I would like to get other grandparent’s thoughts on this; as I mentioned before we have grandchildren here fairly regularly since our son is living with us: all day M-F and a grand child or two spending the night on M, T, W, TH, and sometimes S. Dinners on those days and sometimes other days at well. Yesterday I had asked my son how many for dinner (it being Fri.) and he said only himself. I had a stressful day; doctor’s appointment, Walmart, and by the time I got home my head was hurting (I have persistent post craniotomy pain usually controlled by scheduled medication). I tried eating lunch first and unwinding (which can sometimes work) but the pain just worse. I took my breakthrough meds but that didn’t help by this point It took a second dose to get things down to bearable. I have to say I don’t think it has ever hurt so bad (or at least not in a long time. The pain is in the middle suture of the skull and is sharp-like a screwdriver or icepick wiggling around and sometimes also the whole area of the skull that was removed aches- yesterday it was both. It was so bad at one point I wanted to die. When the girls got home from school it was over except for the “after-pain”. The first thing Sora (8) said was could she stay for dinner? I told her “no” my head had been hurting too much. Then Elsa (5) said “I guess that means I can’t spend the night.” I agreed but both girls were upset as Grandma doesn’t say no to those things and of course my son was angry because they are his kids and he should be able to have them whenever he wants. Unfortunately when someone spends the night they always get to watch a kids movie with us and I get up with them in the morning. My husband and I had really looked forward to an “adult” night and I wasn’t cooking since I had felt so bad. My husband did speak with our son, but of course I am feeling terribly guilty. My thoughts are to sit my son and each of the older girls down (not at the same time) and 1) talk to them about my pain, explain how it feels, let them touch the indentation in my skull (it is about 4″x#” and about 1/4″ deep), and how it usually doesn’t hurt as bad as it did yesterday. When I say my head hurts most people think “headache” and while headaches are bad (I had migraines for 40 years) they are totally different from this; 2) Explain while we love being with them so much we do need some grown-up time as well, just one day a week; and 3) when possible we need to plan ahead, Grandma does much better when she knows what is going to happen. Any thoughts or suggestions on this?
