My husband has a "bad leg" - chronic phlebitis - and because he's let it get stiff it hurts a lot with arthritis. But every step he takes when I am around occasions a moan. Step, anhhhh, step, ohhhh, step, dammitdammitdammit, - you get the idea. When I'm not around, I frequently hear him moving around quietly, but also sometimes hear him get furious and dammitdammit over and over louder and louder. I try to intervene and help but with little success. Am I alone with this particular manifestation?
no phlebitis issues here, Briegull, but I can sympathize with you anyway...so so hard to deal with each & every issue that comes along with this disease. i wonder if he drank tonic water if that would help...it's supposed to help with restless leg syndrome...what about 15-20 compression knee high support hose -- They are the lightest compression support hose for leg issues and would probably help him...I recently got some @ our local Medical Supply store for my Nana who needed them...she is wearing & receiving immediate relief...just a thought if you have not thought of this before. He might not want to wear them, but perhaps he would if he thought they would help him. Esp if he is a "pants" wearing man ~ I hope this helps you...
Oh, when we were dating in 1956 he had a cigarette burn in his pants and I noticed that through the burn hole there was SOMEthing - which turned out to be a compression stocking. He's been wearing them -tight compression- since he was 14 and had an infection that went into one leg, gave him scoliosis bec. that leg didn't grow, and then the chronic phlebitis. Nowadays I have to help him get them on and off, but that's only in the last year. He used to have a lot more flexibility in the leg than he does now; now it's hard for him to get into the car since it almost doesn't bend.
Tonic water wouldn't hurt; I'll try it! It's really the psychological thing. Unlike some of the husbands we find described here, he relishes being tended and cared for - bring on the CNAs! And moans for sympathy as much as pain. But tonic water might be something to break the cycle, even if it's a placebo! Moan, groan!
briegull-how did you happen to visit so many exotic places in your life. You make me envious. Travel was what I hoped for when we retired. Didn't happen
More than anything else I always wanted to travel. So did my mother, but she had TB most of my life and just didn't get to, outside of the US, so I've always travelled with her in mind. I started with the usual Europe trip (in 1956 - and yesterday I visited the Salem museum with the friends I went with then!) and married a professor. I confess that one plus, in my mind, for marrying a professor was that they got sabbaticals, but the only one we ever took was to Pasadena, California!
Then there was a hiatus while we raised kids. When our youngest was graduating from high school she and I planned a trip to Greece on our own, in 1985, then thereafter I tried to travel every couple of years. I worked full time to pay for it (and for kids' college costs), always travelled on the cheap, and my husband never minded. Was very good about it, encouraged me. I left lots of frozen dinners for him, etc. In 1997 I figured out finances and decided that if I quit work when I turned 62 I could travel every year.. and that might last for 3-4 years before I had to tend to him (he'd already retired; I'd anticipated physical problems, not mental ones). I got a good ten year run out of it before I decided in 07 that I really couldn't leave him any more. But maybe someday...
I have independently travelled with friends, and on various Earthwatches - three times to Thailand, twice to an archaeological dig there, twice to one in Mallorca, over much of Europe and to Peru, Africa, Egypt.. never with my husband who hates to travel, often completely alone, which I enjoy the most. And because I love to make web pages, and after I retired was doing a fair amount of it free-lance, I did most of the travel things differently, trying out different ways to put in photos, etc. They are my journals. They're on briegull.com if you want to look.
So, turning 73, I don't have regrets that I didn't do things I always wanted to, though of course it's an addiction and there's always somewhere else to go. I know that if this disease had afflicted him earlier, I would have resented it and raged at it far more than I do today. I'm more into exploring INNER space now, than before.
I've got questions about travelling alone. I've never done that. Years ago I used to go to science fiction conventions by myself. My husband wasn't interested in the science fiction fan experience, so it wasn't something I shared with him. For a few years, three of us went to one special convention together, like a grown up pajama party since the three of us shared a room. All of that was loads of fun.
When you travel really alone, no friend or family member with you, do you try to be part of some kind of group? What kind?
When this is over, if there is any money at all, I'd like to do some travelling, but I know that the kind of thing I did with my husband is NOT the kind of travelling that would work for me. I don't want to be somewhere where all I can do is watch other COUPLES having a good time. That would be dumb. But I think I also don't want to do this stuff totally alone. I would want someone to share the pleasures. It wouldn't have to be a person of the opposite sex. Other women would be just fine. It wouldn't even need to be one specific perrson. A small group would be just fine. But I've done so much of my life alone, not just now but in the past as well, that I know that I need other people.
What I've almost always done is plan a trip to be partly alone, partly with a group. That's why Earthwatches are so great.. you spend a couple of weeks on a dig or on a research project, where you're living with others .. then you go off on your own for a week or so to see the sights. For instance, in 06, I flew to Rome, went immediately to Assisi (St.Clare!) then to Florence and then Venice, all alone, all planned by me, then took a train back to Rome where I spent two weeks working with several other women on early Renaissance herbals - giant books in the National LIbrary, printed but hand-colored. THe idea was to identify all the names in various languages of all the plants in the botanical pictures, and all the things they were supposed to be used for, food or medicinal. It was fascinating! And four of us women took a long weekend in the middle to go down to Sorrento and Pompeii and Capri. It was all great!
On the Amazon one, friends from the zoo and I went on an OAT to Macchu Piccchu but then I spent a week with a private guide in the Peruvian Amazon, bec. the promised extension evaporated. I had a great time. Generally, people travelling alone make friends with others doing the same. You seldom feel lonely. It's a whole fellowship out there of older, budget travellers that you don't realize exists until you join it.
When a friend and I went to France, I continued afterward to Berlin where I was partly alone but also partly joined by a German friend whom I've known for years. When I spent a New Year's in Spain, I was joined by a friend-of-a-friend at a big celebration in Barcelona, before going to an Earthwatch on Mallorca.
I've avoided Elderhostels because the ones I've encountered have seemed to me to be couple-oriented, though there are those who will deny that.
briegull, wow! what an interesting life you have had. I'm at work now so I just skimmed thru your website. When I get home, I'll read all of it. Good for you. What great memories.