I OFTEN lay awake at night wondering what we’ve done to deserve the cards that we’ve been dealt.
Awake, with hours to go wondering how our sleep patterns have gone astray, wondering if everything will finally get back to normal and how long it will be.
One becomes aware of others less fortunate, those among us, living their lives in pain and discomfit.
Those far more worse off than us.
I wrote about my experiences with a broken hip, last September and the implications for older people who have had this major surgery and experience the discomfit and the time it takes to heal.
How other on-going problems exacerbate and complicates the new surgery.
But this is not about me or my trials.
It’s what can happen to families quite out of the blue.
There is an old saying that goes “in every life, a little bit of rain must fall”.
We’ve all experienced the ups and downs of modern living, hearing the dreadful things that happen to families, accidents, sickness, those one in a million sad times that are somebody else’s issues.
When it’s your turn for the bad news you sit and wonder “why me, why my family”.
When my wife was told she had cancer and needed to start chemotherapy ‘yesterday’ and undergo an operation the news hit hard for both of us.
Rarely had either of us had a big stay in hospital, in all our nearly 58 years of marriage.
Suddenly Mr and Mrs Independent had to rely on their two adult daughters living in Ipswich for everything, driving us to appointments, shopping, some housework and even garden maintenance.
The world had flipped now it was the kids looking after their parent’s needs.
I guess the kids finally realised that we were starting to get old and it was their turn now as it will be their children’s in years to come.
Now we have a team of specialists around us, nurses, doctors and even a dietitian, they are all working hard to give my wife back a normal life.
This is all a new experience for us, a new way of living.
Here we are, my wife battling and me shuffling along, walker in tow, not being able to drive, relying on other people to do things for us.
For us, our bodies have let us down for the moment and for the kids, it’s a glimpse of the future.
If there is one thing that all this has taught us is that none of us are immune to major setbacks and if dealt the hand, you have to make the most of your situation and be strong.
Find another way to do the things you can’t seem to manage.
There’s always another way, you just need to discover it.
