Didn't get to finish the title....my finger hit the post button my mistake....

I wanted to say...Pain....Pain...Please Go Away!!

I've been in a great deal of pain as well this winter. I hopefully will start biologics soon. So I'm just holding on... our winter has hit hard too.
I'm sorry about your daughter. Younger Children have a hard time dealing with parents being ill....especially when the parents are not that old. This is my experience. I no longer tell my daughters much...just the bare minimum and i only tell her when i am in a very positive frame of mind and with great reassurance. I don't tell them about the pain much. I don't burden my young daughters with my pain. I lean on my husband and some caring friends for that. My daughter's are 28 and 26 . I don't expect them to get it and I've only provoked fear in them when i share too much, so i backed off. Whether this is fair or not, i don't know. I always looked to my parents for security and protection when i was their age... until they got old. I didn't care for my parents when i was young. And my dad dealt with severe arthritis as well. I do not share my RA woes on fb. Ppl do not really know how to react unless they have ra. For me it share too much it seems to build walls.... That why i use this site exclusively. This is in no way to tell you how to deal with your situation. This is how i deal with mine. Is it the right way? Not for all, but for me. I'm sorry for your pain. Have you talked to your doctor? I did talk to mine on Monday. He takes my situation seriously and I'm looking forward to some answers. Plz take care. I'm taking an extra muscle relaxerr tonight...

hi grandpa and sun

i wanted to hug you both and say i get it.

my two are younger than yours (19 and 21) but i understand. it also helps me to read your posts. i feel like:

1. a bank
2. a loan company
3. a revolving door
4. a therapy/advice office
5. a bakery
6. grocer
7. seamstress
8. cobbler

said tongue in cheek because that is what parents do. they blasted in and now they are blasting out, simultaneously.

but Grandpa to not receive calls and hugs at the holiday season when it was not too long ago you were posting your thanksgiving feast pictures....well that must seem hurtful.

why is social media distancing to some? like it feels like it distances me but it brings my kids, together.

grandpa you have been up a lot lately at night with pain. it can't feel right to have the whole world sleeping and you are so bad off you have to be up nursing a coffee cup.

i moan and am awoken from fresh pain but I manage to resettle if I medicate.

let us know how you make out

Ros

Bless you, Grandpa.

I want to say two things......

1 - Don't be so hard on yourself
2 - I know how you feel...really

Last winter was the worst for me for a number of reasons. The cold really affected me - and I mean badly. But now as we are into another winter, I can look back and reflect a bit, and am dealing with it a bit better this year.

Last winter my Methotrexate was dropped from 7 tabs a week to 4 and I hit a brick wall. Most days needing a cane to walk and needed my wife to help me get out of a chair. Plus it was the first winter that I couldn't work, so that was really on my mind also. No income and didn't know what was going to happen - my income was our only household income and that was gone.

So between the RA just raging - I had not started on Humira yet as I was jumping through hoops trying to get it free - and all that was on my mind about not being able to work and no income - it all piled up on me pretty badly. It was a very rough time!

I have a daughter who is 26 who has a 5 year old son. We have never been on the closest terms, but she does come to visit a few times a year. When she saw me last winter for the first time using a cane and struggling to move about, I think it hit her pretty hard in a way. A few months later she told me that she always had the vision of me being so strong and never being sick. I honestly feel that she doesn't know how to deal with me being crippled up - plain and simple. I just refuse to read more into it than that.

You are beating yourself up too much Grandpa! I like to share my favorite motto with you that I try to live by - IT IS WHAT IT IS! If your kids are avoiding you - so be it - let them go. It could very well be a case like mine where they just don't know how to deal with you being crippled up now.

Too much time to think is also a part of it for me. I went from working 70 hours a week and after working steadily for 35 years, all of a sudden here I am sitting at home. I'm getting used to it now after 15 months - but that first year was really hard!

Of course the constant pain doesn't help anything. In a way I am fortunate in that my wife has had a permanently damaged sciatic nerve for over 8 years now - bad enough that she is on morphine which only takes the edge off. I've learned so much from her with dealing with the pain. We help each other now. I also take some pain meds daily, but they don't always help. The best thing then is distraction. My wife loves to crochet or knit, and she says that helps her with distraction even more than the morphine. I am not a crafty person, so I am still struggling to find that simple distraction that works for me. I love to read, but with this @#$% fatigue and fog, I fall asleep before I even finish one chapter. And so it goes.........

Sorry for the rambling - I've been up most of the night also - can you tell?

Grandpa, you're not alone. My husband has 2 daughters who do the exact same thing. Neither called him (us) on either holiday & never do. We essentially feel like an "after-thought" where they are concerned. My husband called them both on both holidays (as always) and is on Facebook everyday and "likes" , good comments, and supports their post. The only time we see them is about once a year I guess they feel guilty and will come for a short visit. We are not invited to their homes because of our 2 pugs (which are well behaved, housebroken) , anyway that's life with them, we can like it or lump it. So we choose to lean on each other (my husband and I) & our church and friends, and realize that both of the girls have their own lives and that nothing is going to change the way things are (we've tried). Wouldn't it be great if we could all be like the "Walton's"!?!

