Family Matters

[Julie in Norfolk]

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Grandma at her 100th birthday on the 13th.

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/ne ... _birthday/

Unfortunately Grandma died yesterday. Not a sad day today as she wasn't the person she had been, but a time of contemplation and memory. She was obviously happy with the events on her birthday, the care staff had managed the event well. They told her it was her birthday and asked her if she new how old she was; "55" she told them!

[PanBiker]

Good lass Sally! Sorry for your loss but you will always have precious memories of her, of that I have no doubt.

[Stanley]

Sorry to hear that Jules but what a great age and just think of the changes she saw....

[Cathy]

Nice to hear that your Grandma had a good time for her last celebration, and reaching 100yrs is certainly that. They say females quite often wait if they have a celebration due. Lovely that you have such memories of her.

[Tizer]

She was obviously hell bent on showing you she could make 100, Julie. Setting a target for you to beat!

[Stanley]

That's why I have asked on another topic what the monthly payment on my annuity will be worth after 36 years on 3% compound interest!

[Julie in Norfolk]

I'll let Dad get there first..... He's always been a high scorer at Darts!

[Stanley]

P says I shall be a very rich man if I can manage another 20 years......

[Julie in Norfolk]

Grandma's funeral is on 2nd April, staying at the Craven Heifer this time. A visit to get some biscuits on the way back in Nelson and maybe (rain permitting) a visit to Wheatley Lane. Several of grandma's relatives buried there - Hardacres and Fosters, and her mother in law also if memory serves well.

[Stanley]

I thought about you, a cold day for a funeral. Hope it all went well....

[Julie in Norfolk]

All went very well. It was a day of memories rather than sadness. The chap who did the eulogy did a prime job, it made for interesting listening. Holidays with the WTA (Workers Transport A(ssociation I think) which they worked hard for and saved up all year); weaving and the mills she worked at - Wilkinsons being the last; her mum taking over her looms so she could have a half day off; she was born just before the first world war started and moved house on the first day of the second world war - I am just looking nervously over my shoulder now. Thinking about what she did in her life, her industriousness, she would put most of us to shame, but she did run a tight ship. Her tackler at one time was my maternal grandad, she being my paternal grandma, I think that would have been at Dan Walton's mill though I need to look again to see what the mill was called.

At this juncture i failed to insert a picture of Sally from my computer folder. Must check how to do that.

[Stanley]

When you look back at the lives of people from her generation you can't help but admire what they achieved. I listen to the wails of complaint from people today saying they 'Haven't time to cook' and reflect that these wonderful women managed to cook and house clean without any of the labour-saving devices we have today. The amazing thing is that so many of them lived so long. Part of this was due to the fact they had support systems within their local society and one of the aspects of modern life that worries me most is that under today's economic pressures the extended family and the support network seem to be diminishing. But then I look at the way members on the site cope with family demands and the unstinting devotion they lavish on the old and wonder whether I am wrong. Perhaps the caring society is still alive and well but it's not news.

[Wendyf]

Mum has been admitted to hospital again today after a couple of difficult weeks at home. She hasn't been able to eat much and refused to sleep in her bed for fear of not being able to get out and being trapped. Her anxieties have been getting out of control leading to panic attacks and difficulty breathing, and this morning when she phoned me she asked me to call a doctor. It turned out that her heart was racing at over 160 beats a minute so together the doctor and my brother (who got to her house first) persuaded her to go into the LGI in Leeds. She was looked after very quickly and efficiently and by the time I got there she was waiting to go up to a ward with a diagnosis of failing heart valves. I stayed with her till she was finally settled onto the ward at about 10pm. I tried to stay with her because I know she'll panic again on her own, but I was turned out!
I'm staying at Mum's tonight, finishing off the remains of an old bottle of gin discovered in the back of a cupboard ....having spent half an hour or so stamping on some creepy crawly things (silverfish?) that were having a party in the kitchen when I got in and put the light on. An exciting evening walking alone through the city centre from hospital to station and catching the last train out to Woodlesford!

[Stanley]

Well, at least you know where she is and that she's being looked after but my heart goes out to you. I feel guilty because I am having such an uneventful life....

[LizG]

I'm sorry to hear about your Mum Wendy, but at least you know she will be well looked after there. Enjoy the gin and if I were you I'd replace it tomorrow. You never know when you're going to need another belt!

