It smacks you straight into reality some days.
I’m not a little kid anymore. That gets proven every time I see my parents.
They’re now elderly.
This isn’t a blog post to diss my parents. It’s a blog post to discuss the realities of children dealing with their elderly parents. It’s life. The blessing of time.
I don’t know when the reality first hit me that my parents were now elderly. Was it when I chauffeured my mom to her eye doctor appointment after her cataract surgery? Nah. Was it while I was sitting in the heart surgeon’s office discussing bypass surgery for my dad? Not then either.
It was while sitting in the internist’s office, demanding that a month-old infected gash on my dad’s leg be handled now. They had been to doctors upon doctors for a month. I could see Dad was getting sicker and knew there would be no end in site unless something miraculous happened. A friend in a wheelchair was shocked that wound care at the local hospital hadn’t cultured it yet. (He has many dealings with them. Many.) I felt compelled to take the day off work to demand action on my dad’s behalf-including getting him to wound care at the local hospital.
Needless to say, he was hospitalized that day. I even asked the doctor to have wound care culture the gash, which he agreed to.
This was a nasty infection that kept my dad in the hospital 10 days! I know that if I wouldn’t have taken a sick day from work to go with them that he would be dead now. I know it. I feel it.
That was the point when I realized that I have elderly parents-whom society doesn’t take seriously. It’s sad.
It’s sad that we, their children, have to sometimes force society to take notice of them to get necessary steps done. It’s tiring. It’s exhausting.
It can be a privilege though also. My parents are still here. I am needed.
I am blessed.
Frustrated as hell some days, but still blessed.
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