Patience - or the lack of it

I have never been reluctant to share my opinions with people – often positive but sometimes negative ones, ranging from politics, the shape of society, the state of the church, music and the arts. Kind friends and tolerant family have mostly listened to them sympathetically whilst reserving the right to disagree. But I find as I grow older, I am more easily irritated and get even angry about all sorts of things. Very impatient. Small in themselves they become major irritants.

The radio is a constant victim of my ire. For example people who repeatedly say ‘you know what I mean?’ They are there to tell us what they mean on the assumption that we don’t know! Politicians do it a lot and should know better. Similarly I get impatient with interviewers who ask loaded questions in order to get the answers they are looking for, or at some length and in their own words repeat what their interviewees have already said. I have a short list of such people whose coverage of news at the beginning of the day is important, but whose performance in the process can get in the way of their material.

Our electronic age can reduce me if not to actual apoplexy, certainly to speechless rage when that’s exactly what one would like to do – speak to what or whoever it is that one is trying to log onto. But you can’t. Everything is programmed for the convenience of the vendor. You are a creature in someone else’s world, allowed into it only if you understand the intricacies of computerisation, know which hoops to jump through, and never make a mistake (and I make many!) There are few things that divide the generations more than computers, although I admit to having friends of my own generation who seem to have entered that world very much more successfully than I have. (And here I am using it!!)

Two other moans. First, TV providers who keep on telling us how fortunate we are to be caught in their net, and who promise immediate help if something goes wrong. Like now, when our TV set doesn’t function and we have to wait three days before it can be seen to – and that after pressing countless buttons and spending 45 minutes on the phone trying to reach them. Second, people who phone us to ask us to share in a marketing exercise, ‘that will take only a minute’ of our time. Again, a fish caught in someone else’s net – though admittedly able in this case to wriggle free, which I usually do.

Ah well. Back to balance and self-control; or the attempt to achieve both.

B.R.

Caring for the Elderly

The fear that older people have of ending their lives in a Care Home was brought into vivid relief yesterday when a government report on the use of ant-psychotic drugs for the elderly was published. Apparently as many as 144,000 people suffering from dementia are routinely being given such drugs unnecessarily. The Report claims that such excessive use causes an estimated 1,800 deaths each year, can cause strokes and create or add to behavioural problems. ‘The benefits of these drugs are relatively small’, the report says, recommending that the number prescribed should decrease by 2/3rds over the next three years, better training should be given to Care Homes staff, and stricter guidance to doctors.

The Report recognises the realities of the situation. Whilst the Chairman of the National Care Homes Association blames the doctors, there is no doubt that G.P.’s are often under pressure from the Homes to help staff deal with difficult patients, and they themselves may be inadequately trained in comprehensive care. The Chairman of the Royal College of G.P.’s admits to ‘an awful situation’, claiming that doctors’ care is often patchy. The Alzheimer’s Association have responded by saying that the excessive use of drugs is a serious violation of peoples’ rights’.

Welcoming the Report and promising that all its recommendations will be acted on, the government’s care services minister says that the routine use of antipsychotic drugs is unacceptable and refers to the guidance of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that such drugs should only be ever used when they are really necessary.

In the course of my work I have visited many care homes, vastly improved over the years but still widely varying in their administration and practice. I recognise that it is a very difficult job indeed. Better training, closer supervision of the statutory and voluntary homes, and increased financial resources are the obvious consequences of the report.

For many of us, as we live as actively as we can, fears of our last years remain. An old school friend and I were talking about it this week. And yet how well in this country older people are cared for. Yesterday I collected my monthly package of prescriptions. I saw a notice in the chemist which said that the cost is £7.10 for each item. I worked out that I was collecting £50 worth of medical care. Free.

Bryan

November 11th

Today is Armistice Day, so named to commemorate the ending of hostilities prior to a peace settlement, as the 19145-18 War between Germany and Great Britain drew to its end. I grew up during a time when the memory of that appalling conflict and the slaughtering of young lives was still fresh in people’s minds. My father served in the Royal Navy and his ship was torpedoed in the N. Atlantic. Only seventeen years of age, he struggled in the water for five hours before he and others were rescued. Our present family honour the memory of another father, killed in the European war that followed in 1939, as fascism and totalitarianism spread across Western and Eastern Europe.

