Sunday, August 05, 2007

Just Drifting

Emily's been drifting around in her pool most of yesterday and today, deep in thought about who knows what. I think she's got a lot on her mind at the moment. She's happy enough but very....thoughtful. We've missed out on a lot of time together recently and I don't think she's taken her semi-abandonment very well!! There've been more than a few cross words in all directions as she's obviously frustrated at our time being taken up elsewhere, and we're feeling guilty about that but also hassled and harrassed to the extreme trying to take care of stuff. Patience is wearing thin in all departments, sad to say :-( Hopefully things will improve soon if we can get back into a routine after an awful week.


Jon's father has now announced that he wants it fixed up for him to be admitted to hospital to sort out his diabetes readings. He "wants something done about it" but seems oblivious to the fact that his diabetes control is in his own hands. After living with diabetes for god knows how long now, you'd think he'd have a handle on it, but it seems not. When he was in hospital for most of May, his blood sugar readings were practically perfect apart from ocassionally being too low at night. That's because they clearly knew what they were doing in there, and fed him properly and controlled his insulin properly. But he did nothing but complain about the way they handled it. He comes out of hospital, his control goes back to being crap again (readings of 22 at night and 14 in the morning, for instance). The diabetic specialist sat with us for 40 minutes last week trying to explain to him what he needs to do. But he's now dismissed all that, and claims that he needs to go back to hospital in order to have it sorted out. The hospital and the sorting out that he complained about so bitterly previously, presumably. So now it's up to me to sort out a hospital admission, with all the crap that entails.

I'm getting to my wits end about this, to be honest. He won't listen, he won't be told. Anyone, specialist or not, who says anything that doesn't match what he wants to hear, is dismissed as not knowing what they're talking about. He automatically dismisses anything and everything Jon says to him, to the point that Jon's given up even trying to reason with him. He's more polite to me to my face, but still ignores my advice. He lies to the medical professionals about how much he eats and how much exercise he does - claims he eats practically nothing, when in reality he eats huge portions and often adds ice cream, biscuits etc. Without the truth and without any effort on his part to co-operate, I'm at a loss to see how they're supposed to help him, or indeed how we are.

It's good here.

4 comments:

HelenHaricot said...

Hugs. i think the key words are that it is in his hands. There is nothing you can do to change this. the medical professionals will know he is talking rubbish from the variety of blood tests they do.
there is actually no point in going back into hospital if he doesn't stick to it out, so don't bang your head over a brick wall about it. Maybe you and Jon agree together a plan of how much or little you will try to interfere/help, and what he might need to do if he wants you to help more. then stick to it. SOunds tough, but otherwise it will take more of your time and emotional energy that you would prefer to spend perhaps with your daughter?
ignore me if I'm totally wrong, I'm in a sorting and boxing point of mind at the moment with own problems!!!

Nikki said...

Thanks for your support, Helen. You're right, we do need to put some mental boundaries up as to how far we're prepared to stress ourselves out over this. Easier said than done, but otherwise we're just becoming resentful and annoyed when we do actually want to be supportive :-/

Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

Thinking of you. Elle

Nikki said...

Thank you, Elle, I really appreciate that.