What a busy 24 hours I've had. Yesterday I rushed down to Brighton for my friend's husband's funeral and arrived by train to discover hoards of policeman and sniffer dogs wandering around the concourse. I pondered whether they were diet police and knew I had two chocolate bars about my person, but then the taxi driver on the way to the church told me that Gordon was giving his speech within the hour and it was extra security laid on for his arrival. The funeral was the nicest I have ever been to (if you can say such a thing). There were at least a hundred and fifty people there, some having travelled for the day from as far afield as Paris and Geneva. There was a traditional service bit, a break while the immediate family departed for the crematorium for the committal) then a two-hour celebration of his life with speeches from those involved in all aspects of his life. It was very moving. It was good to see my two best friends, one being the widow, though sadly we did not have much time for a chat.
This morning I was back at the hospital, where I seem to be spending most of my time this week, to meet the social worker who sold me down the river last year. She has been brought in to discuss Greg's latest condition and what help/back-up Social Services can provide. I have told her I cannot cope any more, am at the end of my tether and really need either back-up from support workers at home, if I decide to stay and care for him, or a cast of a thousand to care for him if I decide to leave. She is looking into this for me. Don't hold your breath. Meanwhile Greg is demanding to be sent home NOW, even though he can barely walk across the room and is shaking like a jelly from withdrawal. At least he is on medication to get him off the alcohol (again), though he asked me to smuggle some in for him yesterday. My answer was unprintable.
30 September 2009
27 September 2009
Here we go again
Three guesses where I spent my Saturday evening? Having a romantic meal? No. Bopping away at the nightclub down the road? No. Being serenaded by Richard Gere on a gondola? No....fat chance! Sorry your three guesses are up. I spent Saturday evening in Accident and Emergency at the local hospital.
Over the last few months, Greg has been having increasing difficulty walking , his feet have puffed up to the size of party balloons over the last few weeks and despite my nagging (his words by the way - mine would be more along the lines of advising) him to go to the doctor, he has shown no sign of doing so. The circulation to his legs is damaged by smoking and the nerve supply in his legs is damaged by diabetes. More and more over the last few weeks, as I had reported, his appetite had gone altogether, his hygiene had completely gone to seed and he had not bothered to dress or do anything. He had been incontinent several times and I had had to clear up the mess.
Yesterday afternoon he tried to get up the stairs to lie down and his legs just crumpled beneath him. He had no strength in his legs whatsoever to stand or even sit on the stairs. He looked akin to a mermaid (or should that be merman?) trying to writhe up the stairs using the top half of his body but dragging the useless bottom half behind him. He barked at me to help him up the stairs, but as I tried to get him to stand, so his legs crumpled beneath him again. Then he tried to crawl on all fours but again his legs would not do the work. After several attempts over a period of half an hour, when I seemed to be getting the blame for his inability to get up the stairs, I could see we were getting nowhere and I said I was going to phone for an ambulance. He begged me not to (he hates hospitals with a passion and is too curmudgeonly to do what he is told by the nurses and doctors) but I was having none of it. So I called an ambulance and he was whisked to the nearest hospital, with me following on behind in the car. After a three-hour wait, during which Greg moaned about the long wait and complained that I had over-reacted and that he could have got up the stairs if only I had supported him a bit more, we finally saw a doctor who did all sorts of tests to evaluate his mobility and reflexes. Then she ordered some blood tests and the long and short of it was that they admitted him overnight to do some more mobility tests in the morning. My sister-in-law commented "thank goodness it wasn't last weekend when you were taking Kay up to university".
Meanwhile the blood results show that his liver values are sky-high. Surprise surprise!
Over the last few months, Greg has been having increasing difficulty walking , his feet have puffed up to the size of party balloons over the last few weeks and despite my nagging (his words by the way - mine would be more along the lines of advising) him to go to the doctor, he has shown no sign of doing so. The circulation to his legs is damaged by smoking and the nerve supply in his legs is damaged by diabetes. More and more over the last few weeks, as I had reported, his appetite had gone altogether, his hygiene had completely gone to seed and he had not bothered to dress or do anything. He had been incontinent several times and I had had to clear up the mess.
Yesterday afternoon he tried to get up the stairs to lie down and his legs just crumpled beneath him. He had no strength in his legs whatsoever to stand or even sit on the stairs. He looked akin to a mermaid (or should that be merman?) trying to writhe up the stairs using the top half of his body but dragging the useless bottom half behind him. He barked at me to help him up the stairs, but as I tried to get him to stand, so his legs crumpled beneath him again. Then he tried to crawl on all fours but again his legs would not do the work. After several attempts over a period of half an hour, when I seemed to be getting the blame for his inability to get up the stairs, I could see we were getting nowhere and I said I was going to phone for an ambulance. He begged me not to (he hates hospitals with a passion and is too curmudgeonly to do what he is told by the nurses and doctors) but I was having none of it. So I called an ambulance and he was whisked to the nearest hospital, with me following on behind in the car. After a three-hour wait, during which Greg moaned about the long wait and complained that I had over-reacted and that he could have got up the stairs if only I had supported him a bit more, we finally saw a doctor who did all sorts of tests to evaluate his mobility and reflexes. Then she ordered some blood tests and the long and short of it was that they admitted him overnight to do some more mobility tests in the morning. My sister-in-law commented "thank goodness it wasn't last weekend when you were taking Kay up to university".
Meanwhile the blood results show that his liver values are sky-high. Surprise surprise!
23 September 2009
Testing times
I don't mean to keep on whining, because I know everyone has their share of problems, but I'm having a tough time of things at the moment.
1. Kay is up at university and I would be quite happy to cope with the empty nest syndrome if it weren't for the fact that she is finding it hard to settle. I have received quite a few tearful phone calls from her over the last few days which in turn have unsettled me. It seems the people she is sharing a flat with are quite heavy party animals and have been out every night since they all arrived on Saturday boozing till 3 AM. Although Kay enjoys a vodka or two, she is obviously not keen to follow in her father's footsteps and cannot see the point in being completely legless or throwing up by the roadside. She prefers to pace her drinks and be relaxed and enjoy the evening. They also seem to have come with quite a few of their mates from school, whereas Kay had no choice in which university she went to (because of the competition I mentioned here) and so has not gone where any of her school friends are. She has just rang me again in tears. Last night she had not gone out with them as she needed to be in university today to meet her lecturers and tutors for the first time, and attend lectures. She therefore needed a clear head. Her flatmates came crawling home at 3am and were shouting and yelling in party-mood, which woke her and she could not get back to sleep again after that. All she keeps saying is that she feels so tired and misses home and her friends, but she does not want to seek pastoral advice from anyone at the university for fear she will look bad in her flatmates eyes. Frankly I really don't know what to do and I am really worried about her.
2. I have two very close friends from my university days and the husband of one of them has just died suddenly. He has had back pain for a few months and at first was being treated for sciatica and then a kidney infection. The pain did not go away, though, and he only found out about six weeks ago that he had spinal cancer. About a month ago, he had a quick course of radiotherapy which rendered him paralysed and he died ten days ago. It has all happened so fast, we are still reeling from the shock. I am going to his funeral next week. It is not going to be easy. He was a tall cuddly bear of a man, a gentle giant, a gentleman, a leading light in his field of expertise. It does not seem possible this could happen so quickly.
3. In an attempt to cheer myself up this morning, I went into our nearest shopping centre for a bit of retail therapy. But I felt as if I was walking in a bubble and all I could see was Kay and I walking there last week getting the last-minute bits and pieces for uni. I did not enjoy it one bit and decided to come home, quickly nipping into a supermarket on the way to grab a couple of whisky bottles for Greg. One slipped through my hand and I ended up with glass and whisky in a pool all around my feet. Fortunately the supermarket manager was extremely sweet and told me not to worry and an assistant miraculously appeared with mop and bucket and also told me not to worry. I felt like bursting into tears, because they were so nice.
4. On getting home, I discovered Greg had had an accident in the toilet and there was mess all over the toilet floor. He had of course not cleared it up and it was waiting for me to deal with. (He seems to be getting more and more incontinent at the moment, both with urine and faeces. Because he cannot walk very well, he seems to get the message too late to get to the toilet in time.) My washing machine is working overtime. I have become a carer and am no longer a wife - in all senses of the word.
Sometimes life sucks.
1. Kay is up at university and I would be quite happy to cope with the empty nest syndrome if it weren't for the fact that she is finding it hard to settle. I have received quite a few tearful phone calls from her over the last few days which in turn have unsettled me. It seems the people she is sharing a flat with are quite heavy party animals and have been out every night since they all arrived on Saturday boozing till 3 AM. Although Kay enjoys a vodka or two, she is obviously not keen to follow in her father's footsteps and cannot see the point in being completely legless or throwing up by the roadside. She prefers to pace her drinks and be relaxed and enjoy the evening. They also seem to have come with quite a few of their mates from school, whereas Kay had no choice in which university she went to (because of the competition I mentioned here) and so has not gone where any of her school friends are. She has just rang me again in tears. Last night she had not gone out with them as she needed to be in university today to meet her lecturers and tutors for the first time, and attend lectures. She therefore needed a clear head. Her flatmates came crawling home at 3am and were shouting and yelling in party-mood, which woke her and she could not get back to sleep again after that. All she keeps saying is that she feels so tired and misses home and her friends, but she does not want to seek pastoral advice from anyone at the university for fear she will look bad in her flatmates eyes. Frankly I really don't know what to do and I am really worried about her.
2. I have two very close friends from my university days and the husband of one of them has just died suddenly. He has had back pain for a few months and at first was being treated for sciatica and then a kidney infection. The pain did not go away, though, and he only found out about six weeks ago that he had spinal cancer. About a month ago, he had a quick course of radiotherapy which rendered him paralysed and he died ten days ago. It has all happened so fast, we are still reeling from the shock. I am going to his funeral next week. It is not going to be easy. He was a tall cuddly bear of a man, a gentle giant, a gentleman, a leading light in his field of expertise. It does not seem possible this could happen so quickly.
