To get irritated at my mum's excitement over people's illnesses?

[CoolPatootieTango]

My mum seems to get really excited and obsessive about people being ill. Everytime I ring her she runs down a list of all the people who she knows to be currently suffering illness. The conversation goes something like :

me: "Hi mum, how are you?"
mum: "oh hi, did you know about Sharon?"
me: "yep"
mum: "no I'll tell you the full story, she went to doctors and ..... (20 minutes later) ... and did I tell you about Roger from down the road? "

and on and on she goes until in the end she's spent an hour talking about people's illnesses and I've not got a word in edgeways.

At the moment, her husband is unwell so this is her new obsession. I called this morning to ask how he was and she went on and on about that for an hour or so - eventually I managed to say "I started my new job yesterday" and she said "oh, how did it go?" - I just started to tell her before she interupted with "do you think they'll take his stitches out tomorrow?" ffs

W eventually got around to discussing my new job again before she squeals "OH!!! The nurse is here!!!! I have to , bye!"

AIBU to find it irritating??

One time I was suffering with bowel impactation and she called to see how I was - I was half way through my one sentance answer when she butted in with "oh I've had terrible stomach ache today you know ... " and then waffled on about herself for the next hour whilst I'm in agony on the other end of the phone!

oh No YANBU it is irritating and a little morbid

AND ... she'll often:

mention "something i saw on tv about ambulances or something, not that i watch anything like that because i finds it depressing, and mawkish, i just switched channels and there it was ... ''

ask me if I saw it? i say no, as always, because i hate seeing that sort of thing personally, it makes me worry, and then she'll tell me in graffic detail all about it, the monologue lasting the whole 40 minute drive to town.

By the way - we know full well she records and watches ALL the 999, Helicopter Heros, Real Rescues, OMG Look At All The Blood In Real Life, shows you can find.

God knows why the 'It just came on by accident'. And God knows why she has to tell me about it [hhmm]

My mother rings me during embarrassing illnesses, which I hate and never watch because I have no desire to see the warts on someone's scrotum in close up etc.

She tells me what's on it and then shrieks "ooh you can see right up someone's aaaaaarse! Quick turn over! Turn over so you can see it, it's got some really disgusting stuff oozing out"
"I don't want to"
"Go on, turn over NOW"

And then gets the hump if I don't

My MIl would have loved watcing that, she was really into oozing things I recorded something on ch4 and put it on and was the end of E I and this teeny tiny willy flashed up on screen I was who wants to show their teeny tiny willy on the telly

OhlimpPricks wow, we have the same mother!

I have wondered how some of the people on EB can be so nonchalant about their oozing nethers being on tv ...

Showing a doc is one thing - but showing your whole family ... work colleges ... neighbours ... the usuals on the bus ... your customers .............

Both my parents are like this and it drives me demented. They are incredibly competitive in their ailments and the day always starts with the "most disturbed nights sleep" event, where the winner is determined by going through a forensic account of how many toilet trips were taken/how painful their back or shoulder was/how many bad dreams which must be recounted in full not matter how fecking dull it is they had and finally, how exhausted they feel which of course has nothing to do with staying up till 2am watching shit on the telly. The winner gets to go back to bed for a bit.

The rest of the day is usually taken up with competative groaning and endless accounts of "What the doctor/physio/googled said" and finished off with the cat and mouse game of "who's going to give in and take some painkillers before bed" the winner being the one who doesn't and therefore gets the advantage on the "who had the worst night sleep" the following morning.

They're both gold medalists at these events although my mum probably just has the edge. Last Christmas two of my kids had chicken pox and, despite already having had it as a child and NO discernible symptoms, so did my mum!

Oh my MIL and FIL are guilty of the guess who has died, guess who has cancer, guess who had a heart attack, guess who had a stroke.

Followed by

Guess whos funereal it was last Thursday, guess whos funeral it is this afternoon

When you enquire who these people are they are randoms. To date never anyone significantly close but the drama and build up to their announcement have you hanging on in case its someone significant in the family - when infact its the hairdressers, butchers great aunt whos cousin used to work with FIL in 1961.

