site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3084 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 24, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How old do you think were when the transition from your parents worrying about your health to you worrying about their health happened?

I'd say late 20s for me, not very long back really. They're in their 60s now. I suppose it's confounded by the fact we're all doctors, and I have a (small) degree of confidence that they can look after themselves and vice versa. Still have to yell at my dad to get his heart checked, and my mom to up her semaglutide dose, but they need to check in on me too so it all cancels out.

At the age of 49 I received a call from home. It was morning --a Saturday in Japan, so evening in my home state. It was my mom. My dad had begun having petit mal seizures several years before. We didn't know why, or at least the doctors didn't explore why or venture a guess why, though maybe they did in adjusting his medication for what I believe was diabetes, but they ended up giving him carbamazepine as treatment, which he would eventually refer to as his crazy pills: "Your mother is always reminding me to take my crazy pills." My father was over a decade older than my elderly mother at this point, so I tended to have my radar tuned to his zigs and zags. But I never really worried much about his health beyond that. He was robust, actively volunteering to deliver food to "the old folks" when he himself was 80, went to church, took daily walks, all the benign yet pro social activities that suburban old white men do. COVID would change all that but that's an entirely different story. This story is about the phone call from my mom where she told me, in what seemed an almost embarrassed voice (she always tended to laugh a lot, and there was some ghost of a laugh here as well) that she was entering hospice, and that she loved me, and that I shouldn't worry about her.

This was typical of my uncommunicative family, but x 10. Usually in the weeks and months before someone enters hospice care you have visited them bedside in a hospital, or sent them get well letters, or heard about their disease from friends and felt like you really should take them some flowers. But no. My mom had gone to a doctor for back pain I suppose a few weeks earlier and been diagnosed with Stage IV multiple myeloma. They'd given her less than a year, though soon she would find researchers coming out of the woodwork to suggest possible new treatments. She refused them. God would take care of her. Which of course eventually he did, though not as she had perhaps hoped and expected.

And so it was that I flew home and left my work situation dangling, and sat by her bedside in a large room richly panelled in dark wood with a view into a patio dappled in sunlight and small birds. She sometimes just kept the TV on. She wore a wig or headscarf. I had seen her not more than two years earlier planting flowers with my very young (at the time) second son. The whole situation seemed unreal. Bone cancer (yes not solid tumor, but still cancer.) She had never smoked, and probably had no more than five sips of alcohol her entire life. And here she lay, a shell of her former happy self, the same kind of resigned Patience in the face of impossible hardship that I had seen in her sisters, my aunts, when horrible family situations had been discussed in the past. No outright tears, no wailing against unfairness, no anger. Just an acceptance of what, in some form or another, awaits us all I suppose (perhaps not you, @selfie.)

I could stay a week. My mom had stopped eating or drinking, so the hospice nurses were not optimistic about how long she would hold on. The hospice chaplain I knew from childhood --she had been in my Sunday school class and was a year older than I was, but quite beautiful. Blonde, blue eyed, trim, with a calm demeanor; you felt you could lie with your head in her lap and listen to her speaking and never need anyone or anything else. She asked me how I was doing. "Fine. How are you doing?" I asked. She laughed and told me I was terrible. Michelle. That was her name.

The two days before I was to return to Japan someone had brought pork chops to the hospice kitchen. This was a place full of donated food--cookies, key lime pies, doughnuts, fried chicken, cornbread, sometimes fruits, all sorts of soft drinks and coffees and teas. But it took the pork chops and gravy to rouse my mother from what was supposed to be her death bed, her following hand over hand the hallway railing. And she ate.

I came back here. She would last another ten months--my mother was the only person I know whom hospice kicked out. She returned home. From my father's account it wasn't pretty. And in the end, as one does, she succumbed. My father told me he was praying for God to take her at the end. He talked about the death rattle, told me it's not something he ever wanted me to hear, and certainly was happy I hadn't heard it from my mother. Seven years later I'd hear it from him, but that, again, is another story.

Anyway I was 49.

For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. I'd say that words are worth very little, but that would be a cynical lie. I know I've been in bad places and kind words even from a stranger helped.