3. In an attempt to cheer myself up this morning, I went into our nearest shopping centre for a bit of retail therapy. But I felt as if I was walking in a bubble and all I could see was Kay and I walking there last week getting the last-minute bits and pieces for uni. I did not enjoy it one bit and decided to come home, quickly nipping into a supermarket on the way to grab a couple of whisky bottles for Greg. One slipped through my hand and I ended up with glass and whisky in a pool all around my feet. Fortunately the supermarket manager was extremely sweet and told me not to worry and an assistant miraculously appeared with mop and bucket and also told me not to worry. I felt like bursting into tears, because they were so nice.
4. On getting home, I discovered Greg had had an accident in the toilet and there was mess all over the toilet floor. He had of course not cleared it up and it was waiting for me to deal with. (He seems to be getting more and more incontinent at the moment, both with urine and faeces. Because he cannot walk very well, he seems to get the message too late to get to the toilet in time.) My washing machine is working overtime. I have become a carer and am no longer a wife - in all senses of the word.
Sometimes life sucks.
22 September 2009
Empty Nest Syndrome
On Saturday I took Kay up to university.
The house is empty now - without her.
Void of her laughter, her clothes, her self.
It's horrible.
The house is empty now - without her.
Void of her laughter, her clothes, her self.
It's horrible.
14 September 2009
Why?
Many people ask why I have stayed so long and put up with Greg's alcoholism. Like with many things involving emotions, it is not an easy question to answer. To start with, we have been married for nearly 34 years and in addition were together five years before that, so that is a heck of a long time invested in one another. The alcoholism only started 6 years ago when Greg took early retirement because of heart disease and the diminishing ability to commute to work. The previous 28 married years had been a normal reasonably happily married relationship.
When the alcoholism started, it was uncharacteristic and I had hoped it was a minor blip which would right itself. By the time the penny dropped that there was no quick fix and this was not going to get better, the thought of leaving him was at the time out of the question. You know how it is, if you have teenage kids, you want things to be consistent for them, particularly with important exams looming on the horizon. You don't want to upset the apple cart. The problem is that the alcoholism does not make for a peaceful life anyway, so you are damned if you leave and damned if you don't. [All credit to Kay that she managed to survive the shellfire and do as marvellously in her exams as she did.]
With each detox or hospital emergency (which ultimately led to yet another detox), I hoped that this time it would work, but inevitably Greg would return to drinking again, fooling himself and me that the occasional drink would be OK. Unfortunately I was to learn that an alcoholic cannot dice with alcohol in that way. It's all or nothing. No grey area at all. One drink leads to another and another and in the end it spirals out of control again. I admit that I had high hopes just before the first detox. When that failed, my expectations became less and less with the subsequent ones. The statistics speak volumes...apparently only 1 in 10 alcoholics manage to overcome their alcoholism.
Another thing, I suppose, is that I come from a family where marriage is sacrosanct. My parents were ecstatically married for over fifty years before leukaemia tore my father from my mother. [My mother has still not got over her grief some eight years later and says goodnight to his photo on her bedside every night.] I thought I was equally blessed in my marriage as things were fine up until 6 years ago. To give up and walk out on the marriage just because of the alcoholism seemed cowardice. I suppose too, I have always liked a challenge and I thought I could beat this black shadow that had crept over our family. Unfortunately, though, it has since shown me who is boss. One thing is for sure, the whole experience has made me a stronger person than before. I have achieved things and endured things I would have thought were not humanly possible.
Early on in Greg's alcoholism, an emergency doctor once told him that if he stopped drinking abruptly, he would suffer horrendous withdrawal symptoms such as hallucinations, fits and tremors. That frightened Greg so much that he would turn to drink as soon as he woke in the morning, for fear he would start off the withdrawal process . Ironically the very thing that made Greg feel ill in the morning was the very thing he needed to feel better. He would wake retching, feeling nauseous, shaking. But after a couple of stiff drinks for breakfast, he would begin to feel better and the day would continue with bouts of sleep and renewed drinking to keep up the alcohol levels to avoid withdrawal. This deep-seated fear has now made him alcohol-dependent and his lack of willpower has meant that he is unable to reduce gradually, as the doctors all advise. I have seen this fear in him and witnessed him reduced to tears when he feels he wants to stop but knows he just dare not. I have oscillated between feeling sorry for him, because he was not always like this, and being extremely angry about what he has put the whole family through.
There comes a point in this cycle between the detoxes, when Greg is no longer able to buy his own supplies. This is at the point when he is usually drinking a full bottle a day, his health has deteriorated and he is not eating at all because the alcohol suppresses the appetite. He becomes physically weak and mentally incapable. I have therefore been the one to buy his whisky supplies when it gets to that stage where he can no longer get out on his own. The one alternative is that he goes without alcohol (which, as I have mentioned above, he cannot for the reasons of withdrawal) or the other alternative is that he drives to get it himself. I would rather have it on my conscience that I am enabling him to drink by buying the stuff for him than risk him running someone over with his car if he gets it himself. Of course I would rather not have either option, but the fear he has (and, if I am honest, I have too) of the withdrawal symptoms is too strong a threat to ignore. We are both caught up in this addiction for different reasons. Him because he needs that alcohol in his system and me because I know if he doesn't get it, it will tear him apart. I am however the only one between us who seems to understand that it will eventually kill him. He seems to think he can outwit it. I am resigned to the fact that he will never manage it. His health has suffered too much already and each time he detoxes he does not bounce back so easily and his liver and brain suffer that little bit more. I know it is killing him. Also I am aware that, if I should decide to leave him, he would not be able to cope and would inevitably be alone in an emergency and possibly die alone. Not exactly a nice thought for any of us to contemplate, whether we are alcoholics or not. Strange as it may seem, I certainly still care enough to feel guilty about this.
Shortly Kay is about to embark on a new chapter in her life and will be leaving home for exciting adventures at university. I then have some tough decisions to make.
When the alcoholism started, it was uncharacteristic and I had hoped it was a minor blip which would right itself. By the time the penny dropped that there was no quick fix and this was not going to get better, the thought of leaving him was at the time out of the question. You know how it is, if you have teenage kids, you want things to be consistent for them, particularly with important exams looming on the horizon. You don't want to upset the apple cart. The problem is that the alcoholism does not make for a peaceful life anyway, so you are damned if you leave and damned if you don't. [All credit to Kay that she managed to survive the shellfire and do as marvellously in her exams as she did.]
With each detox or hospital emergency (which ultimately led to yet another detox), I hoped that this time it would work, but inevitably Greg would return to drinking again, fooling himself and me that the occasional drink would be OK. Unfortunately I was to learn that an alcoholic cannot dice with alcohol in that way. It's all or nothing. No grey area at all. One drink leads to another and another and in the end it spirals out of control again. I admit that I had high hopes just before the first detox. When that failed, my expectations became less and less with the subsequent ones. The statistics speak volumes...apparently only 1 in 10 alcoholics manage to overcome their alcoholism.
Another thing, I suppose, is that I come from a family where marriage is sacrosanct. My parents were ecstatically married for over fifty years before leukaemia tore my father from my mother. [My mother has still not got over her grief some eight years later and says goodnight to his photo on her bedside every night.] I thought I was equally blessed in my marriage as things were fine up until 6 years ago. To give up and walk out on the marriage just because of the alcoholism seemed cowardice. I suppose too, I have always liked a challenge and I thought I could beat this black shadow that had crept over our family. Unfortunately, though, it has since shown me who is boss. One thing is for sure, the whole experience has made me a stronger person than before. I have achieved things and endured things I would have thought were not humanly possible.
Early on in Greg's alcoholism, an emergency doctor once told him that if he stopped drinking abruptly, he would suffer horrendous withdrawal symptoms such as hallucinations, fits and tremors. That frightened Greg so much that he would turn to drink as soon as he woke in the morning, for fear he would start off the withdrawal process . Ironically the very thing that made Greg feel ill in the morning was the very thing he needed to feel better. He would wake retching, feeling nauseous, shaking. But after a couple of stiff drinks for breakfast, he would begin to feel better and the day would continue with bouts of sleep and renewed drinking to keep up the alcohol levels to avoid withdrawal. This deep-seated fear has now made him alcohol-dependent and his lack of willpower has meant that he is unable to reduce gradually, as the doctors all advise. I have seen this fear in him and witnessed him reduced to tears when he feels he wants to stop but knows he just dare not. I have oscillated between feeling sorry for him, because he was not always like this, and being extremely angry about what he has put the whole family through.
There comes a point in this cycle between the detoxes, when Greg is no longer able to buy his own supplies. This is at the point when he is usually drinking a full bottle a day, his health has deteriorated and he is not eating at all because the alcohol suppresses the appetite. He becomes physically weak and mentally incapable. I have therefore been the one to buy his whisky supplies when it gets to that stage where he can no longer get out on his own. The one alternative is that he goes without alcohol (which, as I have mentioned above, he cannot for the reasons of withdrawal) or the other alternative is that he drives to get it himself. I would rather have it on my conscience that I am enabling him to drink by buying the stuff for him than risk him running someone over with his car if he gets it himself. Of course I would rather not have either option, but the fear he has (and, if I am honest, I have too) of the withdrawal symptoms is too strong a threat to ignore. We are both caught up in this addiction for different reasons. Him because he needs that alcohol in his system and me because I know if he doesn't get it, it will tear him apart. I am however the only one between us who seems to understand that it will eventually kill him. He seems to think he can outwit it. I am resigned to the fact that he will never manage it. His health has suffered too much already and each time he detoxes he does not bounce back so easily and his liver and brain suffer that little bit more. I know it is killing him. Also I am aware that, if I should decide to leave him, he would not be able to cope and would inevitably be alone in an emergency and possibly die alone. Not exactly a nice thought for any of us to contemplate, whether we are alcoholics or not. Strange as it may seem, I certainly still care enough to feel guilty about this.
Shortly Kay is about to embark on a new chapter in her life and will be leaving home for exciting adventures at university. I then have some tough decisions to make.
11 September 2009
Analysis of the situation so far
Here are some key facts about Greg's current situation:
Health - he has heart disease, diabetes, circulatory problems in legs and feet, liver damage, slight brain damage; he forgets to take medication (or refuses to take it when I provide it), drinks one 70cl bottle of whisky per day, smokes 30-40 cigarettes daily, eats almost nothing (has no appetite). Because of the diabetes/smoking, his circulation is poor, so his feet are purple, puffy and covered in sores.
