Just Humans Being...

  At what point in history did we start putting our elderly relatives into care homes? As I write, I have no way of knowing...no internet to help research and Sime’s still snoozing, well it is only 6:30 and dark - most people are asleep, but I woke with this thought and no doubt I have written something along these lines before. Having cared for both my Grandmother (Nan) and Sime’s Mum (Bebe) and knowing how difficult it was especially with Bebe as her dementia progressed...I was thinking about how families managed before care homes. Certainly in the UK, we have become quite disconnected from our older generation and it seems that their opinions are no longer valued by younger generations. How differently we live today and yet Nan grew up surrounded by family, cousins in the same street or just around the corner. Neighbours were like extended family and everyone helped each other - taking care of the children and keeping an eye on aging grandparents. Lives were entwined. Young ...

It is over 3 years since I came out of hospital & I returned home like a zombie! My body had been living with an over active thyroid for at least 2 years, so it was a shock to be suddenly the opposite... Conventional medication for hyperthyroidism, means bombarding your body with high levels of beta-blockers (to slow the heart rate) & antithyroid drugs - the idea being to speed up the process of slowing the thyroid down (if that makes sense)! Once the thyroid is stable, it is highly recommended that it is either removed or 'killed off' using radioactive iodine. Without the thyroid, you have to then take thyroxine tablets for the rest of your life... I have continued to refuse both of these, as I have always been convinced that I will recover completely & therefore not need to do anything so drastic, I weaned myself off the beta-blockers as soon as I got home & my heart has been absolutely fine. I have also 'messed around' with the antithyroid drug to...

What a relief it was to find Claire the herbalist! She was (& probably still is) very knowledgeable about the thyroid function & was impressed with what I had prescribed myself, she had a lovely calming effect on me & made me feel secure in what I was doing. It was so nice to have someone else to lean on (other than Sime), someone who understood me & shared my views on the way we live. We agreed that if at any point she felt that the herbal treatment ceased working, then I would probably have to consider the conventional route. She also opened up communication with my GP & with my agreement, they shared information on my treatment & results, etc. Great! Claire treated me for 18 months, constantly tweaking the tinctures & although it did work - I just couldn't remain stable. She didn't fail - it was just my body wasn't ready to recover & another thing I didn't see at the time - was that I was under a lot of stress with extended family ...