I'm telling you up front, I don't feel like I'm old enough to have parents a parent who is hitting the classification of "aging." Hubby's parents, for all they're six years younger than mine, are also eeking into that same strata. And...it's a lot to wrap my head around.
Daddy has diabetes (type 1) and has had since he was in his early 20s. But the joy that you don't really hear about is how long term diabetics start to become insulin resistant and their bodies don't respond to eating or insulin the way they used to. Which means I've now been added to his continuous glucose monitor (and oh my, that thing is worth its weight in gold and I am forever grateful to whatever clever science brains developed the thing) and get an alert on my phone when he has blood sugar below 50.
Which happens more than I'd like.
On the plus side, he barely goes anywhere anymore, so I don't worry about him being out on the road when things are dropping (too much -- I still worry, because again, age means that sometimes his blood sugar will be fine one minute and tanking the next with no warning.) But it also means it takes longer for him to get back to a good number. And usually what happens is he ends up swinging the other direction, going high and taking a long time to go back down (often to turn around and ping back low and....up down up down...it's awful. For everyone.)
Throw in that burying mom's remains seems to have made him sadder and lonelier than he had been (and/or it's just the simple passage of time) and it turns into -- I'm worried about my dad. Worried that maybe we need to talk about him moving in with us (or more realistically, us moving in with him) sooner than later. Because it seems like he could use the company and care.
Part of me also worries that he's simply going to give up and head home to be with mom.
Throw in that hubby's parents have moved to the Hampton area and made some seriously questionable decisions in the process of that that I'm wondering if we need to start worrying about mental decline with them and I return to the title -- aging parents is for the birds.
3 hours ago
Indeed. I still remember the day my sister and I agreed we finally had to take the car keys away from the Mothe.
ReplyDeleteMy summer hols this year will be spending a week with the in-laws. Mrs. R and I have not talked about it openly, but there's an underlying understanding that it's best for the Gels to see as much of their remaining grandparents now as possible.