Money spent on alcohol/cigarettes - too much to mention. Approximately £140 per week.
Hygiene - Greg does not wash himself, clean his teeth or change his clothes, in fact he has taken lately to not even bothering to dress and bums about in his dirty dressing gown all day and all night. He stinks. Any attempts on my part to get him to wash or change clothing (so I can actually get it into a washing machine or burn it) constitutes nagging.
Interests (in no particular order) - whisky, talking about anything that happened 10-40 years ago, watching History channel on TV, dozing on a dining chair.
Irritants - anyone who interrupts his monologues, anyone who dares to say anything over the television programmes he watches ( he watches from 7am till 2 am the next morning!!)
Average number of times he has been out of the house in months - nil
Last time he went for a walk anywhere - 3 months ago
Age - actual age 60, looks 80, physical ability of a 120-year-old
He is a living nightmare.
Google Library picture
Health - he has heart disease, diabetes, circulatory problems in legs and feet, liver damage, slight brain damage; he forgets to take medication (or refuses to take it when I provide it), drinks one 70cl bottle of whisky per day, smokes 30-40 cigarettes daily, eats almost nothing (has no appetite). Because of the diabetes/smoking, his circulation is poor, so his feet are purple, puffy and covered in sores.
Money spent on alcohol/cigarettes - too much to mention. Approximately £140 per week.
Hygiene - Greg does not wash himself, clean his teeth or change his clothes, in fact he has taken lately to not even bothering to dress and bums about in his dirty dressing gown all day and all night. He stinks. Any attempts on my part to get him to wash or change clothing (so I can actually get it into a washing machine or burn it) constitutes nagging.
Interests (in no particular order) - whisky, talking about anything that happened 10-40 years ago, watching History channel on TV, dozing on a dining chair.
Irritants - anyone who interrupts his monologues, anyone who dares to say anything over the television programmes he watches ( he watches from 7am till 2 am the next morning!!)
Average number of times he has been out of the house in months - nil
Last time he went for a walk anywhere - 3 months ago
Age - actual age 60, looks 80, physical ability of a 120-year-old
He is a living nightmare.
Google Library picture01 September 2009
Burning issue
Because of the heavy alcohol dependency combined with the diabetes, Greg spends a lot of his time nodding off to sleep at various times of the day. I will often come into our kitchen/diner, where he sits all day watching TV, and find him fast asleep on a dining chair with his chin on his chest. If I leave him like this, he complains, once he wakes up, that I should not have left him like that and that I should always attempt to wake him, as otherwise he will not sleep at night. As it is, he does not go to bed much before 2 am. The trouble is, if I DO wake him, he is always irritable and shouts at me. If it is much later in the day, he also talks a lot of gobbledegook.
The other day, when I found him asleep in front of the TV, I tried to wake him and he started talking about daughters in the fridge. I asked him to explain that again and he got very annoyed, as if I should have understood the first time round. He was slurring his words, then said that he meant *details* in the fridge. What? He explained again, only more annoyed this time...the details of addresses in mobile phones should be defrosted and put in the fridge. What???? He was really shouting at me by now that I was failing to listen properly and understand him. I gave up at that point and said I was going to bed. But my heart was in my boots. I am always afraid when he is in that mental state that he might fall asleep with a cigarette still alight. It does not fill me with confidence when I turn off my bedside lamp and try to sleep.
The other day, when I found him asleep in front of the TV, I tried to wake him and he started talking about daughters in the fridge. I asked him to explain that again and he got very annoyed, as if I should have understood the first time round. He was slurring his words, then said that he meant *details* in the fridge. What? He explained again, only more annoyed this time...the details of addresses in mobile phones should be defrosted and put in the fridge. What???? He was really shouting at me by now that I was failing to listen properly and understand him. I gave up at that point and said I was going to bed. But my heart was in my boots. I am always afraid when he is in that mental state that he might fall asleep with a cigarette still alight. It does not fill me with confidence when I turn off my bedside lamp and try to sleep.
27 August 2009
An "ology"
After my last two posts, I can't stop thinking about a series of old British Telecom (BT) adverts on TV that used to feature the life of a woman called Beattie (BT, get it?!) played by Maureen Lipman. This particular one was always my favourite. It seems to have extra relevance this week!
21 August 2009
To dream the impossible dream
I apologise for my mad mother cow mode yesterday, but I wanted to shout the good news from the rooftops.
When Kay was a teeny tiny three-year-old, knee-high to a grasshopper, she used to love playing with a nurse's set. She would don the nurse's uniform and cap with the bright red cross on, sling the stethoscope around her neck and call for her next patient. This was usually my long-suffering Dad (her Granddad) who was visiting us. He had to lie down on the sofa and Kay would tell him that he had unfortunately just been run over by a runaway truck carrying glass bottles. Not only had he broken his leg but he had huge shards of glass embedded in his leg too. The most serious of accidents. She would listen to his chest with the stethoscope, then roll up his trousers to his knee and with painstaking concentration pick out the non-existent shards of glass with tweezers. Then she would x-ray his leg, waving her arm back and forth pretending to be the x-ray machine. She would write out a prescription for tablets and pronounce him well and able to go home. She would then call for her next patient (usually her granddad again but using a different voice and of course with a different ailment). This game went on for a number of years only until she outgrew the uniform.
She never outgrew her love to help other people though and, because she is fascinated by the workings of the human body, she always steadfastly maintained she wanted to be a doctor. She would devour every TV hospital fiction programme from Casualty to Grey's Anatomy. People would tell her that what you see on TV is the romantic's view of medicine, that in reality it is a lot harsher, with real warts and all, but still she maintained she wanted to do it. She would scour every documentary about Siamese twins or people with disabilities or real-life operations. She would look into the pictures of fractured bones and gore, often coming up with a diagnosis before the TV commentary had exposed the answer. She even watched her beloved granddad disappear from her eyes with leukaemia. When she was sixteen she did two weeks' work experience shadowing a consultant in one of the local hospitals, where she sat in on clinics and was even allowed to scrub up and observe real operations close-up, done by real surgeons a million miles from George Clooney or Dr Kildare. And she still loved it with a passion.
Her choice of A-levels was therefore none too surprising, but particularly this last couple of years she fought an uphill struggle to study the foreign language of chemistry, the varied miracles of human biology and the complications of maths while her father constantly ranted and raved his way through a blur of whisky. She watched him collapse on many occasions, saw him delirious in a hospital bed and still she fought on. There was many a time when she would be trying to study for a test or write a piece of coursework and she could not get peace because he was shouting all over the house and following us from room to room. There was many a time too when the night before the exam, she could not find a quiet corner in the house to revise. As I have said many times before, Greg is not quiet when drunk.
Medicine is not an easy subject to get a university place for. Every medical school Open Day we went to was punctuated with the difficulty we would face... about twenty applicants for every place... they don't just want straight A students - after all, they are ten-a-penny....they would prefer all-singing, all-dancing ones.... applicants, who not only acted in the school play, but wrote it.... who not only played in the school cricket team but captained it on a recent visit to Antarctica.... applicants who can play the cello standing on their head while singing Ave Maria in Swahili.... ones that at the age of 16 have done their first brain operation.... You get the kind of thing I mean.
When Kay was rejected from three of her four university choices, it came as no surprise. "Sheer numbers of competition" was the standard reason in the rejection letters. You almost come to wait for the next rejection with stoicism. It was therefore with enormous excitement that she was invited to an interview at the last of the four grand institutions in February. To get an interview was an achievement in itself. Even if you get rejected afterwards, that is something to be proud of. At least you almost got there.
When, on the basis of that interview, Kay got an offer of a place (conditional of course upon getting certain exam grades), we were almost beside ourselves. It can't get better than this, can it? Against all the odds. Like a salmon swimming upstream. At least she had tried, even if the bubbling stream were to force her backwards in the end. Anyway, good things don't happen to us, do they?
The exams were hard. (When were they ever easy? Although of course there is much talk of dumbing down of exam papers these days. But a quick look at A-level Maths and Chemistry papers had me whimpering in pain at how I would cope with the answers. Even Kay found some of them hard and she had been studying the material for them for two years. Particularly when the night before she had yet again tried to work with yet another of Greg's outbursts.) Kay was worried about how she had done. In the end, she even had me convinced she had not done well. As each week passed by, I came to believe that she would not achieve her dream. The week in Greece was a great relief for us both, as we could switch off and relax, change the scene, away from the tensions at home, and forget. But once home again, the reality set in. We did not dare to plan for the future. In case. In case it was not to be. We did not want to tempt fate. After all the odds are that there are twenty for every place. Why should we be so lucky? Even worse, we did not have a Plan B. There was never a Plan B. Plan A was all Kay ever wanted.
As this week drew nearer and yesterday's date loomed, we felt sicker in the stomach. We were both nervous wrecks, though I tried to distract and make light of it all. By yesterday morning I felt like a pig facing the slaughterhouse door. Goodness knows what Kay felt. Neither of us had had much sleep. So imagine then, how we felt when she opened that envelope at school and achieved her dream. I still feel as if I am going to wake up and it has all been a pleasant dream. I only hope her Granddad is watching up there from a passing cloud. He would be so proud that he was instrumental in nurturing in Kay an interest that has never gone away.
So again, I apologise for my mad mother cow mode yesterday, but I so wanted to shout the fantastic news from the highest rooftops.
When Kay was a teeny tiny three-year-old, knee-high to a grasshopper, she used to love playing with a nurse's set. She would don the nurse's uniform and cap with the bright red cross on, sling the stethoscope around her neck and call for her next patient. This was usually my long-suffering Dad (her Granddad) who was visiting us. He had to lie down on the sofa and Kay would tell him that he had unfortunately just been run over by a runaway truck carrying glass bottles. Not only had he broken his leg but he had huge shards of glass embedded in his leg too. The most serious of accidents. She would listen to his chest with the stethoscope, then roll up his trousers to his knee and with painstaking concentration pick out the non-existent shards of glass with tweezers. Then she would x-ray his leg, waving her arm back and forth pretending to be the x-ray machine. She would write out a prescription for tablets and pronounce him well and able to go home. She would then call for her next patient (usually her granddad again but using a different voice and of course with a different ailment). This game went on for a number of years only until she outgrew the uniform.
