Get it out the way ...... best thing to do. If you haven't read last nights blog (Happy Birthday) it isn't going to make sense why I've done this one, but here goes ......
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My dad smoked for at least 30 years before I was born. He'd given up once before but because he put on a bit of weight after he stopped and couldn't shift it, decided smoking was the lesser of 2 evils. Bear in mind this was back in the day, when smoking was overwhelmingly acceptable and the risks weren't necessarily well known. When he found out my Mum was expecting me he gave up. I don't know if it was easy, I don't know how he did it, all I know is for the next 24 years a cigarette never touched his lips.
He first developed a problem when I was about 8. I'm not sure how it came up but I do remember him spending a couple of nights in hospital having tests. He was diagnosed with a shadow on his lung, later identified as Bronchitis. His condition got worse when he started working in a furniture factory. The dust from the saws coupled with the fact that 2 of his passions were woodwork and our aviary of budgies, and the dust inherently generated by those passions, was a major contributing factor. We didn't think any more about it until a few years later when he became poorlier. Mum and Dad didn't tell me at the time but he had been diagnosed with emphacaema and over the next few years it got worse still.
His condition worsened while I was at college and uni. Those last 5 years were the worst. He gradually became so poorly that he couldn't sit up on the sofa or get out into the garden (another passion) any more because of his breathing difficulties. He had twice-weekly visits with the district nurses (who, might I add, were absolutely fabulous and supportive). He was on various pills, inhalers and nebulisers. I'd say he rattled when he walked, if he had had enough lung capacity to walk anywhere. He became so poorly, that he became bed-ridden .He was fitted with a catheter and had to be changed like a baby, because he couldn't even walk to the toilet. He also struggled to eat, as he couldn't take in enough oxygen to chew his food. He was surviving on mashed potato and cauliflower cheese – not the best of diets but it didn't need as much chewing.
He got into such a state that he became incredibly irritable and moody because he couldn't look after himself anymore, he was a very proud man, and took his frustration out on me and Mum – sometimes he would just say that he wished he were dead, and that hurt the most. I understood what he meant though. He had no quality of life and did nothing but lie in bed all day, watching old John Wayne flicks, get routinely medicated, and struggle to draw breath. That was his life for 5 years. On the morning of 28 December 2003 he was admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary because Mum couldn't rouse him from his sleep for his medication. He seemed completely unaware of where he was and what was happening and he never left. He passed away due to emphacaema complicated by a viral lung infection at 12.00pm the following day, 29 December 2003. Mum was there. I wasn't. I was feeding the parking meter. She said it was almost like he was waiting for me to leave the room after he saw me that last time. For a while I blamed myself, as I had a bad cold that Xmas and spent most of it in bed feeling like s****. We'd always been careful about colds and the like because of the effect they would have had on Dad. I knew in my head that it wasn't my fault, but my heart kept with its what-if's.
It was a very long and drawn out death. He started dying five years before his body finally gave out on him, and there was no way to stop it. It sounds mean but I was glad when it ended. Finally my Dad could be at peace and not have to suffer any more. It still hurts today. It's something that has yet to go away. Sometimes it just sneaks up on me and I find myself bursting into tears for no apparent reason, or I'll be somewhere and think 'Dad would've liked this' or 'Dad'll never see this' and I'll be a gonner. I even missed my cousins wedding because I just knew I'd spend the entire trip thinking 'If the chance ever comes up my dad will never see me get married' and bursting into tears at the slightest thing – wasn't going to do that on her special day!!
That is why I hate smoking, not because as a habit it doesn't and never has appealed, but because I've seen and experienced first hand the effect it can have, not only on the individual affected, but also on those around them too.
Sorry if I sound preachy but that is my view, gleaned through frightening experience that I sincerely hope people don't have to witness ...... but I know someone somewhere undoubtedly will and I pity that person ......
So that's my therapy for a while. I hope you understand now why I get down sometimes for no apparent reason -- it isn't always work-related, some of it does run much deeper. You know I'm not generally a big sharer, but I felt, as my very good friends, that you deserved to know a little bit more about where I'm coming from.
