Saying a Final Goodbye to Dad

Today, well technically yesterday seeing as though it is past midnight, I said my final goodbye to my dad, it was hard, but at least I know that I have said what I needed to say & that my dad was coherent enough to understand what I was saying & was able to respond, he may not have been able to say much in response, it was his physical actions that made it clear that he understood what I was saying. He put his hand to his heart when I said I loved him & held my hand when I said I was proud of him & there was a tear in his eyes. I still managed to make him laugh too which was my mission to make him laugh at least once every time I had been round.

It may not be the last time I see him alive, but I knew I needed to say something whilst he was still coherent & that he knew how I felt about him. It know leaves me feeling safe in the knowledge that I can now talk about things that may seem inconsequential & still be funny & try & give him as normal a sense of life as possible, knowing that I have said what is important. I also cooked for him too, giving him a new taste sensation of Swedish meatballs with mash potato, I used to enjoy cooking with him as a kid & I'm glad that I got to cook for him one last time.

Today I also had the rather novel experience of eating my dinner whilst sitting on a commode, don't worry I wasn't having a shit at the same time.

STOP PUTTING ELECTION LEAFLETS THROUGH MY DOOR!!!!

I try to keep the amount of rubbish I throw away or put in recycling to a minimum but it appears that political parties the 2 main ones in particular don't realise that constantly bombarding you with more & more fliers is going to start pissing you off. My cardboard & paper recycling bag is full already mainly with party political leaflets & we don't get our recycling taken away until Thursday of next week.

Guess what I have already made up my mind about who I'm voting for & sending me endless campaign leaflets is not going to sway me. I watch the news, I have gone onto which political party suits you best websites & they all come out as saying I should vote for the party I am going to vote for, predominantly because I give a damn about how the country is won. For those that don't shoving endless leaflets through there door will just end up as yet more rubbish. You want to cut carbon emissions & make Britain a greener country start by not cutting down trees for people to then have to recycle. You want to cut spending, stop making so many unwanted & mostly unread leaflets. The only use I have for them is some make good templates for my craft projects & I have also used a couple for kindling as I needed to burn some privet that was chopped down.

When is Helping Out Being too Clucky

I visit my mum & dad once a week, with my dad not being in a good state, unable to string a proper sentence together & finding day to day tasks harder to do so that he has carers around to help him shave, shower & get him changed I do feel protective of him, but I also don't want to appear clucky or for that matter too distant or unhelpful. Finding that delicate balance is difficult. I try to be helpful but not mollycoddle but sometimes I'm wondering if I am not doing enough. I help when he is indicating something by either pointing or putting together as many words as he can, but he can be hard to understand now as he will lose the words he is trying to think of which sometimes aren't clear. The problem is, is distinguishing what is the frustration of not being able to communicate & physically cope with things as well as he used to from the frustration of being fussed over, seeing as though he was very independent.

Through all this though I try to keep the humour up & try to make him laugh at least once when I am there & talk to him as if we're having a normal conversation as I feel that it is important as he loves a good wind up, good jokes & a decent conversation, without talking down to him as he is still the same person. I help out with some housework too, so hopefully it is of use too both of my parents who are struggling at the moment, but there are times which I feel I should be there more, but would that mean I'm becoming a nuisance as other friends & family members come to visit & I don't to crowd him, plus I realise I can't put my life on hold either. i guess I'm just venting trying to find out my place in all this, thanks for listening.

Comfort eating

I will have to admit to comfort eating recently, I'm not sure when I started to associate food with comfort, but I dare say it was a while ago. It didn't help that my family are not exactly small eaters, but having said that my sister is a big eater & yet she is a UK size 10 even after having a child, she does in fairness eat healthier than me as she has a dairy intolerance & has also recently been finding yeast, wheat & sugar an issue. I'm not the most unhealthiest of eaters either, I have very little processed food in my diet, possibly because I can be a bit of a fussy eater as I don't like my food too salty or too bland which most convenience foods fall into. My biggest issues food wise has always been sweets, biscuits cakes etc. I do have a sweet tooth, but have also got a thing for cheese, well some cheeses anyway, the ones that aren't too salty tasting or smell heavily of feet. On the upside I do get cravings for vegetables if my diet has been lacking them & the morning doesn't seem right if it doesn't have not from concentrate fruit juice. I have been finding that anything more than 2 glasses of wine have also been giving me indigestion of late so I'm overhauling my diet & hoping I can stick to it such a stressful time. I have swapped my sweets for fruit I am going to make sure i am properly hydrated by drinking water, as sometimes your body tricks you into thinking it is hungry rather than thirsty.



I did delay my start date twice but now it is here, This morning I had cut down on portion size of my breakfast as I feel that cutting down on it as it was a larger portion than was needed & I did find myself feeling a little sluggish. I am waiting 20 minutes at least after eating before bringing out the sweet (which is now fruit rather than biscuits) from the main meal so I actually feel full having eaten less as I have given my body a chance to digest & realise it has had food. So perhaps it is not so much a diet but a change to the way I'm eating.



So the latest batch of comfort eating has come about from my dad's deteriorating condition from his brain tumour. I thought I was being emotionally quite strong but then I noticed the amount of chocolate I was consuming was going up & not just by a little. I think I was becoming addicted to the warm fuzzy feeling of serotonin as well as the sugar rush. Added to this was an increase of meat, cheese, takeaways and fried food & then I realised something was going wrong. I have started to meditate, do more craft work, I'm visiting my parents more to lend a hand so I am finding more pragmatic & helpful ways of dealing with my situation. As the weather improves I also hope to spend more time on the vegetable plot too.