The conversation usually continues along the lines of we could not go to Johns funeral last Thursday though because it started at 12 and at 11 I had to see the chiropodist about my dead skin (great datail about how much dead skin was cut off) and then at 1pm FIL had to go and see Dr X about his piles again. We were most annoyed because Dr X was not there because (insert a death or serious illness)and he had to see Dr Y insetead, who FIL said did a very thorough examination of his bottom and has decided that FIL needs to go into hopsital and have them removed surgically. Of course I have told him, he will probably die when he goes in. People of our age rarely come out of hospital. If he does not die when under the anaesthetic, he will starve to death as they are so short staffed these days they forget to feed people. Thats what happend to Mrs Jones (the vets greats aunts nextdoor neighbour) when she went in for her hip. I have told him he will probably get MRSA and then die within a few weeks afterwards, so dont book us in the christmas yet until we know whether your FIL has survived getting his piles done.

I read on here that they do get to see specialists and private doctors quickly when they go on it, but they are so mortyfied to get their bits out but oo look a tv camera 'PLONK'

My Upstairs neighbour goes to a lot of funerals she was asked to leave 1 as she hadn't been invited I was told she argued that she knew the person and this was a church anybody could go in, [SHOCK]

My dad is an undertaker. Nuff said

Bahahahaha! My MIL shows some of these traits Her own health is often the topic of conversation, and we are constantly told how she 'Hasn't slept a wink, haven't even closed my eyes', for days. Sometimes a week. The fact that she can talk in coherent sentences and isn't gibbering in a corner suggests that she is prone to slight exaggeration. We also get the Death List when we visit, filled with random elderly people that neither of us know

I had a similar conversation with my mum a couple of weeks ago:

Phone rings
Me: Hello?
DM: hiya I'm ringing you to let you know, do you know Bob?
Me: No, who's Bob?
DM: Yeah you do! Big fella, glasses.
Me: No, I don't think I know him.
DM: Yeah Bob, you know he was always out with Terry. (Terry died a few years ago) They went to Magaluff every year.
Me: I don't think I ever met him Mum.
DM: Oh, well, it must have been your sister then. Anyway, they found him dead in his bed.
Me: :( oh dear that's horrible, how awful! (Still none the wiser as to who Bob is).

MIL and her mother do this ... however, I like to read the obituaries in my local paper even though I'm not from the area and don't know anyone, and then I usually ask DH if he knows any of the very local ones and speculate on their ages etc. And the other day, I got chatting to an older lady on the bus, who told me all her ailments, which I told to MIL (a friend of hers has a similar problem in my [weak] defence), which she phoned her mother about, and we all ended up having a good chat about a complete stranger's uterus.

Feck, I've turned into one of those morbid illness and death people , didn't realse until this thread ....

My aunt told me about her MILS bowel problems last week and how she wasn't able to go then had the runs, do i have a face that says oh do tell me more

My mother doesn't limit herself to illness and death, she also enjoys general mayhem and destruction. She can turn the smallest incident (misplacing her mobile phone) into a colossal drama. A splash of coffee is "My trousers are ruined!" and "Would you like a cracker?" is met with "Oh no, they're ghastly, they would make me sooo unwell. Did I ever tell you about that time I ate that cracker and..."

She "lies awake till 4am" every night of her life and hears dogs barking/neighbours fighting/cars screeching even when 20miles from civilisation.

The person she sees most frequently is her doctor, and she has been promising to die for at least 20 years.

The crazy part is that for 70-odd years she led a charmed life with an adoring husband, a lovely home, kids who never tired of trying to please her etc etc then, suddenly, she did experience a series of crashing dramas. Must have been like all her Christmasses come at once!

Thank goodness, we are all in the same boat, someone grab an oar, quickly! My mum talks about people who lived down our road nearly 40 years ago and expects me to remember them - her memory is a darned sight much better than mine!