She never outgrew her love to help other people though and, because she is fascinated by the workings of the human body, she always steadfastly maintained she wanted to be a doctor. She would devour every TV hospital fiction programme from Casualty to Grey's Anatomy. People would tell her that what you see on TV is the romantic's view of medicine, that in reality it is a lot harsher, with real warts and all, but still she maintained she wanted to do it. She would scour every documentary about Siamese twins or people with disabilities or real-life operations. She would look into the pictures of fractured bones and gore, often coming up with a diagnosis before the TV commentary had exposed the answer. She even watched her beloved granddad disappear from her eyes with leukaemia. When she was sixteen she did two weeks' work experience shadowing a consultant in one of the local hospitals, where she sat in on clinics and was even allowed to scrub up and observe real operations close-up, done by real surgeons a million miles from George Clooney or Dr Kildare. And she still loved it with a passion.
Her choice of A-levels was therefore none too surprising, but particularly this last couple of years she fought an uphill struggle to study the foreign language of chemistry, the varied miracles of human biology and the complications of maths while her father constantly ranted and raved his way through a blur of whisky. She watched him collapse on many occasions, saw him delirious in a hospital bed and still she fought on. There was many a time when she would be trying to study for a test or write a piece of coursework and she could not get peace because he was shouting all over the house and following us from room to room. There was many a time too when the night before the exam, she could not find a quiet corner in the house to revise. As I have said many times before, Greg is not quiet when drunk.
Medicine is not an easy subject to get a university place for. Every medical school Open Day we went to was punctuated with the difficulty we would face... about twenty applicants for every place... they don't just want straight A students - after all, they are ten-a-penny....they would prefer all-singing, all-dancing ones.... applicants, who not only acted in the school play, but wrote it.... who not only played in the school cricket team but captained it on a recent visit to Antarctica.... applicants who can play the cello standing on their head while singing Ave Maria in Swahili.... ones that at the age of 16 have done their first brain operation.... You get the kind of thing I mean.
When Kay was rejected from three of her four university choices, it came as no surprise. "Sheer numbers of competition" was the standard reason in the rejection letters. You almost come to wait for the next rejection with stoicism. It was therefore with enormous excitement that she was invited to an interview at the last of the four grand institutions in February. To get an interview was an achievement in itself. Even if you get rejected afterwards, that is something to be proud of. At least you almost got there.
When, on the basis of that interview, Kay got an offer of a place (conditional of course upon getting certain exam grades), we were almost beside ourselves. It can't get better than this, can it? Against all the odds. Like a salmon swimming upstream. At least she had tried, even if the bubbling stream were to force her backwards in the end. Anyway, good things don't happen to us, do they?
The exams were hard. (When were they ever easy? Although of course there is much talk of dumbing down of exam papers these days. But a quick look at A-level Maths and Chemistry papers had me whimpering in pain at how I would cope with the answers. Even Kay found some of them hard and she had been studying the material for them for two years. Particularly when the night before she had yet again tried to work with yet another of Greg's outbursts.) Kay was worried about how she had done. In the end, she even had me convinced she had not done well. As each week passed by, I came to believe that she would not achieve her dream. The week in Greece was a great relief for us both, as we could switch off and relax, change the scene, away from the tensions at home, and forget. But once home again, the reality set in. We did not dare to plan for the future. In case. In case it was not to be. We did not want to tempt fate. After all the odds are that there are twenty for every place. Why should we be so lucky? Even worse, we did not have a Plan B. There was never a Plan B. Plan A was all Kay ever wanted.
As this week drew nearer and yesterday's date loomed, we felt sicker in the stomach. We were both nervous wrecks, though I tried to distract and make light of it all. By yesterday morning I felt like a pig facing the slaughterhouse door. Goodness knows what Kay felt. Neither of us had had much sleep. So imagine then, how we felt when she opened that envelope at school and achieved her dream. I still feel as if I am going to wake up and it has all been a pleasant dream. I only hope her Granddad is watching up there from a passing cloud. He would be so proud that he was instrumental in nurturing in Kay an interest that has never gone away.
So again, I apologise for my mad mother cow mode yesterday, but I so wanted to shout the fantastic news from the highest rooftops.
20 August 2009
My Cup Runneth Over
Results day and I am pinching myself in case I am dreaming. I know many of you have been kindly keeping fingers, toes and anything else crossed for Kay over the last few days, so I won't beat about the bush. She has got amazing A-level results (after convincing herself and me all summer that she had failed.) So here they are:
A for Maths
A for Biology
B for Chemistry
What is more, the university has confirmed, accepted, definitely agreed it (pinch, pinch - nope, I am not dreaming.) SHE HAS DEFINITELY GOT A PLACE. Ooop North. To study medicine. There, I can even say what she is studying now. I did not want to jinx things before, by even mentioning it.
This has got to be the best news of the year, of the decade, of my life. Thank you everyone for being so patient with me up to now and for supporting me. I really appreciate it. Yayyyyyyyy!!!!!!
A for Maths
A for Biology
B for Chemistry
What is more, the university has confirmed, accepted, definitely agreed it (pinch, pinch - nope, I am not dreaming.) SHE HAS DEFINITELY GOT A PLACE. Ooop North. To study medicine. There, I can even say what she is studying now. I did not want to jinx things before, by even mentioning it.
This has got to be the best news of the year, of the decade, of my life. Thank you everyone for being so patient with me up to now and for supporting me. I really appreciate it. Yayyyyyyyy!!!!!!
15 August 2009
Five, Four, Three, Two, One
Five more nail-biting days before Kay gets her A-level exam results. Kay is so on edge she is having anxiety dreams. Sometimes they are based on the fact she has got the grades she needs and is already at university, sometimes they are about the fact she has not got the requisite grades and has not got in. This time next week we shall know her fate. Having waited eight weeks for this, it can't come quick enough. 
09 August 2009
More than meets the eye
I expect you may have wondered where I had got to this past ten days and whether I had disappeared down a black hole. I had in fact gone to spend time my mother again, this time taking Snoopy with me. Kay did not come as she preferred to spend some time with her friends before they all go their separate ways in the autumn to universities all over the UK.
I seem to spend my life at the moment administering eye drops. Greg had a cataract operation at the beginning of July. My mother had one ten days ago. Antibiotic and anti-inflammatory eye drops have to be put in four times a day for several weeks afterwards. Greg's operation was sudden, complicated by his diabetes. My mother's was long-planned, having waited many years for the cataract to ripen. It was pure coincidence that both operations were within three weeks of one another. As is usual with the operation, the patient needs someone to collect them from hospital and stay with them overnight. This has a lot to do with the fact that the eye is covered for 24 hours with a bandage and plastic shield which can cause the patient to become disoriented and misjudge distances and obstacles. Add the fact that, in my mother's case, the patient is an elderly lady who is prone to falls anyway, my presence was a necessity! I spent ten days with her in all and returned today. As always, we had a lovely time together and managed a few outings to shops and restaurants. I administered the requisite eye drops for her, tidied up her garden and did a few other chores. Because Snoopy was with me, I managed a few good walks with him too. He loves my mother's garden and enjoys rolling on the lawn as well as chasing the seagulls who dive-bomb him, thinking he is a threat to their young even though the latter are safely waddling about on the rooftops. The weather was (almost) in competition with Greece and I managed to top up my tan while I was gardening.
Kay had coped admirably on the home front looking after Greg. She had done food shopping, including lugging it home, cooked meals (which Greg as usual did not have the appetite to eat), stood over him to make sure he took his medication, washed dishes and still found time to tidy her room. Yes, I'll repeat that.... TIDY HER ROOM. I don't think it has seen a duster or vacuum cleaner in months because you have to hack your way into it. A maelstrom of clothes, shoes, books, jewellery and plastic bags covering every horizontal surface including the floor, so that walking across the room is a hazardous occupation and one I have refused to even contemplate in the last six months without a hard hat and elbow pads. I couldn't believe the transformation when I got back today. All this domesticity will stand her in good stead when/if she goes to university. I think too she has found it relaxing not having to spend all her time studying for exams for a change.
One thing that was very apparent to me while I was away is just how much Greg's mind has deteriorated. We would speak daily on the phone and he would repeat things over and over again. He would tell me some piece of news or information at the beginning of the call and then tell me again about ten minutes later as if it was the first time he had mentioned it. He would sometimes go on to tell me a third time. He can recall with remarkable clarity things that happened ten, twenty, thirty years ago. In fact his conversation largely centres on living in the past, recalling experiences and episodes long gone. But when it comes to things that happened or were said ten, twenty or thirty MINUTES ago, it seems he needs reminding or he has totally blocked it from his memory. Kay has noticed this too. One morning she came down from her room, had a long conversation with him over breakfast and then went to watch the television for a while. About an hour later Greg bumped into her and was surprised to see she was awake and had not come down to say hello to him! He had obviously forgotten that he had seen her and talked to her an hour earlier. Things are definitely worse in that department than I thought. Whether it is permanent damage or short-term (only while he continues to drink) I don't know.
I seem to spend my life at the moment administering eye drops. Greg had a cataract operation at the beginning of July. My mother had one ten days ago. Antibiotic and anti-inflammatory eye drops have to be put in four times a day for several weeks afterwards. Greg's operation was sudden, complicated by his diabetes. My mother's was long-planned, having waited many years for the cataract to ripen. It was pure coincidence that both operations were within three weeks of one another. As is usual with the operation, the patient needs someone to collect them from hospital and stay with them overnight. This has a lot to do with the fact that the eye is covered for 24 hours with a bandage and plastic shield which can cause the patient to become disoriented and misjudge distances and obstacles. Add the fact that, in my mother's case, the patient is an elderly lady who is prone to falls anyway, my presence was a necessity! I spent ten days with her in all and returned today. As always, we had a lovely time together and managed a few outings to shops and restaurants. I administered the requisite eye drops for her, tidied up her garden and did a few other chores. Because Snoopy was with me, I managed a few good walks with him too. He loves my mother's garden and enjoys rolling on the lawn as well as chasing the seagulls who dive-bomb him, thinking he is a threat to their young even though the latter are safely waddling about on the rooftops. The weather was (almost) in competition with Greece and I managed to top up my tan while I was gardening.