My grandpa isn't all there anymore. At 96 and change, the actuarial tables aren't looking good. But he's at home, and goddammit, he might have spent his life at hospital but if he goes, he'll go at home. Or stay home, surrounded by people who love him. That would include me, if work lets me fly away. This is a grim hypothetical I'm forcing myself to confront instead of unaddressed, and I'm worried about my parents because I'll be damned if they don't another 20 years of reasonably healthy life. Might as well hand in my badge and walk away if I can't do that.

Hoping you're okay now, and the grief has been dulled by the passage of the time. Too much to expect it to just go, it won't.

All is well, thank you. At this point I'm projecting forward to what my own sons will deal with. At some point thunderstorm golfing seems viable. Nothing like a lightning strike to end it quickly, and with a bit of oomph, all while sparing one's family from witnessing the slow decline. Just a joke. We, none of us know when the bell will toll.

I was only around 9 when I tried really hard (but failed) to get my mom to quit smoking. In later years she tried a couple times to quit unprompted, but only managed to cut her habit in half. I was around 36 when the lung tumors got her, while her last grandchild was still a baby too young to talk.

Ironically she managed to quit cold turkey as soon as she saw the blotches on a lung x-ray, though at that point the cancer had metastasized and she only had months left. I think if she'd known she really was capable of quitting she'd have managed to do it decades earlier.

My dad I never worried about until he had some major health scares starting that same year; he hardly touched anything more vegetable-like than iceberg lettuce or corn, but even after he'd retired he generally exercised (doing volunteer work) well enough to counterbalance his diet, and the cancer that got him was probably mostly bad genes on that side of the family.

Fuckin cancer, man. You stay well.

Thanks. I got my first tumor cut out a couple years ago, but it was only a basal cell carcinoma, which is like the yapping baby chihuahua of cancers. Fortunately, too; if I'd ignored anything actually dangerous for so long ("boy it's weird that this scar is still sensitive to any little scrape", I thought to myself intermittently for a year, as I literally put band-aids on my damned cancer) I'd be dead.

I'm not old yet but I've already had a life to be immensely grateful for. What's killing me (albeit only metaphorically so far) is that, as the name would suggest, bad genes are genetic. Not only did I get my dad's allele, so did at least one of my kids. Of all cancer's victims in my extended family so far, though, only one died really early, IIRC in her 40s; everybody else either died around 70, or got cancer in their 60s but managed to beat it for now. Even my dad almost managed to beat his; it looked cured and it didn't recur for a year. Hopefully we'll have made even more oncology progress by the time my kids need it.

Somewhere in my early 30s I guess. I was 32 when I got married, and around that time my mom started to have health issues. Notably, one time when she was visiting she was super short on breath and wound up having to go to the hospital because she couldn't breathe. I chalked it up to altitude sickness or something, but right before I got married she got a diagnosis of congestive heart failure. I guess in a sense there's not much to worry about, because her condition is what it is. Can't be fixed, only slowed. That was almost 9 years ago, and she was given 10 years by her doctor at the time, so yeah.

Similarly around that timeframe (though maybe a few years later), I started noticing my dad was having more and more health issues because he keeps pushing himself like he's a young man still. But he's not (he is 69 in three weeks), and his body frankly can't take the intense physical work of farming like it once could. He has had a torn bicep, injured his butt some kind of way I forget, and so on. But he's a stubborn Polack (just like me, hah) and he isn't likely to change. I just try to gently encourage him to sell the rest of his animals and pursue his hobbies, like woodworking (which has its possible injuries but isn't as hard on the body as the shit he gets up to now). Perhaps one day he'll listen.

I, uh, don't worry about my parents' health much. There's nothing I can do about it. They're both incredibly stubborn people who will (not) take care of themselves, bonus points for the stepmom.

I will say that I wasn't ready for the moment I felt compelled to protect my father (a big, imposing Marine veteran) in a physical altercation. He ran his mouth and picked a bar fight he couldn't win, the other guy fought dirty, and in a flash I went from being as annoyed with his drunken bullshit as everyone else in the bar to being willing to fuck that guy up or get my ass kicked trying if he wouldn't take my offer of "this is over; we're leaving". I was...32?

