DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Bad Manners and Brimstone
HTML https://badmanners.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Life in General
*****************************************************
#Post#: 45753--------------------------------------------------
Re: I think I am just callous
By: LifeOnPluto Date: January 17, 2020, 9:01 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Raintree link=topic=1483.msg45344#msg45344
date=1578824424]
[quote author=LifeOnPluto link=topic=1483.msg45289#msg45289
date=1578714353]
Be careful too, of well-meaning friends who expect you to
"emote" or otherwise be a weeping wreck. Most of my friends were
great, but I had one rather annoying friend who took me out a
few weeks later for a drink. I just wanted to get my life back
into some semblance of normality. But she spent nearly the
entire time gawping at me silently (quite literally staring
intently into my face, waiting expectantly). I think she was
expecting me to break down in tears at the drop of a hat. I
almost think she was disappointed when I seemed my usual self!
[/quote]
Oh no, glad I haven't had to endure that!! I think some people
just want to be some kind of emotional saviour and are
disappointed when things really aren't that deep. I've had
health practitioners give me that look. You go in with a
physical symptom and they are desperate to find some kind of
emotional trauma behind it that they can uncover, and when they
don't find it, seem disappointed that maybe it really is only a
boring old pulled muscle or something.
[/quote]
I think that is very insightful and true!
(And I am very sorry for the loss of your mother, but glad you
don't have to deal with a bunch of phone calls!)
[quote author=Soop link=topic=1483.msg45534#msg45534
date=1579032890]
My FIL died (it was fairly quick, but inevitable due to cancer)
a couple of years ago. My MIL isn't one for weeping. She handled
everything very well and might have looked uncaring to the
outside world. When MIL was sitting with one SIL and the funeral
director, he was going through his sales spiel...you know, for
this $$ you can add on this service and for this $$ add on this
other service. MIL looked at SIL and said "do you want fries
with that?" I laughed so hard when I heard that story.
[/quote]
It's surprising (but sweet) that amusing moments can arise in
times like these. When my dad died, the funeral director asked
my family whether we'd like to keep a lock of his hair. There
was a moment of bemused silence, then we all burst out laughing.
The conversation then went something like:
Me: 'How very Victorian!" (I had recently read the novel
'Possession').
Mum: "Well, he didn't have much hair left!"
Brother: "Yeah, Dad was almost bald."
Funeral Director: "Fair enough. But some people do like to keep
a lock of hair as a keepsake."
Me, Mum and Brother: "Thanks, but we're good!" etc.
#Post#: 46128--------------------------------------------------
Re: I think I am just callous
By: ladylike123 Date: January 24, 2020, 6:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
This is pretty cliche, but there's as saying that "everyone
grieves in their own way" so you shouldn't feel bad for the way
you are feeling or reacting to this.
#Post#: 46324--------------------------------------------------
Re: I think I am just callous
By: Chez Miriam Date: January 29, 2020, 8:37 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Aleko link=topic=1483.msg45206#msg45206
date=1578581955]
[quote]As an adult, I was talked to differently to the child I
was when she died: all the relatives believe she was kept alive
so that the hospital could have the 'glory' of the Telegram from
the Queen that 100-year-olds receive. Now that people live so
much longer, that seems incredible [especially having read about
the "Liverpool Care Pathway" >:(], but I know all the
then-adults believe that was the only reason a sick, senile,
feeble old lady was pumped full of drugs each time she got
pneumonia/whatever, and her heart repeatedly restarted.
Am I just callous that I was [very belatedly] furious my
g-grandmother's life was extended?[/quote]
No indeed: but you just may be being unjust. We have had over
half a century of astonishing medical advances that have
exponentially increased the medical profession's ability to keep
people alive; it is only very recently that the said profession
has started to acknowledge and very cautiously grapple with the
unprecedented situation that the most pressing problem facing it
now is not 'how can we save people's lives?' but 'at what point
should we give up doing that and sit on our hands, if not indeed
take positive action to pull the plug?'. It's a minefield. Not
only does the idea of letting patients die go against centuries
of ethical and legal principles, it also is very often violently
objected to by the patients' families, if not the patients
themselves. You mentioned the Liverpool Pathway. That was an
honest attempt in 2013 to provide a protocol for giving
terminally-ill patients appropriate palliative care only, rather
than trying to prolong their lives by all and every (often
painful and undignified) means or, alternatively, shunting them
into a side ward and forgetting about them. A number of studies
indicated that it was beneficial; but it was sunk by a
combination of failing hospitals not implementing it properly
(e.g. all the stories of suffering patients left to die of
thirst - expressly contrary to LCP protocols, but sadly not rare
in overstretched wards) and hostile journalism.
You don't say how long ago this was, but as we see it is still
very hard in Britain for medical professionals to openly take
the decision 'this patient should be allowed to die'. (And they
all have horror stories of grieving families turning on them
with furious accusations of 'not having done enough'.) So I
think it highly likely that they were simply doing what they
were trained and expected to do. It would truly amaze me if any
hospital doctor or nurse, ever, gave a twopenny d*mn about a
telegram from the Queen.
Edited to add: I can imagine a doctor or nurse saying 'You never
know, she may pull through and get her telegram from the Queen
yet!', or some such, in an ill-judged attempt to cheer up the
family, who promptly latched on to it as meaning that that was
all the hospital cared about. It's also a constant problem for
medical professionals that the families of possibly-dying
patients are understandably in such a stressed and overwrought
state that they very often misunderstand what the professionals
say to them, or simply fail to register it altogether.
[/quote]
Once again, I love the insight I gain from wise members of this
site!
This happened over 45 years ago [could be nearer 50?], and as
you say, times were different. But I was told that the family
repeatedly asked for her to be allowed to 'slip away', and the
Telegram from the Queen was definitely a recurring theme, but it
could have been intended more jokingly than the family received
it [I remember overhearing one uncle's opinion, which was
'salty' and not-suitable for young ears!].
There definitely was not a "surfeit" of older people
"bed-blocking" [I hate that phrase], so it really is a case of
different times, different ways, and I really appreciate being
given a different perspective on it.
Toots: I hope your phone calls have tailed off, and you are now
feeling more relaxed and all hints of (wrongly self-diagnosed)
callousness have vanished from your consciousness.
#Post#: 46385--------------------------------------------------
Re: I think I am just callous
By: jpcher Date: January 29, 2020, 4:16 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Chez Miriam link=topic=1483.msg46324#msg46324
date=1580308651]
Toots: I hope your phone calls have tailed off, and you are now
feeling more relaxed and all hints of (wrongly self-diagnosed)
callousness have vanished from your consciousness.
[/quote]
Thanks, Chez, for this post.
Toots -- I'm with Chez and hope things have calmed down for you.
*****************************************************
DIR Previous Page
DIR Next Page