dbn

Yeah - I hope not though

April7739

Selfishly, I hope not, but whatever he feels is best for him.

dbn

Bob retweeted this

destroyer of worlds

Love that retweet ... self care is SO important and is often ignored, sadly.

April7739

After my mom has her surgery, I really hope I can convince her to go see a therapist. She’s going through something life-changing, and while I’m glad that she says talking to me helps a lot, I really think she would benefit from talking to a professional about how all of this is affecting her. But I know she’ll think it’s so expensive. Maybe I can pay the patient set-up costs for her.

kiss the wind

I hope she can go see someone! I know some hospitals have support groups that run through them, specifically. Like cancer support or some are grief support or for family members.

destroyer of worlds

That would really help, I think, April. Hope that she does.

dbn

Support groups sounds like a really good idea

April7739

Knowing her, she’ll be like, “No, I can’t go to a hospital support group. The hospital is so far away. I just want to go home after work.” But the therapist I go see is pretty close to her, too, so maybe she’d be willing to take that recommendation.

kiss the wind

I think it would be good for her. Hopefully she will trust your recommendation. Most likely she will be on doctor's orders to take some time off work, after surgery, or at least to cut down on hours, just so she can recover quickly.

Either way, I really wish her the best.

April7739

What’s crazy is that she might possibly have less time off work from this than she did for a surgery she had last year.

I hope that this whole thing finally gets her to start thinking seriously about retirement.

destroyer of worlds

How close is she to retirement, April? Few more years?

April7739

She could probably retire now if money wasn’t an issue.

Today was a rough day for her. I think I was able to help, though. Talked to her for over half an hour.

I briefly mentioned a therapist, but as expected, she responded with a vehement no. She says she already has enough doctors to go to. I won’t push it on her or anything, but I will bring it up again at some point. Probably not until after her surgery, but I do want to just remind her that it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

kiss the wind

Do you mind if I ask what she does for work?

I have to say, the way the social security system is set up to where so many of our parents' generations are worried as we are about how we will retire when the system was designed to partially protect us (although it was never a perfect system) really just shows how messed up our government and economy is.

I hope you're able to take care of yourself through all of this, April, and not overwhelm yourself. It is a scary situation, so just make sure that while you are helping her, you are still helping yourself, too.

destroyer of worlds

Maybe, she’ll respond better later, April. I imagine that everything sounds overwhelming and too much right now, so though you do have to ask now ... hopefully, she’ll be more receptive later when she’s had more time to process it.