Funny enough, I must've made an impression (I can't fight for shit but I'm crazy and loud, inherited that from mom's side.) because that incident took on a fishing story-like life of its own where I allegedly brandished a chair in my father's defense.

I can't imagine taking my dad to a dive bar, and neither of us are willing to start fights (I'm a gentle soul), but I do appreciate you standing up for your dad. If someone did actually lay hands on my family, you bet I'd come in swinging.

The story makes it all worth it. I think you left an impression on your dad, the "my little boy is all grown up" kind. And that's really all we can ever expect from our dads.

I don’t know that my parents have worried about my health since I was a small child. Not in any active way that I was made aware of. My worry about my parents health is abstract. Yes they’re getting older. My father is definitely in worse shape these past few years. It is what it is.

It was my late thirties when this became a Thing for me. Dad was in his early seventies and starting to exhibit signs of cognitive decline, and mom started exhibiting signs of her own several more years down the road.

Ouch. I'm sorry man, that's the worst, because there's very little you can do about it once it kicks in. One of the many reasons I tell my parents to start or continue semaglutide is the immediate cardiovascular benefit, which translates to drastically reduced dementia risk. I'm guessing this comes too late for you, and if so, my condolences.

It does indeed, for the both of them, and I appreciate your well wishes. The scary part is that my family had no previous history of dementia or Alzheimer's, so now I'm pretty freaked out about my own chances. That said, dad did have bad sleep apnea, and taking care of a spouse with dementia makes for a massive risk of dementia in its own right, though watching them both go through it one after the other has definitely increased my receptivity to the brain infection hypothesis...

Were any of them ever screened for the genetic markers for it? There are well known risk factors associated within different variants of the APOE gene. Other forms have different associated vectors, but this is something that’s caused a little bit of worry even with me when I got to thinking about it one day. My genetic tests are all clear, I’m not a carrier for the genetic determinants, but it makes you wonder.

No, neither of them ever were. Ironically, my wife's maternal side of the family has a history of Alzheimer's, but thus far her mother's siblings seem to be dodging the proverbial bullet.

I mean, AFAIK the infectivity thing is mostly for neurosurgeons? People who are actively at risk of inhaling potential abnormal proteins.

And Alzheimer's, in particular, is quite common even without a family history. If you have the option, I would strongly advise starting on a GLP-1 drugs. It's too late when the AD has already set in, but I'm not sure if it makes a difference during the mild cognitive impairment stage, and you're better off starting early. Might be worth getting screened for APOE-4 allele if budget allows, that's a massive risk. 50% of AD cases or more have at least one of them.

It's still a relatively understudied potential cause/risk factor, due mainly to a preoccupation with the amyloid tangles and plaques in the brain, but it's gaining momentum and mainstream interest, especially as said focus has yet to produce effective treatment.

Oh, different thing than I was envisioning. I was talking about the elevated risk of neurodegenerative disorders in neurosurgeons. I mean, I doubt it's all easily condensed down to a single factor, but we quite recently found out that gum infection is linked to cardiac disease too. So I suppose I'm going to keep my eyes peeled and brush my teeth better.

It's been a fascinating rabbit hole for me personally, both because I am well aware that Science™ advances one funeral at a time, and so had been looking at alternative hypotheses for Alz/dementia, and also because out of the blue my dental hygienist started discussing the topic on her own as she had recently gotten the infodump hereself.

I sometimes wish I was a dentist (not pretty enough to be a hygienist, but I could do with a harem). Mostly for the captive audience for my lectures.

I suppose 10? But none of us has ever been terribly worried about one another's health, other than everyone else about my brother's mental health.

I don't know if there was ever really a transition. It's been something that I've had to consider my entire life.

For anyone out there who has a drinking problem, seek help. If you have kids, do it sooner, rather than later.

Somewhere in my 30s. Let's say around the pandemic. Before that there was a period when we didn't worry about our respective health, at least openly.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats