Caring for a Parent

The Hard Decisions

The time has come to make a decision about my Dad. 

My Dad is ill with Parkinsons and has reached the point where it is no longer manageable to have him at home. We are taking the hard decision to find a "home" where he can get the round the clock care he so desperately needs and my step mum has valiantly tried to give him. 

How can taking that decision ever be easy?

She came over last week to talk it through with me and to see how I felt. I didn't have a particularly close relationship with my Dad growing up. He was often away and I was always closer to my Mum. He is still my Dad though and I don't like the idea. 

No, not at all.

 But this is not about what I want. I don't have to clear up his mess every night. I don't have to lift his heavy weight every day when he falls. I don't have to try and administer drugs every 3 hours or change his pump. I don't have to get up numerous times every night because he is calling and confused. I don't have to put up with his tempers and his confusion. My Step mum does that. She had a triple bypass a few years ago and has to be aware of her health.

It is her decision. 

When there was talk about fitting him for a helmet to protect him from falling we realised it was time. She cannot pop out anymore, even for 10 minutes. He simply needs round the clock care.

We took my little girl to the theatre over Christmas to see an adaptation of the kids book The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson. 

They told the tale of the Whale through the eyes of a young girl and her Dad who was telling the story to her. 

The main part of this adaptation was the girls relationship with her father and how much she adored him and the way he told her stories. He then has to go off to sea and she doesn't see him again. There was something about this, and I don't know whether Christmas had something to do with it, but I found myself welling up constantly. In the Theatre. With the children .

Stupid, hormonal, middle aged woman.

It's not even that my Dad ever read me stories.

It's just that I hate that he has to go into a home. 

He knows enough to know what is happening and he is worried about it too.

It's just so heartbreaking to see, but I know that he can't be watched every moment when  he is at home and the next fall he has just might be his last....... 

So, as hard as it is, the time has come.

Things will not be the same again after this year......