Kay had coped admirably on the home front looking after Greg. She had done food shopping, including lugging it home, cooked meals (which Greg as usual did not have the appetite to eat), stood over him to make sure he took his medication, washed dishes and still found time to tidy her room. Yes, I'll repeat that.... TIDY HER ROOM. I don't think it has seen a duster or vacuum cleaner in months because you have to hack your way into it. A maelstrom of clothes, shoes, books, jewellery and plastic bags covering every horizontal surface including the floor, so that walking across the room is a hazardous occupation and one I have refused to even contemplate in the last six months without a hard hat and elbow pads. I couldn't believe the transformation when I got back today. All this domesticity will stand her in good stead when/if she goes to university. I think too she has found it relaxing not having to spend all her time studying for exams for a change.
One thing that was very apparent to me while I was away is just how much Greg's mind has deteriorated. We would speak daily on the phone and he would repeat things over and over again. He would tell me some piece of news or information at the beginning of the call and then tell me again about ten minutes later as if it was the first time he had mentioned it. He would sometimes go on to tell me a third time. He can recall with remarkable clarity things that happened ten, twenty, thirty years ago. In fact his conversation largely centres on living in the past, recalling experiences and episodes long gone. But when it comes to things that happened or were said ten, twenty or thirty MINUTES ago, it seems he needs reminding or he has totally blocked it from his memory. Kay has noticed this too. One morning she came down from her room, had a long conversation with him over breakfast and then went to watch the television for a while. About an hour later Greg bumped into her and was surprised to see she was awake and had not come down to say hello to him! He had obviously forgotten that he had seen her and talked to her an hour earlier. Things are definitely worse in that department than I thought. Whether it is permanent damage or short-term (only while he continues to drink) I don't know.
29 July 2009
Mamma mia
The washing's been done, the cases unpacked, the photos stored on computer, the memories put to bed. We are back home again, though I so wish we were still there.Oh what a lovely holiday we had. Just a week. A mere seven days, but it was heaven on earth. Endless blue skies, calm turquoise seas, clusters of white villas dotted all over the landscape and temperatures of 46 degrees centigrade or 115 fahrenheit!! That last bit was a bit of a killer, I must admit, but Kay and I darted from one bit of shade to another and only really emerged at 8pm like butterflies from a chrysalis when the sun had gone down and it was cooler (by then as low as 30 degrees centigrade or 86 fahrenheit)! Even in the middle of the night, temperatures barely dropped below 30. How the Greeks manage to live their lives in that heat, I don't know, but you can understand why they need to siesta.
Because of the heat, we did not do an awful lot except relax by the pool or dart between the shadows down to the beach, but we sat under parasols until it was safe to emerge once more. The sea and the pool were refreshingly soothing and lured us from our shady hideaways. A few day trips using local buses to nearby villages and sights also enticed us
from the shade and were extremely interesting. I tried out my pathetic knowledge of Greek, much to the amusement of the waiters and shopkeepers, who looked questioningly at my faltering words and replied in perfect English. We ate a different Greek meal each evening and studiously avoided anything that smacked of English breakfasts or burgers and chips. We sometimes rounded off the evening with a cocktail or two decorated with a garnish of plastic mermaids, straws and other follies. We slept (with the extortionate optional extra of air-conditioning) like we had never slept before. Happy in the knowledge that we were not sharing our accommodation with an alcoholic who could set fire to the place at a moment's notice. A truly relaxing week. It did me the power of good. Mother and daughter getting on like two sisters or very good friends. Sharing secrets and having interesting conversations. Mamma mia, that was a week I shall remember for a very long time.
Our return was traumatic enough. It started by being collected by coach from our apartment at 1 am for a night flight at 5.30 am. This was supposed to be an hour-long transfer to the airport but turned into a two-hour coach-journey-from-hell. Ten minutes into the journey one passenger threw up his evening meal all over the coach aisle because he had drank too much alcohol and the coach had to stop for 20 minutes while he continued to throw up all over the roadside as well. Once the coach had been cleaned up and we had set off again, the coach shuddered to a halt after another five minutes and it transpired the coach had broken down. "Nothing serious", said the dippy blonde tour rep, "just something the matter with the engine!!" We waited another 30 minutes on a dark deserted bit of country roadside for a replacement coach. Once finally at the airport, the check-in was long and meticulous, the overnight flight was cramped and it was impossible to sleep so we arrived back in London at 7.30am having not slept a wink all night. We reached home bleary-eyed mid-morning to find Greg already quite inebriated and a dirty great burn hole in the kitchen floor where he had fallen asleep on one occasion and dropped his cigarette. We were home again... with a bump!
20 July 2009
Achtung! Achtung!
By the time you read this, Kay and I will be sitting by a swimming pool in the sunny Mediterranean for a well-deserved break in Greece. It's the first holiday we have had together for five years and my first holiday without Greg for 34 years. It is going to seem very strange, but he is in no state to travel (or be good company) and I desperately want to give Kay a good holiday after all her hard work and before she leaves home. If I am honest I am desperate too for a bit of a break from all the stresses and strains of the last five years.
In the meantime, thinking of things foreign and different, I thought I would share with you the one thing that really gets me shouting at the television. It is when people try to pronounce German names wrongly. All right, I studied German at uni and am, I suppose without wishing to blow my own trumpet (not that I have one) pretty fluent in it. I also lived in Germany for a total of four years, so I do know what I'm talking about.
I don't blame the ordinary man in the street for getting it wrong; after all I wouldn't profess to know how to pronounce something correctly in Spanish or Greek or Mongolian for that matter. But when large companies produce adverts on TV and cannot pronounce them, that is plain unacceptable, because they are teaching all of us to pronounce them incorrectly too. Even the German companies go along with the mispronunciation because they know how useless on the whole English people can be at foreign languages.
Take Braun - the company that manufactures things like hair-dryers and curling tongs. The ad-men would have us pronounce it "Brawn" to rhyme with "prawn". It must make a German's toes' curl rather than their hair, because it is pronounced "brown" like the colour which in fact it is. "Braun" is the German for the colour "brown" and is pronounced the same... "brown". Simples. Or you would think so. No, it has to rhyme with "prawn". Let's make it difficult.
Another example is the German sports car, Porsche. You will hear most people here pronounce it "Porsh", as if they have a speech impediment trying to say "posh". But German words ending in "-e" are always pronounced "-a" at the end. Thus in Germany "Porsche" is pronounced "Porsha". I always feel if you can afford to drive one, you should ****** well learn how to pronounce it properly. It always made me laugh when many years ago a previous next door neighbour - who had his own building firm - drove around in his "Porsh" thinking he was the bees' knees. In my eyes, it made him look ridiculous because he could not even pronounce the name of his car properly. I won't even go there with Audi's Vorsprung durch Technik or how many variations there are on the way people say "Volkswagen".
I could go on with more examples, but don't wish to appear pedantic and pretentious. (What, moi?) For some strange reason it does not sound hilarious when German is mispronounced. But French is another case altogether, as Inspector Clousseau from The Pink Panther and Rene Artois of 'Allo 'Allo would agree. Rant over and spread the word! The correct one, that is! If you tell five people and they tell five people, maybe eventually we'll have everyone pronouncing things correctly. I can dream....
Normal service will be resumed soon! Meanwhile think of us lapping up the Greek sun and hospitality! Now, what's Greek for "a white wine spritzer with a cherry on the top!"
In the meantime, thinking of things foreign and different, I thought I would share with you the one thing that really gets me shouting at the television. It is when people try to pronounce German names wrongly. All right, I studied German at uni and am, I suppose without wishing to blow my own trumpet (not that I have one) pretty fluent in it. I also lived in Germany for a total of four years, so I do know what I'm talking about.
I don't blame the ordinary man in the street for getting it wrong; after all I wouldn't profess to know how to pronounce something correctly in Spanish or Greek or Mongolian for that matter. But when large companies produce adverts on TV and cannot pronounce them, that is plain unacceptable, because they are teaching all of us to pronounce them incorrectly too. Even the German companies go along with the mispronunciation because they know how useless on the whole English people can be at foreign languages.
Take Braun - the company that manufactures things like hair-dryers and curling tongs. The ad-men would have us pronounce it "Brawn" to rhyme with "prawn". It must make a German's toes' curl rather than their hair, because it is pronounced "brown" like the colour which in fact it is. "Braun" is the German for the colour "brown" and is pronounced the same... "brown". Simples. Or you would think so. No, it has to rhyme with "prawn". Let's make it difficult.
Another example is the German sports car, Porsche. You will hear most people here pronounce it "Porsh", as if they have a speech impediment trying to say "posh". But German words ending in "-e" are always pronounced "-a" at the end. Thus in Germany "Porsche" is pronounced "Porsha". I always feel if you can afford to drive one, you should ****** well learn how to pronounce it properly. It always made me laugh when many years ago a previous next door neighbour - who had his own building firm - drove around in his "Porsh" thinking he was the bees' knees. In my eyes, it made him look ridiculous because he could not even pronounce the name of his car properly. I won't even go there with Audi's Vorsprung durch Technik or how many variations there are on the way people say "Volkswagen".
I could go on with more examples, but don't wish to appear pedantic and pretentious. (What, moi?) For some strange reason it does not sound hilarious when German is mispronounced. But French is another case altogether, as Inspector Clousseau from The Pink Panther and Rene Artois of 'Allo 'Allo would agree. Rant over and spread the word! The correct one, that is! If you tell five people and they tell five people, maybe eventually we'll have everyone pronouncing things correctly. I can dream....
Normal service will be resumed soon! Meanwhile think of us lapping up the Greek sun and hospitality! Now, what's Greek for "a white wine spritzer with a cherry on the top!"
14 July 2009
Happy Birthday
My one and only baby is eighteen years old today. It doesn't seem that long ago since she was a helpless little bundle that was so eager to get into this world she barely gave me time to get to the hospital and made her entrance just 90 minutes later.