[Tizer]

Wendy, at least your mum will get a `good looking at' and the docs will know more about her condition then and whether it really is due to heart valve problems. Back in the 1990s I had a bad do during a bout of influenza when I suddenly collapsed, not unconscious but extremely weak, cold and clammy, heart racing, confused, feelings of vulnerability and frightened that I was dying. The doctors couldn't find any obvious cause but it didn't go away when the infection went and I kept having bouts of it. It was like a severe panic attack but with no external stimulus to explain it. Eventually a neurologist concluded that the virus had entered my nervous system and caused the problem, but it took years to disappear and there are still some effects - for example, if I miss a couple of hours sleep I now feel ill the following day rather than just tired.

[Stanley]

We expect doctors to be able to pinpoint everything these days but even they will admit, if pressed, that there are still conditions which baffle them. A virus in the nervous system would be a prime candidate.
On a similar theme, my doctor once asked me why I consistently refuse to take statins even though my age criteria suggest that they would be beneficial. I explained that as far as I am concerned the jury is still out on statins but even if I was convinced they were not dangerous I wouldn't take them because the criteria they use are all based on averages and none of us is average. In my case my diet is as near perfect as I can get it but the computer programme that flags up possible dangers doesn't know this. It works on a balance of probabilities based on the whole population. If there was a league table for diet I'd be near the top.

[Wendyf]

Mum's condition is not looking good at all, though she is still fighting. Higher doses of beta blockers have slowed her heart rate down but that is causing a problem with water retention. The staff at the LGI are wonderful and she is getting excellent care and attention, but Mum can't overcome her terror of hospitals and her fear of dying. I feel desperately sorry for her, but can do nothing to help reassure her. We have been asked if Mum would want to be resuscitated if her heart stopped, and my brother and I fear that despite facing increasing problems as her other organs start to fail, her answer would be yes. To be honest, neither of us can bear to ask her the question, so we have made our feelings clear and will leave it to the judgement of the doctors treating her.

[Tizer]

...but Mum can't overcome her terror of hospitals and her fear of dying.

People use drugs, alcohol and tobacco at other times in their lives to help them cope, and they should be given a mild sedative when they get to your mum's stage and situation if they need it. I'm not talking about `knocking them out' with drugs but just reducing anxiety with a controlled amount of a safe pharmaceutical preparation.

...but the computer programme that flags up possible dangers doesn't know this. It works on a balance of probabilities based on the whole population.

As you know, I'm always harping on about the difference between `population' and `individual'. A colleague, a retired professor of nutrition, was pressing for this to be recognised from the early 1990s onwards but instead the `health advisers' continue trying to extrapolate from population data to individual advice and it's just not valid.

[Tripps]

This is really interesting. Are we saying that you shouldn't ever extrapolate backwards from the general to the particular for anything? I note today from another website that.....

Government pension policy continues to unravel. Steve Webb has announced that retiring workers will be issued with a death date by the government. Apparently, it’s guidance to help them with income planning. - See more at: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2014/0 ... e-cheerful

It will of course be ignored, ( as in the case of Stanley's diet). All will say it's just an average for a large population, and doesn't apply to me. This administration seem to announce policies, then work out the consequences afterwards.

Little anecdote - a chiropodist (of 30 Years experience), told me that when he first started in practice, people died in their sixties and seventies. Now he says they go in their eighties and nineties. - He put it down to modern healthcare. On average of course.

[Tizer]

The sort of problem you can imagine ending up with by using population data would be where half the population was obese and half was dangerously underweight but you simply averaged the data and claimed that the population had a healthy weight. It's better to look more carefully and note that there are (statistically) two distinct populations and they need different advice. With nutrition we've reached the point where we should be giving advice to an individual according to that individual's specific needs.

[Wendyf]

I must have been pondering on the value of statistics when I crunched my bumper on ironwork protecting a pillar in the hospital multi storey car park this afternoon. First time I have damaged a car since 1975 when I reversed my Morris Marina out of a pub car parking space taking the door off the MG that I hadn't noticed was parked next to me.
Got back home after visiting Mum, piled her dirty washing into the machine and poured "wood floor wash" into the machine instead of washing liquid. Funny how stress gets to you.

[plaques]

Wendy, I know its easy to say but hard to do, but you must look after yourself or you'll not be able to look after others.

[Wendyf]

Thanks for that Plaques. I'm heading for an early bedtime and a good read of the latest Ian Rankin book, Rebus has returned!

[Stanley]

Good Lad P. You took the words out of my mouth. Terribly stressful.... Go out and gently brush your horses!
I made an advance directive and have it registered with my GP to save my kids having to go through that decision. They all know what my decision would be....