Because Ruth is in respite , instead of I want write a story about father and son this week.
My father is aged, 88 years old, he has been a hard working man for all of his life, even nearing the end. He just can’t lay down.
In his retirement years him and Mum own a block of land that he has vegetable gardens on That he has spent many hours working in.
About six months ago he took a turn for the worst and lost control of his balance he had quite a few falls, combined with a diabetic ulcer on his toe, that bought his lifestyle to a complete halt .
He grew very weak and he was in and out of hospital and then at a certain time in this period all of the family thought that he was near death. But he so strong and he got a little better and was discharged.
My mother took care of him, in the family home and basically she became his full-time nurse,
her whole days, and nights were consumed with tasks to look after Dad.
So she became the main person that kept him going.
The burden and pressure that this placed on my mother’s personal life was huge.
In the end, she simply asked him to give her a rest and for him to agree to few weeks of respite , both for now and then every now and then, and with that she would be prepared to continue as his carer with him at home .
My father, being an old school, and with old school beliefs flatly refused. to agree to any part of giving Mum respite despite the fact the family all tried to talk Dad into it, but as stubborn as he is he continued to flatly refuse.
He was using a walker and walking stick to get around as his balance then was still quite poor, and eventually he had to have his toe removed by amputation, as it had turned gangrenous ,
It was then a slow recovery from there, with excellent care given by the district nursing team dressing his toe every few days and my mother’s care along side with that every day, my father got stronger as his will, to live, was enormous, he still refused to give Mum respite, I warned him that if he gave Mum respite every now, and then he could live at home for the rest of his days , if he refused eventually, he would be in a nursing home full-time and never come home.
Dad was entitled to services through a package and had earlier a male carer taking him out for respite. He decided that the male carer only wanted to drive around to rack up the kilometres so he will be paid the maximum allowed.
So Dad sacked him. And that just left Mum with no respite at all.
In desperation,
Mum asked me a few weeks ago if would I be prepared to spend the day a week with Dad working down the block?
Of course I said yes ,
So as you can see by the photos, I’m working with dad making him a new vegetable garden patch with tin all around as the rabbits make it impossible otherwise ,and they eat nearly everything that you plant , and the aim of the exercise is also to tidy up all the old stuff on the block and have everything with in his new garden in one place.
He doesn’t really want me to tidy it up I feel .
Dad is visually impaired, deaf, and stubborn, when it comes to doing things his way.
As an example
There is two lumps of sandy loam that needs to be shifted into the new garden, the first patch we used the tiller to break it up and make it easy to shovel into a wheelbarrow.
Instead of working with me, moving that dirt Dad gets the ride on mower, going , hooks up a trailer to it and proceeds to shovel a rockhard patch of sandy dirt at the front of the block
I look at him and take a pic watching him having to rest between shovel fulls thinking you can’t change him .
He is completely buggered but won’t give up
But he must have softened a bit recently as my sisters gave him a hard time during the previous weeks and he actually agreed with them to go for two weeks respite, wether he said it to stop them asking or he goes there or not we will have to wait and see but it’s definitely pleased mum that’s for sure
So I have to watch out of the corner of my eye with him at the block as the other week he drove the Ute when I wasn’t looking and hooked up a trailer to cart some branches ,
I understand it completely but like I said he is heavily vision impaired so it’s a bit risky , so now I take the keys out of the ute when we park , and now he has resorted to using the ride on but it’s not an ordinary ride on like you picture it’s a ride on like the machines that they mow our public parks and gardens with so it’s quite large and I helped him fit a tow bar to it the other week , even though I knew what it was going to be for I still don’t quite know how to refuse him even after all these years , as he is my father and I sometimes wonder if I will end up like him ?
But I think that I’m more like my mother
So the progress on the garden is pretty good I’ll keep you informed as it develops
The thing is to me it’s not enjoyable watching my father shrivel away physically and just be a hospital case .
But it’s part of life that the older generation eventually pass
The thing is my dad has just faced that scenario and beaten it off if only for now but the thing is that we were not close while I was growing up , as dad worked basically seven days a week , this position we find ourselves in really is a bonus where we can get to spend precious time working in the new garden patch and build more of a bond than we have ever had ,
I think he knows that when he is in respite that I’m going to clean up his whole mess that’s down there even though he doesn’t really want me to.
Cheers
Curlyg