I thank her for all the joy she has given me over the years...a joy I thought I would never see once I reached the dreaded forty. I thank her for all her love, her hard work at school, her comfort in dark times, her laughter and most of all for just being there. I thank her for keeping me sane. I apologise for being a ham-fisted mum at the start and not knowing which end was which when trying to apply the first nappy! I apologise for sometimes playing the bad cop, when she needed telling. Most of all I apologise for bringing her into this alcoholic environment that most kids should not have to experience.
She is a joy to behold - I wish I could share a photo with you - but for obvious reasons cannot, as I am sure you will appreciate. Trust me, she is stunning and turns heads. She has a wise head on her young shoulders. After all, she survived a trip to the Guatemalan jungle last year and came back in one piece. She knows the dangers of alcohol and promises me she will not drink to excess. She has seen the results painfully too often. However, as the youngest in her school year, she has had to sit out on too many friends' outings to clubs and pubs, as she did not have the requisite 18-year-old ID. She is at least very keen to try that out as soon as she can.
She and I are planning to wander around central London today and do whatever we fancy. Predictably Greg is not up to coming with us. (He has just come back with his daily purchase of whisky). I shall take Kay into a pub and get her to order some drinks with our lunch! Then tonight a quiet meal out somewhere. She is planning a birthday outing later in the week with her friends and they intend to go clubbing till the wee small hours of the morning. Just because they can and are old enough. My baby is no more. My grandmother used to say "small children, small worries; big children, big worries." It's true. When they are little you worry about them falling over and grazing their knee. When they older, you worry about the pressure they are put under at school. As they reach adulthood, you wonder what smart young boy is going to drive her into a tree at 60 miles an hour. I suppose you never stop worrying, but you have to let go. For their peace of mind and yours!
So happy birthday, darling, and have a wonderful day.
I thank her for all the joy she has given me over the years...a joy I thought I would never see once I reached the dreaded forty. I thank her for all her love, her hard work at school, her comfort in dark times, her laughter and most of all for just being there. I thank her for keeping me sane. I apologise for being a ham-fisted mum at the start and not knowing which end was which when trying to apply the first nappy! I apologise for sometimes playing the bad cop, when she needed telling. Most of all I apologise for bringing her into this alcoholic environment that most kids should not have to experience.
She is a joy to behold - I wish I could share a photo with you - but for obvious reasons cannot, as I am sure you will appreciate. Trust me, she is stunning and turns heads. She has a wise head on her young shoulders. After all, she survived a trip to the Guatemalan jungle last year and came back in one piece. She knows the dangers of alcohol and promises me she will not drink to excess. She has seen the results painfully too often. However, as the youngest in her school year, she has had to sit out on too many friends' outings to clubs and pubs, as she did not have the requisite 18-year-old ID. She is at least very keen to try that out as soon as she can.
She and I are planning to wander around central London today and do whatever we fancy. Predictably Greg is not up to coming with us. (He has just come back with his daily purchase of whisky). I shall take Kay into a pub and get her to order some drinks with our lunch! Then tonight a quiet meal out somewhere. She is planning a birthday outing later in the week with her friends and they intend to go clubbing till the wee small hours of the morning. Just because they can and are old enough. My baby is no more. My grandmother used to say "small children, small worries; big children, big worries." It's true. When they are little you worry about them falling over and grazing their knee. When they older, you worry about the pressure they are put under at school. As they reach adulthood, you wonder what smart young boy is going to drive her into a tree at 60 miles an hour. I suppose you never stop worrying, but you have to let go. For their peace of mind and yours!
So happy birthday, darling, and have a wonderful day.
11 July 2009
Portobello Market
Kay and I went along to Notting Hill in North London today and headed for Portobello Market in Portobello Road. It was heaving with tourists of a hundred nationalities all taking photographs of the area made famous by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in the film Notting Hill. It took us 20 minutes alone just to get up the steps in the Underground station, as it took the crowds that long to shuffle through.
We spent all day just browsing the shops and stalls on one side of the street and then browsing back along the other side. For those who have never been there, it is a very long road indeed (I believe about a mile long) and boasts the former homes of Lord Asquith and George Orwell. The sights and smells (of street cooking - paella, crepes etc) were amazing
and, of course we managed a bit more shopping for our holiday, even calling into the Travel Book shop (featured in the film) for a holiday guide book.
As it was Saturday, all the antique stalls were out in force today too. Our aching feet told us when it was time to head home again. Feel free to click on the pictures to get enlargements.
10 July 2009
Anniversary comes round again
Greg is looking like Long John Silver this morning with a patch over his eye where he had the cataract operation yesterday afternoon. He was not looking forward to the operation (I wondered if they would even attempt it with him full of alcohol, but they did it all under a local anaesthetic anyway). We had been told by various people who had had a cataract operation themselves that the op was not at all gruesome and indeed it went very well. Greg lay down, they covered his face and 25 minutes later they took the cover off his face and the eye had been done. He did not feel a single thing - it was all done with drops in the eye,numbing, melting, soothing etc. So if you know anyone who needs to have a similar operation done, there is absolutely no need to worry. I took the patch off, as directed, this morning and there is not even a lot of redness. I have bathed the eye and put three different lots of drops in which has to be done four times a day over the next two weeks. Seeing as I shall be ensconced in Greece in ten days' time, that could be difficult, but hopefully Greg will be able to do the drops himself by then, if the alcohol makes him see straight!
It is our 33rd wedding anniversary today. Greg wants to celebrate. I can't be bothered. Am I really being that unreasonable?
It is our 33rd wedding anniversary today. Greg wants to celebrate. I can't be bothered. Am I really being that unreasonable?
08 July 2009
Back for a while
Kay and I just got back from a lovely week with my mother. The weather was fantastic - mainly hot, sunny and humid with a scary thunderous downpour at the end. We all had a great time, shopping, shopping, shopping, lunching out, shopping, walks along the seafront, more shopping and (oh) shopping. I relaxed, as I was getting quite stressed of late, Kay relaxed, forgetting all about the trauma of exams, and my mother enjoyed our company, as she spends far too many long days on her own.
On our return to Greg today, we found
On our return to Greg today, we found
- he had not eaten any food left in the fridge.
- he had not taken any of his medication.
- he was still wearing the same clothes we left him in a week ago.
- he had not organised a handyman to do an urgent job in the house. I shall now have to get on and do that as a priority.
- he has not reduced his alcohol consumption in preparation for a cataract operation he is having tomorrow.
- he had not provided fresh water for the dog (he swears he had but there was grime around the bowl and algae floating on the top! The first thing I did on getting home was to wash out the water bowl and refill it with fresh water and the dog hurled himself at it and drank with gusto!)
30 June 2009
Plans a-plenty
As I have mentioned before I am never happier than when I am organised and everything is shipshape. I have been getting a tad frustrated over the last few weeks as I wasn't quite sure how the summer months were going to pan out. All I knew for certain was that Kay's exams were over and that Greg was well and truly in the grip of alcoholism again, starting his first drink at breakfast, half-way through a bottle of whisky by lunchtime and at the end of it by evening. He is doing nothing to help with household chores or paperwork. Everything falls to me. I am effectively a single parent.
Kay wanted to do so much during her vacation, but as yet we had not planned out how and when we were going to fit it all in. This morning, however, I have started to make concrete plans. First, Kay and I will be spending a week with my mother, starting on Friday. Lots of motherly and grandmotherly quality-time planned, trips to the beach, shopping etc. I may even take Snoopy so that he gets a bit of a holiday and releases the demands on Greg when he is left alone at home. We are then back at the end of next week as Greg has to have an emergency cataract operation (the growth of a cataract discovered last year has accelerated because of the diabetes). That is followed by Kay's 18th birthday (not sure what we are planning for that yet).
Kay wanted to do so much during her vacation, but as yet we had not planned out how and when we were going to fit it all in. This morning, however, I have started to make concrete plans. First, Kay and I will be spending a week with my mother, starting on Friday. Lots of motherly and grandmotherly quality-time planned, trips to the beach, shopping etc. I may even take Snoopy so that he gets a bit of a holiday and releases the demands on Greg when he is left alone at home. We are then back at the end of next week as Greg has to have an emergency cataract operation (the growth of a cataract discovered last year has accelerated because of the diabetes). That is followed by Kay's 18th birthday (not sure what we are planning for that yet).
Then Kay and I will be going away towards the end of July to the Mediterranean for a week's relaxation/sightseeing/Greek hospitality. Greg will stay at home with Snoopy, although I pity Snoopy's part of the bargain. Greg did mention that he might like to come too but as he cannot walk out of our cul-de-sac without getting tired, I cannot see him getting as far as the Mediterranean. But seeing as we have never dared to leave Snoopy behind on any of our holidays over the past ten years, it is best the boys stay home together in any case. I also doubt they would let Greg on a plane in his condition! So, that covers the next few weeks or so of the summer and after that, who knows what we'll plan!
18 June 2009
Bring on the Summer!
Kay's last exam was this morning. Chemistry Synoptic. Covering anything and everything she has done over the last two years. She did not seem too pleased about it when she came out, but I never know whether it is her being glass half-empty or realistic. We now have a nail-biting 8 weeks until the results are published before we know whether she has won her place at university or not. She needs to get A, A and B in no particular order for Chemistry, Biology and Maths, but Chemistry is her least strongest subject and she is not confident of even a B for that.
Last night, while she was revising for it, Greg threw a wobbly. He had been drinking heavily all day from breakfast time onwards and by suppertime he was well gone. He had not eaten all day. I had cooked a Chicken Curry with rice for supper and he told me not to serve any for him, as he would have it later, when he felt like it. After Kay and I had served ourselves, the remains lay untouched on the stove right up until 11pm. As I was getting ready for bed, I made the mistake of asking whether I should put it away in the fridge (rather than let the flies buzz around it), if he did not want it. He just blew up and told me to leave him alone. He then proceeded to chunter on about how he never gets any peace (yet we had not been near him all day!) Kay could hear him all the way upstairs as he moaned on and on for a good half an hour or more, while she was still trying to study for this morning's exam. It seems like Greg always seems to lie in wait and save his venom for the chemistry tests and exams! When we came down this morning, he was still asleep on the dining chair in the kitchen. He had clearly not been to bed all night. He did not even wake up as Kay and I clattered about getting breakfast and left the house.
