kedevlin23
Active member
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2009
- Messages
- 38
- Reason
- Loved one DX
- Country
- US
- State
- PA
- City
- My Oasis
I'm not a primary caregiver, heck I'm just a daughter who lives 6+ hours from the situation and I'm hearing all kinds of stuff going on.
The bottom line - my Dad is having a terrible go of it. His diagnosis is only a few weeks old, even though he's been living with the symptoms for a year now. I think back to this time last year and he was helping us install the hardwood flooring in our dining room. He was having difficulty getting up from a kneeling position and moved slower and sometimes fell, but now he's wheelchair bound.
My Mother who is the primary care giver is not being treated well. There is a lot of anger going on and arguments and fights.
So, I had "the talk" - ironically I approached my Dad as he would have approached my brother or I on a difficult topic. I told him that we are all angry and hurting and that we can't understand what it's like, but we are all sad too. That we love him and that he should try to be better to Mom - that's where I left it. We talked about so many other things on the ALS front yesterday, I can't help but think that I contributed to his anger at this point, because last night he started tearing up paperwork when my Mom went to see what it was - it was his motorized wheelchair paperwork and they had a huge blow up.
I guess there is no clear anger to all this and everyone grieves in their own way. I'm more of a cut and dry rational person so for me I just think of it as wasting time and good moments with bad....I just can't help but wonder how long it's going to be this way....I mean there are good and bad times, but this has been a long stretch of bad times and I'm hoping it's short-lived and we just need to wait it out, that it's just the trauma of the diagnosis that is causing it all.....
The bottom line - my Dad is having a terrible go of it. His diagnosis is only a few weeks old, even though he's been living with the symptoms for a year now. I think back to this time last year and he was helping us install the hardwood flooring in our dining room. He was having difficulty getting up from a kneeling position and moved slower and sometimes fell, but now he's wheelchair bound.
My Mother who is the primary care giver is not being treated well. There is a lot of anger going on and arguments and fights.
So, I had "the talk" - ironically I approached my Dad as he would have approached my brother or I on a difficult topic. I told him that we are all angry and hurting and that we can't understand what it's like, but we are all sad too. That we love him and that he should try to be better to Mom - that's where I left it. We talked about so many other things on the ALS front yesterday, I can't help but think that I contributed to his anger at this point, because last night he started tearing up paperwork when my Mom went to see what it was - it was his motorized wheelchair paperwork and they had a huge blow up.
I guess there is no clear anger to all this and everyone grieves in their own way. I'm more of a cut and dry rational person so for me I just think of it as wasting time and good moments with bad....I just can't help but wonder how long it's going to be this way....I mean there are good and bad times, but this has been a long stretch of bad times and I'm hoping it's short-lived and we just need to wait it out, that it's just the trauma of the diagnosis that is causing it all.....
