete]

Double whammy yesterday.

Two hours into the journey to visit my Mum in her (dementia) Care Home getting a call from there to say the visit was cancelled due to "Outbreak status" in the home.  Thankfully that was able to be varied into a 'pod visit' instead; nowhere near as good but a hell of a lot better than nothing considering how close I was to arriving.

 

More upsetting was the stark evidence that she no longer (or not right then at least) really knows who I am. She asked me towards the end of the visit how our mother was.  Guess she thought I must be one of her late brothers.

 

Slightly worse than the question a few months back "How many children do I have, is it three?" no Mum, just two.

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

I'm very sorry to hear about that, Pete. Dementia is such a cruel and unforgiving illness.

[Mickvrs220]

3 hours ago, Wino said:

Double whammy yesterday.

Two hours into the journey to visit my Mum in her (dementia) Care Home getting a call from there to say the visit was cancelled due to "Outbreak status" in the home.  Thankfully that was able to be varied into a 'pod visit' instead; nowhere near as good but a hell of a lot better than nothing considering how close I was to arriving.

 

More upsetting was the stark evidence that she no longer (or not right then at least) really knows who I am. She asked me towards the end of the visit how our mother was.  Guess she thought I must be one of her late brothers.

 

Slightly worse than the question a few months back "How many children do I have, is it three?" no Mum, just two.

 

Its a soul destroying illness wino ,you've got my best wishes mate ,lost my gran and grandad with 😥

[skomaz]

3 hours ago, Wino said:

Double whammy yesterday.

Two hours into the journey to visit my Mum in her (dementia) Care Home getting a call from there to say the visit was cancelled due to "Outbreak status" in the home.  Thankfully that was able to be varied into a 'pod visit' instead; nowhere near as good but a hell of a lot better than nothing considering how close I was to arriving.

 

More upsetting was the stark evidence that she no longer (or not right then at least) really knows who I am. She asked me towards the end of the visit how our mother was.  Guess she thought I must be one of her late brothers.

 

Slightly worse than the question a few months back "How many children do I have, is it three?" no Mum, just two.

 

 

dementia is a horrible, horrible thing that I experienced first hand with my dad...   you have my sympathies.

[KenONeill]

Similar story about how my paternal grandmother was no longer my grandmother (well pre-Covid, not that this even helps me much).

[Breezy_Pete]

Thanks for the kindness folks. 

[Mickvrs220]

Lost a workmate on wednesday ,looks like poor lads had a heart attack and died alone which is sad ,and my missis just found out a long time friend has terminal cancer ,so a down in dumps night tonight but tommorow will be a fresh day  👍

Edited 11 December, 2021 by Mickvrs220

[AnnoyingPentium]

3 minutes ago, Mickvrs220 said:

Lost a workmate on wednesday ,looks like poor lads had a heart attack and died alone which is sad ,and my missis just found out a long time friend has terminal cancer ,so a down in dumps night tonight but tommorow will be a fresh day to think about how lucky we are sometimes and not to waste precious time ,so i genuinly hope whom ever reads this has a nice weekend that puts a good memory in your heed 👍

 

Gutted to hear that, Mick. My thoughts go out to all of you. Tomorrow's a new day, as you say. 

[skomaz]

Not quite on the scale of some of the above but i spoke to my neighbour today who has been breeding rabbits for last last year or so...   in the last few weeks she's had a bout of rabbit flu rip through her herd and over 30 of all ages have died leaving her with just 4.

 

Only rabbits but very sad if your an animal lover.

[VWD]

On 10/12/2021 at 11:00, Wino said:

Double whammy yesterday.

Two hours into the journey to visit my Mum in her (dementia) Care Home getting a call from there to say the visit was cancelled due to "Outbreak status" in the home.  Thankfully that was able to be varied into a 'pod visit' instead; nowhere near as good but a hell of a lot better than nothing considering how close I was to arriving.

 

More upsetting was the stark evidence that she no longer (or not right then at least) really knows who I am. She asked me towards the end of the visit how our mother was.  Guess she thought I must be one of her late brothers.

 

Slightly worse than the question a few months back "How many children do I have, is it three?" no Mum, just two.

