old age,old friends

I have lived with old age for the past ten years.Besides spotting my first grey hair and wrinkles,I have been witness to my parents grow old before my eyes.It is probably the most traumatic process in my life and it drains and saps me mentally and physically.If this is what it does to me I can imagine what it does to them.To be sick is not an easy situation,to be helpless and dependent is worse especially when one has been at the helm of things and run the show,taken decisions,been financially independent and so on.Today in the twilight years the tables are turned and its not easy to accept.
Opinions are divided on this situations.A number of my family probably think I make a big deal of it but to be in the situation is to know,to watch suffering is to feel and the best one can do is to bend over backward to ensure the best medical attention that money can buy.
Today was one such situation and I have to thank my friends from school and college.Over the last few years we have developed a network of old friends,girls we have dredged up from the past,girls who have grown up with me from the age of six and today those girls bailed me out.
Desperate with a father who is ill and not getting better,I had got hold of a doctor who actually makes house calls(a rare occurrence).My husband was instrumental in getting this organised and he supports in small but significant ways which help and support me psychologically.The doc ordered a number of test and the results proved that the father was on a real low keel probably needing hospitalisation.She recommended a geriatric doctor but didn't have his number.Desperate to get medical attention organised,I call the school girl network(why I don't know but I guess they know what i go through,they understand urgency without being told and all of them have old parents or parent and they know mine)She called a cousin who is a medical rep and gave me sketchy directions to the doc.While she did that,yet another schoolfriend located yet another school friend and help was arranged.
We got to the doc,organised the medication,got the phone number of emergency services and came home feeling a lot better.We may not have st oped nature in any way,but in my heart I am glad that I haven't written my dad off as being old enough to die.For me while there is life there is hope and I am convinced that I have to pull out all the stops to get the parents the best I can find.Too many in my family have died because they have been too far away from the nearest hospital.
It 8.30pm of yet another trying day and I will probably get hauled up for bunking work but its probably one thing I will not regret.