The Queen and I

There is a wonderful Scottish toast which I hope makes sense to those "furth" of Scotland
"Here's tae us, wha's like us
Damn few, and they're a' deid"
So Gransnetters - Here's tae us!!

I have no experience, but to all of you wonderful women
I am counting my blessings

Sorry to hear how tricky things are for you just now ..I expect the additional worry of the wedding will be making it all feel worse. It's fine to have a grumble about it..it is important to air issues and concerns ..often helps to get them into proportion and this is the place to do it! for you.

My aunt has suffered from dizzy spells and had some success at the dizzy clinic at the local hospital! Also had her blood pressure medication reviewed and that helped too. I have recurrent bouts of labyrinthitis and that is helped by sea sickness tablets!

I hope that your DH finds some relief from his episodes and that the wedding goes splendidly.

Elegran

Yes, constantly being cheerful and upbeat is very wearing. Being anything else is just impossible, he has enough problems without seeing a long face and hearing complaints, so you smile and cope and get on with it.

And while you cope, everyone says how strong and wonderful you are and leaves you to go on coping

Until they have been there, they do not know the half of it.

gracesmum I know exactly where you are coming from. At the moment my DH can barely walk he manages at best to shuffle along and he crawls upstairs to bed at night. This has been ongoing since March a month or so after his kidney transplant. His medication has been altered or stopped and he has had various tests which show that he has muscle wastage or damage in his upper legs and arms. I believe it's called Myopathy. He is awaiting an appointment at a Birmingham hospital for a muscle biopsy. His white cell count dropped a few weeks ago due to one of the immuno suppressants he had to take. This drug also gave him horrendous diaorrhea (excuse spelling) which made it extremely difficult to go anywhere because obviously if he got the runs while we were out he couldn't make a run for the nearest loo . He has fortnightly appointments at renal clinic and then there are various clinics to attend throughout the month because he has so many other things wrong with him. The holiday we were hoping to have once he had recovered from his transplant isn't going to happen this year. We haven't had a decent holiday for nearly 10 years.

We did manage a coach trip to Oxford last month but it was a case of getting off the coach and getting on a tour bus, then ending up in the Ashmolean Museum. Yes we enjoyed it BUT I want a bit more out of life and I am fed up too of people telling me " I am lucky to still have him" " Think positive" " There is always somebody worse off" Well sometimes it just doesn't feel like it! As for being positive arggghh!

I want to do what it seems most other couples in our age group do. Go for long walks with our dogs/grandchildren. Play together with our grandchildren. Go shopping, go on holiday the list goes on. DH gets all the sympathy I get the patronising comments " Ah you're doing a grand job" being the main one.

DH was diagnosed with renal failure in Spring 1977 his 1st transplant was Autumn of that year. Our second wedding anniversary was spent in the Liverpool Royal hospital as he was rushed back in with post transplant complications. So for 35 out of the 37 years we have been married I have lived with his renal problems and all the complications.

I often feel as if my life force is slowly but surely being sapped out of me. My workload is heavier than ever and of course I'm not getting any younger.

Unless people walk in your shoes I don't think they can ever fully understand what you go through.

Great big hugs to you and to all who have sick husbands to care for. We all deserve a medal

I am too - you are all such warm and caring people and understand where a person is coming from - mostly because you all have your own cross (of whatever religious persuasion) to bear!!
Enjoy your hols, crimson and thank you everybody else for your very kind thoughts.
Back to the bunting (have I mentioned I am making 50m for the reception?) and am currently cutting out triangles!!

Well, I know this is totally off topic but I just wanted to say that I'm feeling a bit miserable today, even though I'm off on me hols at the weekend but, with all your troubles the meet up that you've arranged is the thing I'm most looking forward to over the next few months .

gracesmum, I feel your desperation. I think we all do. But this is the place to get if off your chest. Have you any family support you can call on? I hope they understand what you are both going through. ((((hugs)))). x

gracesmum the way you wrote your post made me .

I feel for you - please try to enjoy the wedding as it is a day to remember forever.

You do cope so well and I know you will look gorgeous, so just think positive thoughts.

I would just add, gracesmum, that the very fact my OH has the anti-dizziness tablets with him at all times has, I think, prevented him from panicking (which he tends to do), and which of course exacerbates the problem! Has your OH been given any medication to ward off attacks?

Aw GM don't worry about having a whinge here. Hard to keep your chin up and there has been a lot of hospital traipsing over long distances in the last year I know.
Queen did not go to see PP for a couple of days last time, even though she has chauffeur and he was just up the road...
She is not in your league!
I know you have been trying to have breaks to do things that you like to do, and that is the right strategy.
My MIL is a seasoned vertigo and nausea sufferer (as well as the bad heart etc). She has several anti-emetic things from the dos, including the one you can put under your tongue. Has your DH got something like that he can keep by him?
Fail all else, put a sickbag in your handbag. Large resealable sandwich bag from Waitrose should be just right.
All the best for any last minute wedding preps. I am off to Wales for 4 days leaving DH to do the MIL duty. Feels like playing hooky.

