Life's Unfair

Before I go any further I want all of you to promise that you'll drink moderate amounts of wine, learn languages and solve crosswords. You see, those are good methods of protecting yourselves against Alzheimer's disease. But let's start at the beginning.

I talked to my mother on the phone the other day and I've never heard her being so tired. My grandmother has the Alzheimer's, and about a week ago she fell and broke her arm. My grandpa took her to a hospital where she was operated and the plan was to transfer her to a nursing home until she was well enough to return to home; she is practically totally helpless without the use of her other arm. Of course, someone blundered and the hospital wrapped her in a neat brown package and shipped her home. It's hard enough for my grandpa to take care of her as it is, she does not always recognize her home and can go into outright panic in an "unfamiliar" environment, or she accuses grandpa of selling their home and moving them to another part of the town without asking her and can go into a violent fit of rage about it, at the mildest she just tells the same story over and over and over again.

So on top of that she has no idea why her arm is "heavy and painful," as she does not remember falling, and talks about getting an axe and chopping the damn thing off and how she'd be better off dead. After almost 60 years of marriage it must not be easy to watch your spouse turn into an entirely unfamiliar person. I can only speak from the point of view of a grandchild, and as it is not easy for me, I can only imagine what my grandpa is going through.

My grandpa is the traditional Finnish man who endures everything and does not complain no matter what, so my mother has had to organize everything by phone from 500 km away. She managed to get the hospital to send a nurse to check that everything was all right and to bathe grandma, and using either Jedi mind tricks or common blackmail got grandma a place in a nursing home for two weeks.

*sigh*

I feel so goddamn helpless but what can I do except to show support to my mother?

Enough with the brooding. There are good things in life as well. It just seems a bit unfair that when you are supposed to prepare for a grand exit from this world, something like this happens. So please, study languages, drink wine and remember that crosswords are your friends.

Thank you for listening (all right, reading), I feel better now that that's off my chest.

I think a walk outside might chase the remaining broodings away. I bought the mp3-player I talked about earlier, and yesterday I had to take an hour-long walk 2 times just so I could play with my new toy.

Today's link: movie reviews by a religious extremist. Check out what he has to say about South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. I can't believe that someone is willing to spend time watching every movie possible and counting how many cuss words, nude scenes and acts of violence there are. And categorize them. When I find out what, exactly, sumo nudity is, I promise to tell you.

Today's top tracks:
Finally got my paws on 5/4, Kokain and Das Modell by Rammstein.
Augenblick by Megaherz.
Käärmeen pää, Selkä taittuu and Kuningas mammona by Kotiteollisuus so that I'd get psyched up to finally finish couple of reports I've been putting off for too long.