How To Be Alone without Fear

I am married. DS is away at college, and DH has to travel frequently for his job.

Lately, I've been having a lot of fear when I am alone in an empty house. What if I fall? What if I pass out and no one notices? That sort of thing.

What have you guys done to manage your fear when you are alone? I have a dog and cat, but I feel they would be useless in a medical emergency. The dog would want to help, but I'm afraid the cat would be assessing my soft bits for deliciousness.

BTW: Applause to those who are working, and/or living alone during this disease. I am in awe of you.

bj, I used to have these kinds of fears when I was a young mother. I would wonder what would happen to my son when he was a baby or toddler, if I were to fall down the stairs or some other kind of harm came to me. I even ran through a scenario in my mind of how I'd run to the next-door-neighbor if I was choking. I think being a mom made me realize how precious life was and taking care of one so dependent on me gave me concerns I'd never had before.

Tho I'm not home by myself for an extended time, my 89 year old mother-in-law lives across the street. We had some concerns when she moved there three years ago. I found this alert system device and we got it for her.

http://assistivetechnologyservices.com/TwoWayTalkThroughAlertSystemWithNoMonthlyFees.html

It has a big price up front, almost $300, but thats all you pay which is less costly than the “help, I've fallen and I can't get up" type service that charges a monthly fee.

How it works is up to 5 numbers can be stored in the device. A portable button you keep with you, when it is pushed, calls the first number. If no response, it calls the next, ect. It will even call 911.

It offered us some assurance that if my MIL had an emergency, she could reach us.

So guess what. Last summer, dh was using the landline talking to his son. His cell phone rang, and I saw it was my MIL. She was calling because she was having a hard time breathing. We promptly got her to the hospital. She'd had a heart attack! She eventually recovered and is back to her place.

Several weeks later, we were talking about that evening and I told dh, “gee, I didn't even know your mom knew your cell phone number!" He said, “she didn't! She pressed her emergency alert button. When our home phone rang busy, it called my cell phone!" It was wonderful to know it worked. Maybe something like this could help alleviate some of your fears.

I live alone and after my seizure and brain met discovery, I became concerned no one would find me until it was too late. I have a good friend that checks in with me a couple times everyday. She either calls or texts. We have agreed that if she doesn't hear from me within an hour from her call or text, that she will either come to my home or call my sister to check on me. It gives me peace of mind just knowing that someone is a little aware of my day to day and steps will be taken if I haven't been heard from.

I have been alone for long time now, but feel I'll never get used to it. After a TBI I have been suffering from Depression, Anxiety and PTSD. Two months ago I had cryotherapy for a carcinoma that looked like a red spot in my face. No more tests or instructions were given. I felt sort of loss because I have no one to talk about my fears, but it wasn' too bad because I thought it was "done and gone".

I' 57 and never had a mammogram, so I decided to get one done. Now waiting for a biopsy on my left breast, after two mammograms and an ultrasound. I tried talking about it with my therapist, after all he is the only person I have actual conversations with. But talking about it made it more real for me. Now I wonder if the skin cancer could have metastasized, or if I had breast cancer first and it got to my skin.

I' scared and don' know what would I do if I get diagnosed with breast cancer after the biopsy. It' no good to tell myself not to cross that bridge until I get there. I think that' what we all do when we are scare and alone.

AlwaysAlone, we are truly sorry to hear you express how lonely and anxious you feel. We hope that you, with the help of your therapist, are able to get you the care you need, and find strategies to getting help, should your biopsy yield something positive. Have you tried support groups for TBI patients? It may be helpful to find a group of individuals who understand the emotional side effects of managing a TBI.

Please keep us posted, albeit indeed probably a different forum, as suggested above, and know we are here for you.

I appreciate you starting this thread Blainejennifer. While I am not concerned at the present time, the idea of being alone is a huge worry for the future. I am 55, single and live with my mother in a big old house. It made sense for us to join forces given my marital status and the fact that she has been a widow since 1986. While I have primarily been supporting her through two knee surgeries and other associated issues with getting older, these days she provides support when I am under the weather at home as well. However, she will be 87 in a month and is definitely finding life a bit more challenging with aches, pains and limited mobility. She is no longer able to drive to unfamiliar places (she still does quick hops to the grocery store thankfully... I hate shopping!) or help with anything requiring any kind of technology. But overall, we are managing well. Oh.. and dog walking is out! But, so far we are managing.

My big worry is what happens down the road. I don't have any other family locally and so, if anything happens to my mother, I will need to have a strategy to deal with things on my own. Fortunately my cancer seems to be slow growing albeit, somewhat difficult to treat, but I know at some point it will start to get the upper hand. What then? It's reassuring to hear of others who are able to maintain their independence while battling this beast.

Thanks again for starting this thread. I know there are many in a similar situation who will hopefully chime in.

nbnotes, thank you for the name. It looks like that's the route I need to go for true peace of mind. Even if spouse is upstairs and I'm downstairs, he'd have a hard time hearing me if I shouted out. We are all a little bit older, and a little bit deafer than we were when we started this cancer fun. That shower button is clever as heck.

To be honest, if I had to do it all over, I wouldn't have moved into a two story house. Mobility limitations have halved the house for me. We've only got a half bath downstairs, so I can manage when spouse is out of town. I'm not ready for a stair lift yet, and we've got weird twisty stairs, so I don't even know if a lift would work.

But, I love this place, and all the green around us. We are right next to a national preserve, and I can get to hiking trails about twenty feet away from my back porch. When I can hike again, that is.

Sadiesservant, I hear you about the lack of family near! That's another thing on my list of "Do Overs". It was hard raising a kid away from family, and it's hard being ill without family close by. I worry about leaning on my spouse so much. Now, whenever he tells me he's got to travel, he has to deal with a blubbing wife. He kind of thought I'd be resilient forever, as I've been doing this for 6 years, and only recently have had real issues.

We've come to realize that as much as we love it here, we should look at cooperative living arrangements for older folk. Bleh. I'm 57, and don't feel older, except when trying to move these compromised bones. Whoops, I'm going to have a pouting session right about now. I love my house. Don't wanna move - can't make me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, plan ahead. There might come a time when both you and your mom need some assistance, so maybe start looking for a living situation that might be conducive to that? Or, you can be like me - only be moved from my home by burly men as I hang on to the door frame, bleating. I'm not recommending that choice, but it is what I feel.

Intothewoods, You passed out?!?! Wow. If that happened to me, I'd be wearing about ten different alert systems right now. Not that I over-react or anything. But, you illustrate perfectly why the alerts would be so handy. And, a good reminder to stay hydrated. Are you feeling better now?

Speaking of dog walking, off I go for my daily wobble with the dog. I am really grateful I worked with her when she was a pup, because if she pulled on the lead now, I'd be face down, eating some driveway.