Once you’re grown up, you can’t come back” – Peter Pan
As many of you know, this page all started because I had a crazy idea to raise money and awareness for mental health. The main focus was around my Dad who suffers with Parkinsons and Lewy Body dementia, but it was highlighting the mental health that goes along with these two illnesses he is battling. In the last 6 months my Dad has rapidly declined and each day is different to the one before. As a family yet again we are faced with challenges and decisions we didn’t think we’d have to make for many years. For instance my Mum breaking her knee cap and having the slow recovery of getting better and basically learning to walk again, to her then 6 months later breaking her wrist has given us so many challenges. My Dad is currently in hospital due to a fall he had at home. He has been there for the last 12 weeks with the only option now finding him a care/nursing home as it’s got the point he can’t come home. It’s heartbreaking for us all. I feel its that point of handing over your childhood completely and seeing the roles have reversed between parent and child. At one point I had both my parents in different hospitals for 24 hours & I was next of kin for both of them. I wasn’t sure who took priority in that 24 hours but I felt the weight of the world on top of me. That’s when I felt like an adult and my childhood had gone. I have been helping my Mum with their Wills and Power of Attorney too, something you don’t expect to be doing with your parent as it is something they should both sort and a document you don’t have to deal with until that final day. I can’t visit my Dad in hospital, because for one I’m pregnant and secondly for me I don’t like hospitals. For me I can’t see my Dad like that in that environment. Yes I have spoken to him and seen him through video call, but to be face to face I find it to hard as for me I’m looking at someone I use to know and I miss my Dad, I really do. I wish he would get better, but he won’t. I have learned a lot about myself in this time. I have learned where my emotions come out and can come out. I have learned that I’m actually a private person with my emotions and that I actually tell people the bare minimum when actually I want to scream and say “Its not fair”, why him? What did he do to deserve this? When people ask me how my Dad is I actually never know what to say. Its a hard one to explain as he is never going to get better therefore you don’t know what the right thing to say is. So you give the bare minimum just in case that’s the moment the emotion spills out. For those of you who still have your Dad as your Dad don’t take it for granted, make sure you appreciate every moment and realise how lucky you are. I wish some days my Dad could still drive me somewhere, or be the person I call to come and do that DIY job or rescue me from spiders. I wish some days my Dad could be the Papa he truly deserves to be. I’m jealous of you, you have no idea how much it hurts to watch your parent go through this until you have experienced it yourself. I said in my first blog post that he was my Superhero and the first man I ever fell in love with, this is still true. We have so many lovely, happy memories and that’s how we get through it as a family we take each day as it comes and we make the memories where we can because tomorrow is another day and like any of us we have no idea what’s planned or install for us.
1 Comment
I am sorry lovely, my heart goes out to you. This is something I always hope others will never have to go through, my mum became ill when I was 12 and unfortunately died when I was 18. It is a very sudden growing up and I am sorry this is where you are now. If you ever need a shoulder, I'm always around xx
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BLOGAbout meDanni Tresadern. Someone who puts their hand up admitting she has anxiety. Archives
September 2018
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