Que sera, sera. What will be, will be. The exams are done and now we sit back and wait. Next week she has to go into school for just one final day to hand back all her text books and say goodbye. That day finishes with the school prom in the evening held at an exclusive golf-club near here. We bought her the most exquisite floaty chiffon evening dress for it this afternoon. Meanwhile, Kay is exulting in the fact that she does not have to use her brain for the next 12 weeks. She is as free as a bird, can lie-in till suppertime, if she wants, watch films, TV, vegetate, gossip with her friends, shop till she drops and busy herself doing absolutely nothing. I give her a couple of weeks before she says she is bored!! Bring on the Summer!!
Last night, while she was revising for it, Greg threw a wobbly. He had been drinking heavily all day from breakfast time onwards and by suppertime he was well gone. He had not eaten all day. I had cooked a Chicken Curry with rice for supper and he told me not to serve any for him, as he would have it later, when he felt like it. After Kay and I had served ourselves, the remains lay untouched on the stove right up until 11pm. As I was getting ready for bed, I made the mistake of asking whether I should put it away in the fridge (rather than let the flies buzz around it), if he did not want it. He just blew up and told me to leave him alone. He then proceeded to chunter on about how he never gets any peace (yet we had not been near him all day!) Kay could hear him all the way upstairs as he moaned on and on for a good half an hour or more, while she was still trying to study for this morning's exam. It seems like Greg always seems to lie in wait and save his venom for the chemistry tests and exams! When we came down this morning, he was still asleep on the dining chair in the kitchen. He had clearly not been to bed all night. He did not even wake up as Kay and I clattered about getting breakfast and left the house.
Que sera, sera. What will be, will be. The exams are done and now we sit back and wait. Next week she has to go into school for just one final day to hand back all her text books and say goodbye. That day finishes with the school prom in the evening held at an exclusive golf-club near here. We bought her the most exquisite floaty chiffon evening dress for it this afternoon. Meanwhile, Kay is exulting in the fact that she does not have to use her brain for the next 12 weeks. She is as free as a bird, can lie-in till suppertime, if she wants, watch films, TV, vegetate, gossip with her friends, shop till she drops and busy herself doing absolutely nothing. I give her a couple of weeks before she says she is bored!! Bring on the Summer!!
10 June 2009
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?
Greg looks very old all of a sudden. For decades, he was the young man I married, then (puff of smoke) he turned 60. A wand has been waved and he is grey both in hair and complexion, bags under his eyes and he looks ill. Well, he is ill. The alcohol-related illnesses over these past 5 years have taken their toll on his looks, as well as his health, which was not good before he started drinking heavily. He has diabetes, heart disease, poor circulation in his legs and feet, the possibility of early stage liver cirrhosis and (I reckon) depression, which is probably why he drinks. He can barely walk a few yards. Since he retired, he has no interest or energy to do anything, so he drinks and that gives him no energy or interest to do anything. A vicious circle.
He announces regularly that he is going to do so much around the house - mend this, fix that, decorate the other, but he never stirs from the spot where he sits watching TV all day. Similarly there are things he wants to chase up with the household's paperwork (concerning bills, insurance claims or the mortgage) but they never get done. If pressed about them, he will say it is too hot, too cold, too wet, too soon, too late.... the excuses keep on coming. In the end, Muggins here usually does it. Sometimes the one and only job he insists on doing (because, he says, I don't do it properly) - namely loading the dishwasher - does not get done and the dishes pile high on the kitchen work surface for a few days or so. Then in desperation I even do that job, as I try to find a clear square inch to chop up some vegetables or prepare a meal! As for major work around the house, forget it - mind you, he has not done that in about ten years anyway. So in latter years painting and DIY has fallen to me. He has great hopes but they just don't materialise.
Even washing himself, cleaning his teeth, brushing his hair and changing his clothes seem too much for him - I often find him asleep on the bed in the morning fully clothed....in the same clothes he has worn all fortnight. Alcohol becomes the be-all and end-all of an alcoholic's life. Relationships and personal hygiene cease to matter. Ketchup stains on his sleeves, soup stains on his trousers, a scaly rash on his face and in his hair. Constantly reeking of whisky and stale cigarette smoke. He seldom washes or showers - usually only when he has to present himself at the doctor's for a repeat prescription, once in a blue moon. If I "nag" him to wash once in a while, it starts World War 3, so it is easier to say nothing and watch him stagger to and from his car and around the neighbourhood like a tramp. Goodness knows what the neighbours think. You tend to look at married couples as one entity (like your own parents) and don't see them as having separate personalities and separate opinions. Do they tar me with the same brush and think I'm a slob for not keeping my husband clean and tidy? They cannot possibly realise what an uphill struggle it is for me to get him to look presentable. Or have they guessed the truth and all this pretence of a normal marriage which I put on for the outside world has been sussed?
Once upon a time I used to worry about what other people thought. If people came to visit us, it became more and more difficult to conceal the state he was in. If they did notice anything, they tactfully said nothing. If we went out anywhere, I'd feel the embarrassment crawling all over me, as soon as he and I stepped out of the front door. I'd beg Kay not to tell any of her friends, lest their parents found out and wouldn't let their children visit our home to spend time with Kay. Living with an alcoholic can be very isolating. For the last year. however, I have advised Kay to tell her friends, as she needed someone to confide in and to make them understand what was happening in her home life and why sometimes it was better for her to stay over with them, rather than for them to stay over with us. Whether their parents know, I don't know. I don't even care any more. I am running out of resolve. I just don't care any more. Let them see it. Let them judge, if they must. I cannot fight his battles any more. I cannot continue to live a lie.
He announces regularly that he is going to do so much around the house - mend this, fix that, decorate the other, but he never stirs from the spot where he sits watching TV all day. Similarly there are things he wants to chase up with the household's paperwork (concerning bills, insurance claims or the mortgage) but they never get done. If pressed about them, he will say it is too hot, too cold, too wet, too soon, too late.... the excuses keep on coming. In the end, Muggins here usually does it. Sometimes the one and only job he insists on doing (because, he says, I don't do it properly) - namely loading the dishwasher - does not get done and the dishes pile high on the kitchen work surface for a few days or so. Then in desperation I even do that job, as I try to find a clear square inch to chop up some vegetables or prepare a meal! As for major work around the house, forget it - mind you, he has not done that in about ten years anyway. So in latter years painting and DIY has fallen to me. He has great hopes but they just don't materialise.
Even washing himself, cleaning his teeth, brushing his hair and changing his clothes seem too much for him - I often find him asleep on the bed in the morning fully clothed....in the same clothes he has worn all fortnight. Alcohol becomes the be-all and end-all of an alcoholic's life. Relationships and personal hygiene cease to matter. Ketchup stains on his sleeves, soup stains on his trousers, a scaly rash on his face and in his hair. Constantly reeking of whisky and stale cigarette smoke. He seldom washes or showers - usually only when he has to present himself at the doctor's for a repeat prescription, once in a blue moon. If I "nag" him to wash once in a while, it starts World War 3, so it is easier to say nothing and watch him stagger to and from his car and around the neighbourhood like a tramp. Goodness knows what the neighbours think. You tend to look at married couples as one entity (like your own parents) and don't see them as having separate personalities and separate opinions. Do they tar me with the same brush and think I'm a slob for not keeping my husband clean and tidy? They cannot possibly realise what an uphill struggle it is for me to get him to look presentable. Or have they guessed the truth and all this pretence of a normal marriage which I put on for the outside world has been sussed?
Once upon a time I used to worry about what other people thought. If people came to visit us, it became more and more difficult to conceal the state he was in. If they did notice anything, they tactfully said nothing. If we went out anywhere, I'd feel the embarrassment crawling all over me, as soon as he and I stepped out of the front door. I'd beg Kay not to tell any of her friends, lest their parents found out and wouldn't let their children visit our home to spend time with Kay. Living with an alcoholic can be very isolating. For the last year. however, I have advised Kay to tell her friends, as she needed someone to confide in and to make them understand what was happening in her home life and why sometimes it was better for her to stay over with them, rather than for them to stay over with us. Whether their parents know, I don't know. I don't even care any more. I am running out of resolve. I just don't care any more. Let them see it. Let them judge, if they must. I cannot fight his battles any more. I cannot continue to live a lie.
05 June 2009
Exam fever and the Bombay diet
School exams have started in earnest this week in our household. Of course, as always, just when you need to keep cool and concentrate, the weather has decided to climb into the 80s (Fahrenheit) or about 26 (Celsius), so Kay has been sweltering while she revises. Added to that she has had a terrible head cold which is now heading south to her chest, the poor little mite has been struggling to breathe. I have been trying to build her up with brain fodder and anti-virus food, such as salads, fish, blueberries and echinacea tablets. Hopefully that will pay off. The thanks I get for it is that I am now going down with it too. Still, unlike Kay, at least I don't have to bother my fuzzy head with analysis of chemical ions and aldehydes.
Greg meanwhile is now downing the whisky like it is going out of fashion and is currently going through a typical phase of his alcoholism that is oh so familiar - I have seen it many times before in the previous cycles he has been through. When he is well and truly in the grip of alcohol addiction, his appetite starts to disappear completely. He tends to skip breakfast and lunch altogether and only snacks very late in the afternoon, so that by suppertime he says he is not hungry. He declines to eat lunch with us and at suppertime may at best take minuscule portions which would not even fill a two-year-old. He will toy with the food on his
plate with his fork and say that it doesn't taste of much....things which under normal conditions he usually relishes. Most of his food then ends up in the bin. At the moment, he is existing mainly on whisky, milk and strange concoctions he makes himself such as bombay mix with salsa sauce! It seems he has to really accentuate the spiciness of his food to get any taste at all. I think the alcohol kills all the little taste buds on his tongue. I am watching out for the next phase which will no doubt follow the usual pattern and develop into the upset stomach/hiccuping phase, followed by the more extreme gastric ulcer/ dash to the hospital phase. This morning he got up retching. Surprisingly that only starts to happen when his liver really has had really more than it can take. I've been there before. Watch this space.
