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I feel like crying!

Everyday living
#1

This is very trivial in the great scheme of things. I retired nine years ago. I’ve some contact with former colleagues, some retired, some still working. This week I got an invitation to the retirement party of someone I trained thirty years ago. I checked with the venue, the function room is upstairs in a listed building so they’re not allowed to install a lift, so I can’t go.

i don’t take it personally, it’s just one of a number of places closed to me and my wheelchair, but it’s upset me more than I would have imagined. She’s said we can do lunch together sometime, but it’s not the same is it?

#2

I know I’m not you, but personally, I’d prefer the one-to-one lunch to the party, and grab it with both hands - so much more intimate. You’d have proper, quality time with your former colleague, and not be just one face amongst many, at an event where she probably won’t remember, in years to come, exactly who went and who didn’t!

If you really love parties - which I admit I never have - it’s hard, but try to turn it into a positive. Don’t let it slip about the lunch - remind her, at an appropriate time, that you were serious about going, and you’d really love to do it.

Tina

x

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#3

Thank you. Actually I don’t love parties, and to be honest when I first got the invitation my instinct was to decline! Partly because in the wheelchair in a crowd I can’t circulate and end up stuck in a corner waiting for someone to take pity on me and come and talk to me, then I get a crick in my neck from looking up, because people tend to remain standing rather than sitting down! That’s why I don’t know why I’m so flaming upset! Maybe because I’ve been robbed of choice.

Somehow I doubt the lunch will happen. We’ve only met up once in the last nine years!

Ah well, that’s life. I’ll get over it! xx

#4

Hmmm. I was aware the lunch might fall by the wayside. That’s why I think the impetus has to come from you (if you really want to meet her, that is). Make clear you weren’t just making idle chit-chat, and it’s a thing you’d be interested in.

Although she’s not in a wheelchair, she might find social events taper off, once she’s no longer at work. In my experience, memories are fairly short once the shared bond of work is broken. I still get the odd Christmas card, but that’s it. So she may appreciate the one or two people who still make the effort!

I think I’d be flattered if someone got in touch to say: “Let’s not forget about that lunch - it would be really great to see you!” I can’t think of any reason I’d say no.

Tina

x

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#5

Do you think you feel sad because it is emphasising the things that you have lost because of MS, rather than from missing the party? If so, you might find that understanding this makes it a bit easier. Or maybe you will still feel bad. For me, I have done quite a bit of mourning over things I have lost to MS. But I am generally a cheerful person, I think because I understand, mourn and then move on. Does this make sense? Please ignore if you feel it’s not applicable to you.

#6

at new year i won tickets for the hogmanay show at the bbc in Glasgow, when i got them it said standing room only .

Yes it hits at nerve because i had to say no. I had to change churches because of building restrictions, needless to say new priest said just come here, but feel that is maybe why you felt sad yes at heart you don’t like parties, but it would have been nice to be able to not have the restrictions a pit pedantic , i sometimes use my MS to get out of awkward situations so guess we cannot have it both ways

trish

#7

I hate it when things like this come out of the blue to mug me. You never see them coming, do you?

Ah well. Par for the course, I’m afraid. I do feel for you, though. It never stops hurting, does it?

A

x

#8

thing like that make us relaise,thing are diffrent for us,life has challanges we cant overcome,and if ur at a low ebb,it hits u hard,but think of all things u can do and places we ca go,world will never be perfect for us,but we can participate in most tings

#9

Thank you all for your kind words.

The proposed lunch isn’t just the two of us, if it comes off, which I doubt, there will be five of us. The other four meet regularly for lunch already, and I haven’t been included before, I don’t take it personally, they all have work in common and I’m way out of touch with that.

IF it comes off I will probably cut off my nose to spite my face and refuse!

They wouldn’t be inviting me because of my scintillating company, but out of charity or sympathy, which is no bad thing, but I neither want nor need it.

xx

#10

Hi Flowerpot

Sorry to hear about this, there are so many buildings that don’t have disabled access, even on MS outings places that are supposed to be disabled friendly turn out to have an upstairs that some of us can’t get to.

