Long time no post. I know. I always know. But whatever. I’ll deal. You’ll deal. We’ll all learn to deal with it somehow. Hopefully.
So I’m writing this from my laptop, sitting at my Grandparent’s house in Coffs Harbour. I keep going to call it Grandma’s house, but it doesn’t feel right. Grandpa moved into a ‘low-but-high-care’ facility last Friday. It’s been a pretty difficult move for everyone, not least him – he’s age 96 and a half. I didn’t even realise he was that old now. I thought he was 95.
I don’t think I really want to get into depth with it, but the his children – my mother, aunt and uncle – are all feeling pretty terrible about it. None of them want to put him in the place, but nor can they or Grandma continue to provide the level of care he needs.
It has been difficult for them trying to get what they feel is adequate care from the old folks place, where the staff seem pretty thin on the ground and early signs were not good. All the staff thought his name was Joe for some reason, despite this being nowhere on his forms or being in any way related to him.
Probably most disturbing for Grandma was when we took her to visit him, only for us not to find him in his room, or indeed anywhere around. He’d gone and gotten lost in another ward, where he’d been sat down so someone could keep an eye on him. Thing is, he needed to lie down and sleep. So he’s there, lost, feeling worse and worse.
Hurm. Things have improved but it’s been a pretty harsh move for the poor guy.
Update: Mum actually took him out for a drive with Nan and Kevin (his son, my uncle) today – and apparently that was quite nice. He’s getting more settled at the home, also good.
How did I end up in Coffs Harbour? I’m here with my mother, just visiting. Mum has retired now and I’m still without work, so it seemed a good thing to do. That and I haven’t been across since… too long. Folks, having all your relatives live on the far side of the country sucks balls. At least, when they’re the decent loving caring relatives that I’ve been lucky enough to have been given.
For the past few days I’ve been helping Kev clean out stuff from below the house. Once I’m back in Perth and have had a chance to sort things out, I’ll upload some of the pictures I’ve been taking.
In other news, I did the silly thing and caved to my desires and bought myself a new computer. Oh, and a new phone plan. Finally I escape the beast that is Tel$tra, but I really should have gotten a job first. ~$2k on the computer and $29 ongoing for the phone, with no job. That was interesting actually. The phone guy ended up fluffing the details on the phone contract a bit, so that I would pass the credit check. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that being unemployed would make it difficult for me to get an ongoing payment… ‘thing’ (agreement?) happening.
Well, I’m done writing and feel like posting. There’s more that I could/should write, but whatever. It’ll come out somewhere.