 

Not nice to hear. Dad had vascular dementia. An old mate at work was well clued-up on dementia, as he'd had both parents and both in-laws suffer. His explanation went as follows.

For the normal person without dementia, memory retention is similar to the old Gasometer. As the brain takes in more memories, the vessel holding memory expands to hold the memory. When dementia strikes the vessel stops expanding and any new memories overflow ( as water into a bucket does when the top is reached) and new memories are lost.

Dad had a stroke years ago, and he was admitted to hospital and then to a recovery site. i picked him up from the hospital as he wanted to visit his house etc. He'd been a Postal officer before retirement and kept in touch with his old workmates, so I thought taking him in to the post office might get his brain working. His brain saw the Post office as the Postal garage, where he went to pick up a van for TV licence checks. So I've been there and got the T shirt, so I can sympathesise.

[AnnoyingPentium]

1 minute ago, VWD said:

For the normal person without dementia, memory retention is similar to the old Gasometer. As the brain takes in more memories, the vessel holding memory expands to hold the memory. When dementia strikes the vessel stops expanding and any new memories overflow ( as water into a bucket does when the top is reached) and new memories are lost.

 

I've never seen it that way. I think that's something I'll keep in mind though.

[NJRJ]

My Dad (he got to 93) and indeed my brother now (he's 70 today, I'm 60 and thinking genetics!) both with/had severe dementia, happy enough themselves but awful for the rest of the family watching them.

My wife's aunt (of 97) got the family relationships right only very, very occasionally, but mostly my wife (of only two nieces) was variously viewed as a sister (didn't have one!), mum (long dead obv.), cousin (all long gone), daughter (long gone), or even daughter in law (but had no son to have a wife!), or my wife's sister (they are chalk and cheese), my wife was also mistaken for random other 'women', we assume all these random named women existed, but we only knew of a few names from fragile annotated sepia photographs.

Horrid to see, but seemingly only for us observers and not the sufferer, be strong for her and yourself, cherish the memories and ignore the lapses.

[olduns]

i'm not normally bothered about News stories but 4 kids a week before Xmas oh boy  

 

D in L works in West Mids Fire control and i'm sure all other centres/Firefighters will be feeling the same

[mac11irl]

its not been a great couple of weeks for children in the UK 😞

 

[mac11irl]

more dying kids 😞

a boy (12) in spud sr's schools collapsed in the yard last thursday, i was told about the ambulance being there and teachers running around...

found out the boy died yesterday morning in the hospital. 

spud sr arrived home from school today saddened that the boy had died, especially because now he wasnt going to play with him and his class (6/7) at break times as he was really kind 😢 

some kind of cardiac event we've heard since. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Oh my god Mac that's horrible, that poor wee lad. My thoughts go out to you all, especially your own wee lad at this time.

[mac11irl]

thanks, spud seems to be over all okay, just a bit down. and sad. 

it gets a bit worse though, as swmbo taught the boy's older sister in her school a couple of yrs ago, and 2 of his cousins are actually in spud sr's class.

having senior tell me on the way from school that "if J.A. had his letter sent to santa already, he might still deliver his presents and his parent could give them to other people, or santa might be able to deliver them to heaven"

 

the logic of a 6 yr old's mind can be fairly soul bending...

[AnnoyingPentium]

 

2 minutes ago, mac11irl said:

having senior tell me on the way from school that "if J.A. had his letter sent to santa already, he might still deliver his presents and his parent could give them to other people, or santa might be able to deliver them to heaven"

 

the logic of a 6 yr old's mind can be fairly soul bending...

 

I think I'll go and get my tissues, that's just heart-breaking.

[Aspman]

My Mum died on Thursday. She'd been in hospital for a few months with leg ulcers and heart problems but went rapidly downhill last week.

Her body had just started to give up after decades of problems and powerful drugs.

 

We knew she was ill but this was unexpected. They hospital had inadvertantly overdosed her on morphine becasue she wasn't able to break it down well so it built up over time. She was brought back from that and we had expected an improvement but she started to fade after a very brief recovery.

 

My Dad is struggling clearly (they were married 57 years) and I'm a bit out the way.

He's going to lose the motability car so we'll need to find him something suitable quickly but it's a really bad time to need a car.

Edited 10 January, 2022 by Aspman