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Discussion Thread 🎨 Monday 16 June 2025
(aussie.zone)
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this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Ol' girl goes in for her colectomy tm. In for a week +.
Bit worried about the recovery as she weighs bugger all. Definitely not going in in the best of shapes. I've locked horns w/ the ol' boy way too many times but the main thing is food.
Dude can't cook and that will be a problem.
How the fuck you can go through life and best you can do is a crumpet or overdone steak is beyond me. Hasn't even tried once.
I understand that generation is a bit different w/ gender roles etc. but following a recipe isn't exactly hard.
Ffs, drop the 'it's a womans job' shit mentality and learn. Seriously stuck in the 1950's.
Thanks for reading my rant.
Local council might have assistance available - especially if it's only for meals. If money's no object, then hiring someone to come in and cook every couple of days might be a useful way to deal with this.
I went through similar stuff with my parents and I do remember a dr explaining to me that people that age are unlikely to change their ways (probably after I’d expressed frustration about the situation), which was very hard to get my head around.
Could you stock the house up with microwaveable soups and meal packs (there’s a few companies that deliver). Hospitals also have social workers who can help, although if your dad is in the medical field I suspect he’d be resistant to ‘being told what to do’. Mine definitely was.
Could you enlist one of his mates or a rellie to have a quiet word? Or could your mum spend a bit of recovery time in a rehab place, if that’s an option?
I reckon you’re across all these things but just putting them out there. Sending healing thoughts for your mum and hugs for you - it’s such a difficult situation.
10/10 rant except for the part where it is a very real problem 😔 the dickhead husband of my favourite aunt is a bit like this - he can cook some very basic meals and a couple of overspiced dishes. But it doesn't matter how sick his wife is, he cooks when he feels like it (esp if there are guests to show off to), but she is expected to always cook. Really grinds my gears. Your old man might need a bit of a slap in the face about the reality of the situation...
Light and easy are well tolerated by my older clients.
get lots of ready made frozen meals
call Meals on Wheels
then let him fend for himself
of course the worry will be he will expect Ol' Girl to cook once she's back home
Yep.
The problem is she can only eat soup, which he won't eat. Expecting her to cook 2 different things in recovery is just not reasonable. She wants to be seen that she's cooking (as weird as that sounds) but she's increasingly making poor decisions in the kitchen.
The expectation that she cooks for him has been there for decades and it's pretty much dangerous now (hot liquids / poor eyesight / weak etc.).
Made a whole bunch in the last few days so she'll be fine. Just pisses me off there hasn't been an effort by ol' boy.
Is it possible that she could stay with someone during her recovery from major surgery and/or palliative care to protect her from this?
This is really not a safe or reasonable expectation - especially if he’s able bodied and simply considers the job beneath him.
Aren't those meal kit boxes pretty simple? Helofresh
The kit is fine. The problem here is actually turning the kit into food. Hot liquids, stove elements etc. suck a big one when vision/balance/grip strength is impaired. Remembering my mother when she started her final decline - all the elbows of her cardies were burned through where she'd brushed them too close to the stove element ... it amazed us all that she didn't get seriously burned but that was the point where she had to go into residential care to keep her away from the stove.
They're not really that simple, they do the planning and provide the ingredients but there is still a lot of actual cooking and chopping involved. They also don't do single meals, so you either need to work out how to divide it over a couple of nights cooking or have a lot of leftovers.