I have to take her to regular doc appts every fortnight (in between my working shift hours) and I recently let her know that I cannot take her for her next appt as myself and DH are going away for a short break for four days. I asked her if she could get a taxi and she huffed and puffed and then gave me the silent treatment. When I next contacted her, she asked WHY we were going away and WHY we were going where we were going (only about a three hour drive from where we live but it will be a change from routine FFS). By the 'eck am I not allowed a few days P & Q with my DH now without permission????? I feel I am now in the doghouse woofy woof woof [hhmm]

I've taken to saying to my Mother "Do I know these people ?" (and as its usually about a friend of hers, so I dont) "then I dont want to know". He second favourite topic after medical stuff is who had what for dinner so I really dont wnat to know who's got piles and had semolina for pudding

I have a colleague exactly like this. Lets call her colleague 2...

colleague 1 walks into work and sits at her desk. She is clearly unwell. Red nose, streaming eyes, not very clever at all.

me: Colleague 1, are you ok? You don't look too well...
colleague 1: yeah I've come down with a stinking cold, i feel pretty rough..
colleague 2: yeah I had that last week, mine was really bad, I had x, y, z, i was the illest person in the world, blah blah blah cue 30 minutes warbling on about herself
colleague 1: I guess thats enough about me then...

And she ALWAYS does this. One day I mentioned I had a bit of a headache. I then had to sit there listening to her head related woes for the next 20 mins. And she never asks anyone how they are. And she gets stupidly excited when someone is ill. Ugh! She drives me crazy.

I have a cough at the moment. I called into my mum yesterday and she commented on it and I said something about it being 'just a cough' and she said 'oh I was just reading something about bad coughs. Now I won't frighten you or anything by telling you.........' FFS

I had a full abdominal hysterectomy earlier this year. The amount of people who told me about minor procedures they'd had and 'my doctor said it was just like a hysterectomy so I know exactly how you feel.......'

These tales are oddly comforting, just knowing you're not the only one having to sit through the endless reel of symptoms/diagnosis and in depth discussions of medication and their possible side effects, makes it just that little bit easier to bare.

I think my mum is developing the 'death thing'. She gave a speech at a funeral for an ex-colleague last week. Nothing unusual in that I hear you say, except it was for a man she had worked with over a decade ago, had not kept in touch with, in fact didn't even get on with him and wouldn't have crossed the road to speak to him had she seen him in the street. I suspect the impetus for her "just having to say something...for the family's sake", was in no small way due to the fact that he had died in an International accident which got a fair bit of news coverage. I may be wrong, but had he dropped dead of a heart attack in his local Tesco's she wouldn't of been quite so "knocked for six" by his passing and neither would she have felt compelled to eulogize him.

When I asked her how the funeral went it was a 40 minute monologue about how well her speech went, how grateful the family were, how everybody laughed in the right places/were moved by it...blah, blah, blah. So? All about you then, was it mother?

Ahh so cathartic to say that all out loud (so to speak).

By way of balance.... My parents have gone the other way (possibly because my aunt is the family's known hypochondriac and her various "illnesses" have been a running joke for decades), and seem to have taken a policy decision to conceal all ailments or accidents from me. Which leads to mortifying conversations like

Me: (after 25 mins) ...blah blah blah so I think we're going to do the kitchen in green with cream tiles, after all. Did you ever try that lamb recipe you were talking about?
Mum: We did! I picked up some lamb after I'd collected your father from the hospital on Friday and...
Me: (shocked) What? Hospital? Dad? What was he doing in hospital?
Mum: Well, the doctor wasn't too happy after his appointment about his liver test on Monday, so he got him an emergency appointment to see the specialist, nothing serious, he was only in overnight, but he's out now and
Me: WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!
Mum: Oh, we don't like to worry you with things like that, we're not Winnie after all! Ha ha!
Me: I wish I hadn't just spent 20 mins telling you about my grouting, Mum.

Oh dear, a few bells are ringing in my head about how I ramble on when my daughter phones, but it is only about me, and not about people dying. I am widowed and live on my own and getting older as we all are. But lots of these posts had me laughing so much, it did me good.
My parents were not like that at all. Although in his 70s remember dad saying when he heard of one his friends/relatives dying " that'll be me next then". Mum was a perpetual optimist, though and not like any of the hilarious posts mums at all.

Mind you, come to think of it, my sister, sister-in- law are a bit like that. When I have something happen to me, they have always had much worse than me.

My brother heard a phone conversation in which his wife was doing just that to me and he scornfully said to her," why on earth are you competing over who was worse? " !!! He thinks we are insane. But we are all sympathetic about each others children and other people ????

Snap to all the people whose mothers have to be sicker than they are. Called her from A&E to tell her I'd broken my ankle and she said "You wouldn't believe how much my knee is hurting"