Keep strong, gracesmum A sense of humour is supposed to help but sometimes events just aren't bloody funny. My DH has anxiety/panic attacks since his stroke two years ago. I can cope with him being registered blind but the fact he worries about anything and everything is extremely wearing. We spent last Christmas with the family in a lovely converted barn in Devon. DD1 drove down and she is an excellent driver but she took a wrong turn when we were nearly there which resulted in us getting lost down a very narrow lane. Not so long ago we would all have laughed but DH got in such a state DD and I were nervous wrecks by the time we found the cottage. The champagne cocktails that DD2 had ready for us went down like water on sand
Most of the time I can laugh it off but there's always a thought at the back of my mind and that is DH's father who also suffered from panic attacks and had one in the middle of the 1987 hurricane because he thought a tree was going to fall on their garage.....He dropped dead

gracesmum, Oh my dear don't beat yourself up for another moment. You need to look after yourself and that includes your mental wellbeing - your sense of you! I fully understand your sense of unfairness at having to cope with what sounds like a pretty draining situation.
Last moneth my DH had an 'episode' that involved a dramatic loss of short term memory. At first the phrase T.I.A. was bandied about but after a bit of googling on my part I felt the professionals were wrong. Long story short - it was something called Transcient Global Amnesia and is absolutely nothing to worry about just very distressing for the witness (me). For a while I felt I was facing a slow decent into full blown mental health problems or more T.I.As. I was terrified - what did the future now hold?
Get as much support and help as you can....come in here for a rant. Dont compare yourself to others - its not a case of 'others have more to cope with' if things feel aweful to you then they are aweful - you have every right to moan, complain and generally feel life has dealt you a tough hand.
I hope the Wedding goes well, am sure your DD would rather have her Dad there than not. Perhaps other family members can do a bit of 'minding' for you - take it in turns etc. Lots of luck - and feel very free to Rant any time!

grace what a horrible situation for you both. I will be very happy for you to whinge, whine, moan, kick and scream as much as you like.

I am imaging what it must be like to spend much of your life looking after everyone else and probably having a job as well and looking forward to all the things you would do together in retirement. Then this comes along and bites you on the bum! I suspect the worst part is not knowing what it is or how long it will go one. I don't know how you cope.

"the relentlessness of not being able to count on him being well enough to enjoy simple things is wearing me down" - gracesmum how I can identify with that!! You have expressed it so well.

My OH has Parkinson's Disease, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and anxiety, and my life sounds much like yours - and my moments of exasperation (with the accompanying guilt) also much the same. We too can plan nothing with any certainty, and that is so frustrating. I alternate between concern/care and just plain feeling worn out and frustrated by it all.

We are supposed to be going away for the weekend and the B&B is booked - but who knows whether we will go, or how things will be if we do go? - lots of contingency plans in place and an acceptance that it may not happen.
Ditto our planned French holiday in September (with lots of family support around) - in some ways I know he is dreading it as he feels safer in his own environment - but we do have to try and keep some degree of normality and just deal with the knockbacks.

It is important to allow oneself to be irritated by it all sometimes - we are all only human - so do not beat yourself up by feeling guilty. I sometimes feel as though everything falls on me - all the thinking and planning and taking of responsibility for everything - it can feel overwhelming sometimes, but you just have to bash on and get on with it - and allow the occasional (or even frequent!) negative thought - be kind to yourself above all!

V&T!

grace, I don't know what is wrong with your OH, but whatever it is,please try and do not let it get you. Then your own health will suffer, and if you do not look after yourself you could go FIRST.

And, yes it is wine o'clock.

I absolutely know how you feel, gracesmum, although my OH hasn't any specific problems apart from COPD and the suspected Meniers, plus he had a heart attack a few years ago and is on so many pills.....
I'm still working although he's retired, and he can't do much in the way of gardening etc. any more because he gets out of breath, so I'm in a similar boat to you!
I think it's definitely time!

It's very difficult to deal with an illness that doesn't have a pattern. I know it's not the same but I used to have migraines and missed lots of events and days out because I was laid in a dark room instead.

You don't need to shut up. Sometimes it helps to vent. Life is unfair and at times we need to be able to rant, rave and metaphorically kick the cat.

All very kind - but I need to appreciate that life could be a lot worse! DH has had ear/brain investigation (no comment re the latter) and it doesn't seem to be ear-related any more, but a 7 day heart monitor showed there has been a heart flutter when the episodes occur - only nobody seems to be taking this terribly seriously as he has/has had worse things wrong. I am being selfish too, I feel everything devolves on to me - house/garden/ organisation/pressure, for want of a better word and I am feeling quite drained and in a weird way, paralysed. (Does that sound too weird?) I know I cope well with a crisis - it is this drip, drip constantly having to be the cheerful one, the one with energy (huh!) and the one to pick up the pieces.
I think it might be wine o'clock(not whine o'clock)

gracesmumdo you really think I would be so heartless?
The stress of what is happening can be a
Most unbearable. In some ways death can be a relief. St least it means you can move on and make plans and not be living on a knife edge.
It's probably different for those for whom death comes quickly and unexpectably.

Oh dear! We have a wedding in 5 weeks and have plotted and planned how to help my sister be there in as low profile a way as possible, with all her medicines, machines and tracheostomy being so noticeable. Now, we're certain she won't be there and my brother is heartbroken. You could plan as far as possible so that your DH is able to get through the day and be able to rest up whenever he needs. He's obviously not well. Could he have an anti-emetic beforehand, to help him avoid being nauseous?

Oh Gracemum I feel for your troubles , my SIL has similar attacks , but it now a bit under control with medication

Has the doc ruled out Menier's disease, gracesmum? My OH suffered attacks such as you describe for a year or so and had all sorts of tests, they reckoned it was Meniers and told him it would get worse, but fortunately it hasn't, and he now has tablets to take if he starts to feel dizzy.