H.
xx
Thursday 22 March 2007
Wednesday 21 March 2007
Happy Birthday
At Christmas I mentioned that that time of year has, at the moment anyhow, profound effect on me. Another date that has a similar effect is today – March 21. Today would have been my Dads 79th birthday. For most people today is the first day of Spring (although judging by the weather we've had over the last couple of days you'd be hard-pressed to think so!! Lol!!), nature wakes up from it's 4-month rest, flowers begin to spring forth …… and we all lose an hours sleep (lousy British Summer Time!!! Lol!!)
Anyway, I thought long and hard about whether to write this blog and decided I'd take this opportunity to tell you (if you're at all interested anyway!!!) about my Dad. It'll be all over the place because I'm writing this as I think of it. I'm not sure whether I'll go as far as discussing his final days. I'll see how I feel about that as I come to the end – that might turn out to be a tale for another day. We'll see ……
A bit of history first. My Dad was born on 21 March 1928 in Portsmouth. A few years later he was joined by a brother who unfortunately passed to Cancer in the mid-80's. His dad didn't stick around long by all accounts and he was raised pretty much single-handedly by his Mum (my grandmother obviously) who passed away in the mid-70's, with help from her parents. He did his national service (when we still had National Service) in the 40's over in Germany and always spoke fondly of the time he spent over there. He'd been married twice. The first time to Bet, with whom he had my half sister Linda (who incidentally we don't hear much from but that's for another day!!). After that marriage ended he met my Mum, and a few years later, after a false start, I came along – well, if I hadn't, firstly you lot never would've met/heard of me and secondly it'd be a bloody miracle that a non-entity could use a laptop!!!
I remember vividly the 3 jobs he either had or spoke fondly of. When he lived in Portsmouth he worked for Smiths crisps as, I think, foreman, where he met and made many dear friends who we sent Christmas cards to every year, and unfortunately most of whom have now left us, when my parents moved to Surrey he then worked as a warehouseman-foreman-y type for Cory Distribution eventually being made redundant and then moving on to work at a company called Le Maitre, which specialised in building furniture. He was a big home improvement buff and LOVED woodwork – strangely though he hated decorating. I think he liked the actual hard graft of building something rather than the 'prettying up'. I remember he used to spend hours in the garage working with wood and building things. I had a cabin bed when I was little – y'know the ones I mean – not exactly a bunk-bed, but it had a little desk at the head end and a wardrobe at the other, and because my room already had a built in wardrobe, he converted the wardrobe in the bed into a dolls house, putting in floors and 'papering the walls' and made furniture for my dolls to use – little dining sets and beds and stuff!! Lol!! I think he would've loved to have made a career of making quality, bespoke furniture. We also all became dab hands at building flatpack furniture and me and my Mum can now knock together a wardrobe in half an hour or so!!! Hey. That's a big achievement – we get it all round the right way and everything!!! ;)
As you've probably gathered, I had a fantastic childhood with my Dad. Mum always said how he doted on me, even going so far as to have to wake me up when I was fast asleep as a baby just to make sure that I was still alive!!! Don't get me wrong, I wasn't spoilt. He always knew when to say no and had no hesitation in doing so, but regardless of that he would never see me wont for anything. I was a Daddy's girl and no mistake. We had some fantastic times and even though now I struggle to remember the specifics, I still remember the feeling of walking round some stately home holding his hand while he gave me a history lesson, or sitting next to him and having a cuddle while he told me the ol' "When I was young …" stories that all parents do. I also remember, and still have somewhere, the tapes of Fairy Tales he made for me when I was younger for when he couldn't read to me.
He's the one who got me interested in reading, architecture, nature and all manner of other subjects (except history which never really held much sway for me), hence why some of you will have noted my insistence on taking pictures of a library and a war memorial in Manchester?? Well that was my Dad's fault!!! ;) Which is another thing, because he remembered it, he got me to appreciate the sacrifices that all those men who went to war in our defence made for us to have what we have now – or at least what we had before the government got involved!! Lol!!! ;). In politics, he figured the fight was between Blue and Red, because anything else was a wasted vote, and red was NEVER going to get his vote. Dad didn't like Labour. Lol!!
