Tougher Days by Dr. Juan Harrison

Tougher Days
We thought raising a family and surviving those early parenthood duties were just about to sink us at the time but fortunately we survived. We wanted to experience those “aah” days of empty nest and focusing on spoiling the grands. Somewhere along the way life may have intervened and made things ever more stressful and complicated than before.
Houses, cars, and human bodies all began to show their age. It could happen at your house or that of a relative, but you may be called on to endure things and fill roles you could never have imagined. For some of you it might be caring for a spouse or child; for others it could be stepping in to help elderly parents navigate through those tough final years.
A lot of us older guys live with persistent pain, often with the help of pain relievers. Seems like there’s a new pain each day. We fight on and struggle with decisions about surgery as a possible help. For many of our elderly family members facing a choice about surgery verses trying to keep living with the pain, they also have multiple other issues involving sugar, blood pressure, and other health issues that complicate surgery or eliminate it as an alternative.
Like old houses and cars, you can fix one part, only to have to deal with other existing problems. People often must choose between living with a known quantity as they’ve come to live with a nagging pain issue while still maintaining some mobility and freedom issues, or risk surgery with possible complications and side effects making matters only worse.
Anyone who has had to serve as caregiver or help mate to someone going through the surgery and recuperation stage can tell you about how your life is placed on hold or has the challenge become juggling what was a fairly routine regular life of retirement to one centered around the loved one’s recuperation, rehab, and decisions about home care or facility care.
Hard tough decisions have intervened. Before, it was getting the kids or grands to ball practice or PTO. Now your life’s immediate priority becomes how to help the elderly person navigate through the world of approval for surgery, surgery, post op care, rehab, relocation once home, hopefully finding the best combination of home caregivers or good facility care. Laundry, new medical items, visits to the drug store, and consultations with health care givers make for some hectic, stressful times. Old days of ballgames and school activities look good. These newer duties start pulling at your already depleted energy levels. Hopefully you and the patient will both survive.
By Dr. Juan Harrison