Greg meanwhile is now downing the whisky like it is going out of fashion and is currently going through a typical phase of his alcoholism that is oh so familiar - I have seen it many times before in the previous cycles he has been through. When he is well and truly in the grip of alcohol addiction, his appetite starts to disappear completely. He tends to skip breakfast and lunch altogether and only snacks very late in the afternoon, so that by suppertime he says he is not hungry. He declines to eat lunch with us and at suppertime may at best take minuscule portions which would not even fill a two-year-old. He will toy with the food on his
plate with his fork and say that it doesn't taste of much....things which under normal conditions he usually relishes. Most of his food then ends up in the bin. At the moment, he is existing mainly on whisky, milk and strange concoctions he makes himself such as bombay mix with salsa sauce! It seems he has to really accentuate the spiciness of his food to get any taste at all. I think the alcohol kills all the little taste buds on his tongue. I am watching out for the next phase which will no doubt follow the usual pattern and develop into the upset stomach/hiccuping phase, followed by the more extreme gastric ulcer/ dash to the hospital phase. This morning he got up retching. Surprisingly that only starts to happen when his liver really has had really more than it can take. I've been there before. Watch this space.
29 May 2009
Slipping through my fingers
Last Friday was also another very special day for another reason. It was Kay's last official day of schooling. I say "schooling" rather than "school", because she still has to go to school to sit her exams over the next few weeks, but last Friday was the last day of actual lessons. Ever, ever. It seems like only yesterday morning that I held her tiny three-year-old hand and took her to her first kindergarten class. It seems like only yesterday lunchtime when again I took her hand and introduced her to her first primary school teacher when she was four. It seems like only yesterday afternoon when she boarded the bus heading for the big girls' school aged eleven. Suddenly she is almost eighteen, an adult and able to vote in a couple of months. Heck, how did that happen?
Fifteen years have passed since that first day at kindergarten, in which she has learned the wonders of this world and the basics of reading and writing. I have sat listening to her read her very first books, watching her first shaky attempts at art, helping with those multiplication tables right through to now when at her request I try to test her and have to decipher the totally foreign language (to me) that is Chemistry. I have packed lunches when she used to be a faddy 6-year-old and hated the school fare; packed suitcases for school trips to far-off places such as Cumbria, Paris and Latin America; and packed a proverbial punch in mad-mother-cow mode, if I thought another child in the playground was being unfair or bullying her. I have watched her turn from a small wobbly toddler into a beautiful young woman who without my guiding hand wobbles still on high heels and towers above me.
Where have all those years gone? I must have got here in the Tardis! Her last day of school came stealthily in through the back door. It just cannot be possible. Don't get me wrong, I have prepared for years for this day in my mind over and over, determined not to get all weepy and sentimental, but it still comes like a bolt out of the blue and surprises me just how quickly eighteen years can pass. The time rushes by in a flash. You are happily ticking off all those milestones of losing teeth, growing new ones, different schools, exams, vaccinations and achievements and before you have time to blink, the chicks are leaving the nest. Make the most of your little cherubs while you can.
22 May 2009
Anniversary.
My blog is one year old today.I started writing it because Greg was drinking heavily after yet another attempt at detox and I could not get any professionals to help me stop him or slow him down. I felt I was going to blow a gasket or go mad or both. Everywhere I turned for help, I came up against a brick wall. GPs can only advise or prescribe drugs. They don't really want to get involved on a practical level. Hospital accident and emergency departments just ensure there are no serious problems, patch the alcoholic up and send them back home again without admitting them. (You cannot blame them - they are inundated with drink-related emergencies. Their eyes roll heavenwards when told the patient is an alcoholic). Professional alcohol counsellors can advise and refer for detox, but can only do so if the patient volunteers to seek help (which of course they rarely do because they don't see they have a problem in the first place!) Detox clinics have long waiting lists and (again) the alcoholic has to be the one to make the first move. Families of alcoholics are usually the ones left to deal with the problem on their own and all you can to is try to cope with it on a daily basis. Damage limitation. There is no wonder cure or magic wand. It requires tough love. Love is really a misnomer, because love tends to sail out the window when you are coping with the problem on a daily grind. It is not the person you married and chose to spend your life with. I have always felt that if you had a partner who develops something like cancer or dementia, you would know it is not their fault and you would continue to love them unconditionally, whatever life threw at you. But with an alcoholic who hurls abuse at you and is very much wrapped up in themselves, you are left to deal with a major irritant in your life, sharing a house with a lodger - one whose references you wished you had checked out before you let them the room!
A year ago Kay was trying to revise for exams and having to deal with Greg shouting and ranting as he invariably does when he has got through a full whisky bottle in about twelve hours. Once he is inebriated, his mild temper can rise drastically to Incredible Hulk proportions if anyone dares to interrupt a TV programme he might be watching or contradict him in any way. He will shout if we go to bed leaving him asleep in front of the kitchen TV on a dining chair. He will shout if we wake him to try to transfer him to bed. He will shout over the silliest of things. A no-win situation. Damned, if you do, and damned, if you don't! All this shouting in the evenings coincided with Kay trying to study. She is a conscientious student, but I would defy anyone to concentrate with all that noise going on. Also Greg will follow us from room to room if we try to diffuse the argument by walking away, so often the only real escape is to jump into a car and drive off for a while. But it's not the sort of thing you want to do, say at 11pm, or when you are trying to study for an A-level Chemistry test the next day. So in utter desperation, I contacted the school at least to warn them what was happening at home. They were very sympathetic, as well as helpful, and after that I found the confidence to start my blog. I was close to breaking-point.
I have found the writing of the blog very therapeutic. It is the verbal equivalent of hitting a pillow with your fists. My outpourings have probably saved me many a time from being carted off to the funny farm or dissecting Greg into a million pieces with a blunt knife! Your comments have buoyed me up more than you will ever know, even if I have not thanked you personally, and I feel as if I have made many cyber friends on here. I am so grateful for that. Greg has not been happy for me to write the blog, but I have gone to great pains to change our names and whereabouts, so that he will not be embarrassed or found out by his friends or ex-work colleagues. I have often given him the chance to read it, as I had hoped it might be easier for him to read as a third person about the damage he was doing to himself and to his family rather than me telling him, but he has religiously avoided reading the blog at all.
A year later, so much has happened, but many things stay the same. In September, Greg became very ill again, was rushed into hospital, came out a month later detoxed and returned to a reasonable state of health. But slowly things have deteriorated and he is back to the similar patterns of last year. Not quite as bad, but almost. He is almost back to a full 70cl bottle of whisky per day. He maintains he is in control of the alcohol and will never again revert to the states he has been in in the past, but to see him late in the evening - either angry or asleep on an upright dining chair - it is easy to see what is still in control. He came out of hospital not smoking a single cigarette any more and is now back to about 30-a-day. He has lucid, sober moments - during the mornings I can still reason with him, he will often deal with household issues, or even go out in the car to fetch more supplies of cigarettes and whisky. But already by lunchtime, I am losing him again and by supper-time, he is asleep and awake in hourly turns. Kay and I retire to bed, not knowing if he will fall asleep with a cigarette and burn the house down. It does not do much for my anxiety levels.
In that year, I have also made new friends by joining a local Al-Anon group which is there for families of the alcoholic. I am not sure if it is helping me in the way I would have hoped (ie practical solutions to deal with the alcoholism), but the programme focuses on how to repair yourself, look deep inside yourself and detach from the alcoholic. At the very least it gives me a couple of hours away from Greg each week and, as I have said, it has forged some new friendships. We all have the same in common - we live with an alcoholic husband/wife/son/daughter/mother/father - so there is no need to put on a pretence (pretence is something I am good at with neighbours or other parents at Kay's school or those friends and family who are blissfully unaware that Greg drinks). At Al-Anon we can relax and discuss our feelings openly. Usually someone weeps as they tell their story. Months and years of pent-up emotions come flooding out. The rest of the group gather round and console. The emotional support is palpable. We know only too well what that person is going through. We've been there. Correction - we ARE there.
So, it seems a strange anniversary to celebrate, but celebrate I shall. Whether I shall continue to blog depends on so many factors, most importantly of all whether I decide to stay with Greg once Kay leaves for university in September. My frail, arthritis-disabled mother sixty miles away deserves a heck of a lot more of my attention than I can give her at present and I aim to spend a lot more time helping her. Greg's problems are self-induced. Hers are not. I have no struggle with where my loyalties lie. However, I am still trying to keep an open mind and don't want to make any urgent decisions for the moment. Al-Anon advises - "One Day at a Time", so maybe I should not rush a decision, but I know which way my common-sense is pulling. Al-Anon sees alcoholism as an illness and not something we should berate the alcoholic for. I am not sure I buy into that philosophy, but now and again, it does make me feel more pity for Greg than I used to feel. However, whether I want to spend the rest of my life just watching him slowly drink himself to death (quite literally), I don't know. He sits zombie-like all day in the kitchen/diner watching TV and drinking and smoking. We don't do anything together and we don't go out anywhere together. We don't share a bedroom together. We don't even have conversations. Not much of a life to look forward to, if I stay. But I know that deep down underneath, Greg is still the wonderful man I married. Just like the extremely narrow waist I used to have........ it's there somewhere, just hidden. He was a kind, educated, caring individual. Always the first one to help someone in trouble and to understand the other person's viewpoint. He is a man who, for some strange reason, has decided since retirement five years ago to become an alcoholic and now cannot find the long way back.
18 May 2009
The Youth of Today
There are times when I wonder whether the world is going crazy and what the future holds for us when there is so much greed and hatred about. You read so many terrible things about the youth of today in particular, what with knife crime and bullying at school, being spoiled with ipods, laptops and computer games. You wonder where it will all lead.
And then you see these two gorgeous fresh-faced youngsters full of talent and somehow you know everything's gonna be all right.
1. Natalie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mAqUWuJayw
2. Aidan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0HBEDgeA8
( I cannot get the links up here on screen, as embedding is disabled for these items. Sorry. Just copy the links into your search engine to call them up.)
And then you see these two gorgeous fresh-faced youngsters full of talent and somehow you know everything's gonna be all right.
1. Natalie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mAqUWuJayw
2. Aidan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0HBEDgeA8
( I cannot get the links up here on screen, as embedding is disabled for these items. Sorry. Just copy the links into your search engine to call them up.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)