I have always found the contrast between the waste of life and the pursuit of a noble cause, very difficult to balance. On Remembrance Sunday and again today there has been much talk of ‘the fallen who have given their lives for the sake of the nation’. Were not their lives taken rather than given? The same language is being used to interpret the present loss of life in Afghanistan, though with less justification. I find it difficult to justify foreign intervention in a country such as this, so riven as it is by corruption and inner conflict. In the U.K. there are more and more questions being raised about our involvement there, notably amongst some of the bereaved relatives.

Young men who join the armed forces must have a variety of reasons for doing so, and learning to face the possibility that they may be killed, must be part of their training. One admires their bravery and courage in action. But the annual memory of the ‘war that was to end all wars’ is in danger of becoming an exercise in nostalgia unless we really have learned something about our responsibility to try all means of peace and justice before we begin yet another regime of armed hostility.

I was in town this morning when a cannon was fired to denote the beginning of the traditional two minutes silence. Like some others I stopped and stood, and mourned and prayed. Near to me were a group of four young people, one of them smoking, talking to each other a little, awkward and slightly embarrassed, but joining in the stillness, setting off down the street again as soon as the second cannon fired.

I so long for their generation to be free of the conflicts that have been the curse of the last century

Bryan

UP...and up?

We saw the Pixar animation/Disney film, ‘UP’ last week. It tells the story of a love affair between the cautious Carl and his adventurous tomboy wife Ellie, whose great but unfulfilled ambition was to go to Paradise Falls in South America. Carl makes a living selling toy balloons and Ellie works in the local zoo. They grow old together in the ramshackle house where they first met. They save money for the great trip but keep on having to spend it on other financial responsibilities. Ellie dies and Carl becomes a crusty recluse, as a major house clearance and rebuilding scheme around him, leaves him marooned in his memories and unfulfilled dreams.

Then sparky young Russell arrives on the scene. He is a Wilderness Explorer. His coat is full of badges only one of which - assisting the elderly -remains to be earned. Resisting any suggestion that he needs assistance, Carl tries to get rid of his persistent visitor but eventually the two of them with the help of a great bunch of helium filled balloons, lift the whole house into the sky, and they travel hopefully towards Paradise Falls.

There follows a whole series of adventures – including more than a fair share of the inevitable chase sequences – with some wonderful panoramic scenes of great beauty. Everything comes alright of course in the end, the strange duo becoming closer, joined later by a talking dog and a mute tropical bird whom Russell names Kevin, not realising that she is a she not a he.

The film is proving a major success. It’s a bit too long but immensely imaginative and –especially in the relationship of Ellie and Carl, tender, and in the growing affection of the old man and the young boy, quite affecting. The contrast between an elderly man locked into time and then his discovery of a new world which he had thought was now beyond him, was quite a powerful parable for me. The animation is very clever. Carl really is old, getting out of bed in the morning involves unlocking his body from its sleep, before getting on to his stair lift to live another predictable day of fighting the world and capitulating to his own loneliness. A dream and a seven year old boy, save him!

A film worth seeing – and it got me thinking about where my next ‘up’ might be..

Bryan

What did you look like when you were young?

My eleven year old grandson and I were having a quiet moment together. We’d talked about school, the family, football. He moticed the ‘liver spots’ on the back of my hands and realised that all he knew of me was as an old man, and that that couldn’t be the whole of my story. He had never seen me young! So he asked his question. Imagination was a help –‘so you used to have hair and it was black?’ But only a photograph could provide anything like an adequate answer.

I have been doing a job -a long anticipated but frequently avoided one– of reviewing the contents of our filing cabinet, where a lot of my younger self has resided for too long. It was becoming difficult to pull the folders out and find whatever it was I might be looking for. Yesterday at last I began to do something about it. The masses of now irrelevant papers were discarded one by one. In the process I rediscovered a lot of my life and that of our family.

The folder labelled ‘Health’ contained a massive reminder of various visits to our doctor and local hospital consultants, and the consequent problems – mostly solved or dealt with – that have characterised the ‘older years’ years of my life. I consigned much of it to the rubbish bin, but on one or two matters I lingered and with a little research was able to explain to myself some details that I had never properly understood at the time.

