Prepared by a Difficult Aunt Blanche

God used Aunt Blanche to prepare me to care for my dad. After all, by taking care of Blanche, I learned to deal with cranky people who revel in cuss words, stubbornness, and nasty attitudes. She taught me to ignore slights and idiocycrincies and to quickly change the subject when tempers threaten to jump overboard. Those lessons are essential with my father.

I must say, Dad, at 81 years old, has had it rough. His complaints about bad docs almost proved sound – once I took him to my family doctor. Bless my doc, he listened to Dad’s list of health issues, took a thyroid test and gave him a prescription. He also sent him to a podiatrist for the sore on the bottom of his foot, which didn’t look good, especially since he’s a diabetic. Sorry, Mis, I know you don’t like references to feet.  🙂  And no one seems to like the idea of taking Dad to a podiatrist for a foot massage.

We spent over an hour at the special shoe store trying to find something with ankle support, arch support, wide toes for his hammer toes, and won’t irritate his sores. Good luck. Dad’s down on orthotists at the moment. Says his wounds are their fault.

After doctoring Dad’s wound, the foot doc said she’d contact a home health agency for wound care. Took us four phone calls and a week later they showed up. Good thing it wasn’t life-threatening. Needless to say, Dad’s down on home health care at the moment. I was hoping it’d work out – for future needs. We’ll see.

Then we went to a rheumatologist for the arthritus and swelling in his hands and feet. Dad didn’t like the doc because he said Dad has osteoarthritus in almost every joint, and nothing can be down about  it except pain control. He also said Dad has osteoporis which Dad said was impossible since he drinks a glass of milk every morning. Why would he need more calcium? They took a blood test to check on gout and Vitamin D etc. Of course, the doc was a foreigner, so that didn’t help Dad’s opinion. PS. I liked the docs.

So you see, learning to deal with difficult people may help as you get older. You never know who might need your help, and it’s better to be prepared. Let go of the irritation, be patient, and learn to love one another – in spite of their weaknesses. And please learn this soon. I might be the next one needing help.