I agree with Sewingchick, it could be that you are mourning for your old life, it’s ok to mourn, I try to stay cheerful but have a cry now and again.

Take care, Wendy x

#11

hi flowerpot

i am sorry to hear this- even if you didn’t want to go to the party, it is a reminder of the old life that you had, and that can be hard to bear. i must admit that sometimes i use my condition to provide a good excuse as to why i can’t go to certain things but that is my choice- it doesn’t mean that when the choice is taken from me that i could accept it happily, and the same applies to you.

i agree with the posters above in that you should go to the lunch- it may be exactly the tonic you need. failing that, why not invite your friend (and any others you’d like) over to yours? that way you get to see your friends in the comfort of your own pad… just a thought.

irrespective of this, take care and don’t give yourself a hard time- life has dealt you a hard enough blow to deal with so don’t go adding to it!

with (nice) hugs and best wishes, fluffyollie x

#12

You know what, all of this has paled into insignificance. Retirement party/lunch who cares?

Now I really do have something to cry for!

This evening my husband has been carted off to hospital with chest pains. He’s had to go alone, I couldn’t go with him, because the ambulance crew couldn’t deal with me and my wheelchair, and I’d have no way of getting home. We have no family and most of the people we thought of as friends ran for the hills soon after my diagnosis with MS

Fortunately so far his pulse, blood pressure, colour ECG are all fine and the pain had gone before he left in the ambulance, but he’s there for blood tests and possibly overnight for observations. He had a heart attack several years ago, and back then his pulse, blood pressure, colour and ECG were far from ok.

He’s just rung me and announced he feels a fraud now, and that he’s just waiting to see the doctor.

My lovely elderly neighbour saw the ambulance and has offered to do what she can. I may have to enlist her to take his pjs and toiletries to the hospital for me.

I so hope he’s coming home tonight.

#13

Fingers crossed your hubby’s ok. What a horrible thing for both you and him. Thinking of you, let us know what happens

((hugs))

Cherry x

#14

I do hope your husband is ok too xxx

#15

god- what crap luck you’ve had recently.

i am hoping your hubby continues to feel better- he shouldn’t feel like a fraud as im sure that they’d rather have someone improve than decline in health, whatever the reason. like you he shouldn’t beat himself up for things outside of his control.

the friends who ran from you are not worth the typing time… the elderly neighbour sounds amazing and god bless her (i’m agnostic, but you know what i mean).

hope that all improves for you both. sounds like you should invite your neighbour over and ditch the others… sorry if that sounds harsh, but 'stuff ‘em’

all my best wishes, fluffyollie

#16

Thank you for caring Cherry, Corkie and Fluffyollie (great name that one!)

Crisis over, he’s on his way home in a taxi. False alarm with good intent!

xx xx xx

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#17

Just reading this flowerpot.

Really glad your husband is ok. What a scare for you both.

Take care xx

#18

thanks flowerpot

fluffy- longest surviving pets name, as she was a fluffycat (she adopted us- the name was a fit description)

ollie- youngest son’s name, who unlike my other children has a fluffy quality to his hair.

glad you like it, but more importantly glad he’s on his way home where he belongs xx

#19

Hi Flowerpot,

So pleased your hubby’s ok. Rest up the pair of you, it must have been a shock for you both. Take care.

Cherry x

#20

Hello again to those of you who were so kind.

Lunch is not going to happen. I heard from M who asked if I was free for lunch on a date in May, her and J. The two of them regularly do lunch together, I see it often on facebook. The only thing I have in common with them is work and the fact that I trained them both when they were new to the job. I’m actually not free on the date they suggested, but couldn’t help but think that if they really wanted to have lunch with them they could have asked me along any time.

I suspect we’d have little to talk about, and I’d be stuck there like a lemon listening to them talking about things and people I know nothing about.

Anyway I replied, told them I wasn’t available and added that they don’t have to do this, though it was nice of them to offer, and going places with me isn’t always easy. The response?

They’re not going to bother.

I’m not surprised or disappointed. They can go in the same compartment as those so called friends who abandoned me soon after my diagnosis.