The ‘Family’ folder included birth and marriage certificates and mementoes of one or two treasured occasions, including pictures of the house we bought after my retirement : the first home of our own we had ever lived in. There was also a copy of my CV compiled just before retirement. It’s exhaustive. Did I ever have all those responsibilities and do all those things?! My sister, before she died, did some excellent research on our ancestors and I have a copy of her work. On my mother’s side we come from Sancerre in France in the sixteenth century. There is the story that to escape from the Edict of Nantes which outlawed the Huguenots in 1680, my ancestor Pierre De La Bertouche and his son, also Pierre, sailed on a boat across the channel to safety in England.

The Correspondence folder was smaller than it once was because of the advent of e mail, but there were several moving letters from friends I had forgotten and which I stopped to read, and a few of which I have kept.

…..Now I must look for a photo of my younger self; preferably a flattering one.

Bryan

Another Milestone!

Another sign of ageing this morning, when at the local hospital I got fitted with my new hearing aids.

The family had been pointing out in mostly kind ways that I wasn’t able always to follow conversations as I used to. Asking people to repeat what they have said can be very annoying and having the TV on too loudly is, understandably, very unwelcome. I had got used to looking attentive and reasonably interested when people were talking to me, when in fact sometimes I wasn’t sure what they were saying, and catching their drift was not only not enough, but deceitful and lacking in respect. Mostly, however, I managed and in one-to-one conversations there was usually no problem.

But to admit that here there was a problem felt like yet facing another unwelcome milestone on the road to physical deterioration! I was in part denial.

Eventually I yielded, saw my doctor and was referred to the audiology department of our excellent hospital. I went through a series of tests, which apparently revealed that, whilst I was only a medium case (that was a comfort), I was incapable of hearing higher frequencies. I hoped therefore that I could be released with a caution, but no, I was advised to join the hard of hearing fraternity, which now I have done.

The difference is plain but not sensational. Street sounds were more intrusive than usual. Coming home on the bus I could hear in more detail what people around me were saying. I have been testing TV sound and it is certainly clearer at a lower volume than previously. As I write the key board is clattering away with a quite new sound. When I speak my voice is amplified in a very odd way. The family clock just above me, is louder than before as the pendulum clicks away. Soon no doubt I shall get used to these new experiences.

All of this of course was free, with lots of spare batteries thrown in as well. I thanked the audiologist for her help and the gracious way she had dealt with me, affirming as I have often done the superb National Health Service we enjoy in this country. It is the achievement of the Labour Party which is now holding its annual Conference, and being roundly pilloried by the media which presumes to speak for public opinion.

Some chance for the future if the Labour government is replaced at the next General Election!

Bryan

Arthritis

I mentioned (last November) that most weeks I go to cardiac rehabilitation sessions. At each of the four weekly sessions, there are about twenty or so older men and two or three women who have been through some sort of critical heart trouble. It is a mildly athletic occasion, but also a social one. We talk. Often we talk about our ailments in response to the repeated question, ’how are you?’ Often we tell the story of how we are coping with arthritis.

I have been searching the internet. There are apparently two main forms of the condition, rheumatoid arthritis being the most serious. Described as a chronic, progressive and disabling auto-immune disease (i.e. the body is actually attacking itself) it affects. 0.8% of the U.K. population and although it varies person from person, it can cause severe disability, ultimately affecting one’s ability to carry out everyday tasks. Cartilage and bone around the joints of hands, wrists and feet swell and can be damaged. A systematic disease, it can spread and affect the whole body and internal organs. Apart from the obvious effects of inheritance and environment, the causes of rheumatoid arthritis have still to be understood. It can affect men at about the age of 45; women ten years later.

Osteoarthritis is more often experienced by older people, is the result of ‘wear and tear’, and affects the larger weight bearing joints such as the hips and knees. The cartilage (the waxy, smooth surface that allows joints to move easily and without friction) is damaged. Apparently there are changes in the ligaments and muscles which would normally stabilise the affected joints. Bony growths can develop around the edge of them, causing them to become knobbly. The bones in the joint thicken and get broader and the tissue around it becomes inflamed and swell. It is estimated that are about 8 million of us in the U.K. who suffer from arthritis.

With rheumatoid arthritis the stiffness is worst after rest, such as first thing in the morning, the pain lasting for some time, whereas osteoarthritis responds positively to rest, and pain can be brief and less severe and persistent. Both conditions are progressive, which is the really bad news, but in each case, healthy living, and for osteoarthritis, regular exercise are ways of reducing the discomfort involved. And in both cases, severity varies from person to person and from time to time. As most things do!

Bryan