I don't have children, and cannot identify with what you are going through, but just want you all to know that I am sending cyber hugs your way. The non-painful kind of hug!

sorry grandpa, you are in so much pain. i am in a flare too, i came to 10 mg pred but still pain doesnt go. i am thinking to up a little bit more. weather is bad here too. yesterday, i couldnt move. i was so scared if i took a step my knees get frozen and i will just collapse on the floor. then i went in to take a hot long shower and somehow managed to the grocery store. thank god - i did make it. i came home changed the bedsheets, sweep the floor, dishes, and cooking. i dont know how i slept last night. i woke up and i am still in pain. i feel you. pls call your doc.

it is very hard to read all your comments about your grownup kids. mine is just 3. and she loves loves loves me. but i dont know how she will be when she gets big. she is in the only one i have. all your comments made me tearful. i cant imagine my child doing that to me. it will VERY HARD on me. but all these are the lessons that i am learning from you. i will try to be bold and accept "how ever they are"
i cant believe that our own children do this to us............no phone call atleast? after we do so much to them from their birth. it is very hard to believe. but i know this is the truth and we all have to accept it.

ok children,............lead your life with full of happies, but pls do remember your parents.

i never had good relation with my parents. they are nuts. i just hated them since my childhood. and never never think of them too. but i have someone else in my heart in place of my mom and dad. i am sorry to say this, but its true. i hate my parents. i never saw them being good or doing good to others. they broke my marriage (saying my character is bad) which i am trying my best to save it. i hate them so much. but i always did everything to them and never got anything from them EXCEPT PAINS, INSULTS, EMBARRASSMENTS. i never got any LOVE OR AFFECTION FROM THEM. I JUST HATE THEM. i wanna give all that love to my child which i never got from my parents. i love her every second. she is all my happiness. she is my life. i dont know what happens to me if she does that to me when she gets big. i will try to be bold.

and thank you for posting this. vent away. but you are not alone grandpa. i hear these stories a lot. trust me, one day they will definitely come back to you. may be they are guilty and dont know what to do for you. give them some time. hugs to you.

Maybe unconciously you hit the button before you type what you really wanted to tell the pain to do..since cussing isn't allowed :)
Feel better

It's revealing - let's you know that you need to make your own plans for long term care. My husband lost his mom in Nov. His dad has been so grief stricken. We learned 1. the other two kids, no matter how close, are not going to be there to help take care of dad 2. one is very self centered and keeps asking dad about her mom's jewelry (which IS HIS for now and he needs to wait til it feels right to disperse, if at all) 3. Dad needs to decide how he wants his long term care to be handled. He can move 1200 miles and live near us (with us might just kill him and us. LOL - two kids age 10 and 12) in a retirement home (less than 1mile away!) or set up care where he lives. My husband traveled every other week to help him care for mom - and we can't do that again. It was $15000 in airfare/car rental over 5 months.

Anyway, I know I'm the downer, but you can gain good insight from this for your own future. On the flip side, they might need to be told that they were raised better than to neglect their own parents on the holidays.

So much wisdom here, and so much pain, too.

Grandpa, you impress me as the sort who has always been a pretty competent guy. It must scare your daughters to know that you are now having troubles. No phone calls, though? That's inexcusable.

My kids are 22, 19, and 17. The oldest routinely offers to go beat up any doctor who has been less than helpful. That's the kind of help that does make me laugh while I'm having to ask for help opening a jar. None of them really get it though. They're at an age where a degree of self-absorption is normal, and they are testing their wings and planning their escapes from home and family. This isn't a time for them to be looking after me.

Hopefully you are feeling better by now. If not, maybe you will before long.
I read a quote once and it's soooo true. Now understand, I love my kids...but this fits all kids to a tee!

"Having children is like being pecked to death by chickens" haha

Grandpa,

I'm so terribly sorry for your pain issues awakening you and for your children who have been thoughtless and not lived up to your expectations.

Do you have the gumption to place a post on Facebook that your pain sometimes wakes you up at night and that you are concerned for your children since they haven't called during the Holiday season?

Please know you aren't alone Grandpa with the pain problems. My pain wakes me up on most nights. Like Sunvalleygirl, I'm biding my time until my insurance will help with Humira.

I have come to realize that people just don't realize the pain and fatigue caused by our diseases. Very close family members unfortunately fall in this category a lot of the time.

I wish, sir, that I could offer you some comfort as you are such a nice and sensible person.

You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Be well Grandpa,
TheWino

I'm so sorry Grandp2one, It's hard enough to deal with the physical pain without the addition of the emotional pain also. My husband deals with the same pain from his grown children from his first marriage. Even after 33 years of us being together......they harbor resentment toward his second family and have cut him out of their life. He's tried so hard over the years with them that it just breaks my heart to see his pain. They not only don't call or come over but even when he had a massive heart attack and wasn't expected to live..........the oldest still refused to come to see his father. I don't understand them but I do empathize with your pain. I see it daily with my own husband.
The physical pain hopefully will be easier to deal with once you see your doctor and get better pain meds.