Family outings and holidays meant visiting somewhere else in the UK, going out and spending time together and maybe learning something at the same time – museums, country parks, stately homes (his favourite place ever was Hampton Court and we went there several times – it was the ceilings and the deer that did it!!! ;)) – and spending your money on something that'd last rather than a pencil or a rubber. And every couple of years that's what we did. The last family holiday we had was to Wales in 1995. It wasn't the same. Dad's illness was kicking in so me and Mum would do the togetherness thing while Dad stayed in the car with the dog and missed out because it had become harder for him to walk the long distances round these interesting places, so he played Chauffeur to Mum's Navigator and waited outside. We never had another family holiday after that one. We didn't even visit family in the South of England much anymore, (a) because we were now so far away from them all, and (b) because Dad just couldn't do it anymore.
He was formally diagnosed as terminally ill in 1998. He had emphysema which had developed through years of smoking (which he gave up when Mum was expecting me) and which was complicated by having worked in a dusty environment at Le Maitre. Mum gave up work to look after him and he spent the next 5 years gradually getting worse.
I don't think I'm ready to put the rest of this down at the moment. They say leave your audience wanting more. I know you won't necessarily WANT more, but I'll post something another day and give you the choice of whether you want to read it. It won't be nice and it certainly WON'T be pleasant, but at some point it'll be there if you want to see it. In the meantime, I want to add one more thing. One of my biggest regrets is not spending enough time with my Dad at the end. The reasons for my NOT spending time with him will become apparent in the next blog, but please promise me one thing. Make the most of the time you have with your folks. They're a fount of knowledge and experience and believe me, you will SO miss it when it isn't there anymore.
H.xx
Anyway, I thought long and hard about whether to write this blog and decided I'd take this opportunity to tell you (if you're at all interested anyway!!!) about my Dad. It'll be all over the place because I'm writing this as I think of it. I'm not sure whether I'll go as far as discussing his final days. I'll see how I feel about that as I come to the end – that might turn out to be a tale for another day. We'll see ……
A bit of history first. My Dad was born on 21 March 1928 in Portsmouth. A few years later he was joined by a brother who unfortunately passed to Cancer in the mid-80's. His dad didn't stick around long by all accounts and he was raised pretty much single-handedly by his Mum (my grandmother obviously) who passed away in the mid-70's, with help from her parents. He did his national service (when we still had National Service) in the 40's over in Germany and always spoke fondly of the time he spent over there. He'd been married twice. The first time to Bet, with whom he had my half sister Linda (who incidentally we don't hear much from but that's for another day!!). After that marriage ended he met my Mum, and a few years later, after a false start, I came along – well, if I hadn't, firstly you lot never would've met/heard of me and secondly it'd be a bloody miracle that a non-entity could use a laptop!!!
I remember vividly the 3 jobs he either had or spoke fondly of. When he lived in Portsmouth he worked for Smiths crisps as, I think, foreman, where he met and made many dear friends who we sent Christmas cards to every year, and unfortunately most of whom have now left us, when my parents moved to Surrey he then worked as a warehouseman-foreman-y type for Cory Distribution eventually being made redundant and then moving on to work at a company called Le Maitre, which specialised in building furniture. He was a big home improvement buff and LOVED woodwork – strangely though he hated decorating. I think he liked the actual hard graft of building something rather than the 'prettying up'. I remember he used to spend hours in the garage working with wood and building things. I had a cabin bed when I was little – y'know the ones I mean – not exactly a bunk-bed, but it had a little desk at the head end and a wardrobe at the other, and because my room already had a built in wardrobe, he converted the wardrobe in the bed into a dolls house, putting in floors and 'papering the walls' and made furniture for my dolls to use – little dining sets and beds and stuff!! Lol!! I think he would've loved to have made a career of making quality, bespoke furniture. We also all became dab hands at building flatpack furniture and me and my Mum can now knock together a wardrobe in half an hour or so!!! Hey. That's a big achievement – we get it all round the right way and everything!!! ;)
As you've probably gathered, I had a fantastic childhood with my Dad. Mum always said how he doted on me, even going so far as to have to wake me up when I was fast asleep as a baby just to make sure that I was still alive!!! Don't get me wrong, I wasn't spoilt. He always knew when to say no and had no hesitation in doing so, but regardless of that he would never see me wont for anything. I was a Daddy's girl and no mistake. We had some fantastic times and even though now I struggle to remember the specifics, I still remember the feeling of walking round some stately home holding his hand while he gave me a history lesson, or sitting next to him and having a cuddle while he told me the ol' "When I was young …" stories that all parents do. I also remember, and still have somewhere, the tapes of Fairy Tales he made for me when I was younger for when he couldn't read to me.
