Fight Dependency

As we get older, we all discover that some parts of our bodies don’t operate quite as well as we expect them to and some unlucky folk seem destined to have to deal with one problem after another all through their lives. However, some of those people who seem to suffer from numerous health complaints often have a resilience that the remainder of us can only envy.

I am aware of two such characters in my life who have exhibited a desire to live that has kept them going for a lot longer than medical science would have estimated. My own father was diagnosed with asthma as a child, which meant that he regularly went through attacks of breathlessness and required inhalers from a young age. When he was 45 he was hospitalised with a very serious asthma attack and shortly after that he suffered a cardiac arrest. We were told that he had no more than a fifty per cent chance of pulling through and we were advised that if he did make it there was a serious chance that he would have experienced some level of brain damage as his brain had gone without oxygen for too long.

However, he did survive and his mind was not affected intelligence wise although his physical reflexes had slowed down noticably. A few years later, whilst hospitalised again after another dangerous asthma attack, he told the doctor about other symptoms and was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Fortunately it was at a very early stage and he went through successful treatment for it.

In later years, his lungs and heart deteriorated to such an extent that he had no option than to be hooked up to a permanent oxygen pipe and became completely housebound. His lungs were so bad that simply relocating from one seat to another would leave him struggling to breathe and quite incapable of doing anything else at all. Even lifting a glass to his lips was impossible. He passed away two years ago, but to reach his seventies despite suffering from so many problems truly was an achievement.

The mother of a very good friend has gone through a similar list of health problems. She contracted polio as a youngster, was confined to an iron lung for years in her childhood and was told she would never walk again. She confounded the doctors by managing to walk and went on to become a singer and after that became a nursery teacher. She married and produced three children although she’d been advised that she was unable to have children, and spent a decade tending to her husband after he broke his spine and developed a dangerous heart complaint.

Sadly, after her husband’s death, she had a very painful fall which destroyed her ankle and this, coupled with the onset of severe arthritis in her arms, legs and hands, meant that she became practically housebound. She started to suffer from a lung complaint and then began to have problems with her eyes. An operation on the left eye did not go well, and although she was recommended Laser eye surgery for the other eye, she didn’t want to get it done after the bad experience she’d had after the conventional eye surgery.

A chest infection a couple of years ago had a serious effect on her already damaged lungs and saw her rushed into hospital just minutes from death, but somehow she managed to hang on in there and slowly recovered. However, she is now in need of a constant oxygen supply and has had no choice other than to move into a residential care home where her mobility issues and breathing difficulties are reviewed on a regular basis.

Since she moved into the home though, she is regularly mixing with other people rather than spending most of her time in solitude at home. She now takes more care with her appearance, and has become a big favourite with the carers because of her feisty outlook on life. Whilst she frequently says that the place is not her ‘home’, it has most certainly given her a renewed enthusiasm for life. A recent trip to the optician again suggested that she have Laser eye treatment on her other eye as she was having problems just looking at the television, and this time she actually thought it a good idea to be referred to an eye specialist for a Laser eye surgery assessment.

She recently attended the local hospital where a really friendly specialist carried out the Laser eye treatment and then she finally realised just how awful her vision had got. Her main complaint now? That when she looks in the mirror, she can now see how old she looks!

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Tags: health, improved vision, laser eye surgery, lifefstyle, medical