He's the one who got me interested in reading, architecture, nature and all manner of other subjects (except history which never really held much sway for me), hence why some of you will have noted my insistence on taking pictures of a library and a war memorial in Manchester?? Well that was my Dad's fault!!! ;) Which is another thing, because he remembered it, he got me to appreciate the sacrifices that all those men who went to war in our defence made for us to have what we have now – or at least what we had before the government got involved!! Lol!!! ;). In politics, he figured the fight was between Blue and Red, because anything else was a wasted vote, and red was NEVER going to get his vote. Dad didn't like Labour. Lol!!
Family outings and holidays meant visiting somewhere else in the UK, going out and spending time together and maybe learning something at the same time – museums, country parks, stately homes (his favourite place ever was Hampton Court and we went there several times – it was the ceilings and the deer that did it!!! ;)) – and spending your money on something that'd last rather than a pencil or a rubber. And every couple of years that's what we did. The last family holiday we had was to Wales in 1995. It wasn't the same. Dad's illness was kicking in so me and Mum would do the togetherness thing while Dad stayed in the car with the dog and missed out because it had become harder for him to walk the long distances round these interesting places, so he played Chauffeur to Mum's Navigator and waited outside. We never had another family holiday after that one. We didn't even visit family in the South of England much anymore, (a) because we were now so far away from them all, and (b) because Dad just couldn't do it anymore.
He was formally diagnosed as terminally ill in 1998. He had emphysema which had developed through years of smoking (which he gave up when Mum was expecting me) and which was complicated by having worked in a dusty environment at Le Maitre. Mum gave up work to look after him and he spent the next 5 years gradually getting worse.
I don't think I'm ready to put the rest of this down at the moment. They say leave your audience wanting more. I know you won't necessarily WANT more, but I'll post something another day and give you the choice of whether you want to read it. It won't be nice and it certainly WON'T be pleasant, but at some point it'll be there if you want to see it. In the meantime, I want to add one more thing. One of my biggest regrets is not spending enough time with my Dad at the end. The reasons for my NOT spending time with him will become apparent in the next blog, but please promise me one thing. Make the most of the time you have with your folks. They're a fount of knowledge and experience and believe me, you will SO miss it when it isn't there anymore.
H.xx
Monday 5 March 2007
ANOTHER Boycie Update!!!
LITTLE MAN'S BEEN GIVEN THE ALL CLEAR!!!!!!! YAY!!!! Sorry for shouting but it's fab news which as you can see also warranted colour!!!
We took him to the doggie doctor for another check up this evening and the antibiotics have done the trick. He's a proper HEALTHY Bubba boy now!!! When we first took him he was coughing nearly all the time and wasn't the happy bunny he is now. The vet couldn't even make him wheeze tonight.
He's got another week of antibiotics just to make sure there's nothing left in there and then a fortnight after the last course finishes he gets his first jab and we'll get him chipped at the same time. FINALLY!!! And then in about 5 weeks when we've come back off our hols and he's had the second part of the jab, we can then take him off to puppy school to tame him -- believe me he needs it -- he's a Little Monkey Man!!! Lol!!
So Bubba's fixed!!! More yay-ness!!!!
We took him to the doggie doctor for another check up this evening and the antibiotics have done the trick. He's a proper HEALTHY Bubba boy now!!! When we first took him he was coughing nearly all the time and wasn't the happy bunny he is now. The vet couldn't even make him wheeze tonight.
He's got another week of antibiotics just to make sure there's nothing left in there and then a fortnight after the last course finishes he gets his first jab and we'll get him chipped at the same time. FINALLY!!! And then in about 5 weeks when we've come back off our hols and he's had the second part of the jab, we can then take him off to puppy school to tame him -- believe me he needs it -- he's a Little Monkey Man!!! Lol!!
So Bubba's fixed!!! More yay-ness!!!!
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