to wish that once, when i phone my mother, she wouldn't be 'dying' of something or other?

[Alicetheinvisible]

I try to be the duty bound daughter and phone my mum about once a week.

Average phone call (and i am not exaggerating)

Mum: Hello (sounding like she has just woken up, a bit of a cough)
Me: Hello, how are you all?
Mum: Oh, i have got this flu, your brother has been off with it, and your sister will need more antibiotics.
Me: Sounds horrid, hope you are all ok.
Mum: Yeah, Nanny is really poorly, she is back in hospital again and on the oxygen.
Me: Oh, dear etc.....

Today's phone call

Mum: Hello (cough, cough)
Me: Hello, how are you all?
Mum: Not too bad, just getting over this virus, DB has been off school with it, sis has got Dr's this afternoon, she needs AB's.
Me: Glad you're getting better, are you about on .... i was gonna pop over?
Mum: Maybe, your sis (different one) has her scan to see how pg she is, and if it is still alive, she is very high risk for a mc, but at least she has concieved i spose.
Me: Oh right, yeah
Mum: She has so many problems...this, that and the other (all diagnosed via books, daytime tv and internet)

It just winds me up so much. She is ill because she smokes constantly, her mum is ill (and she is) because she smoked a lot, and my grandad died because he smoked but my mum won't give up. My sis(the pg one) is always ill because she is constantly off her face on weed, and so doesn't eat very reliably.

I am running out of sympathy tbh, i know i sound like a heartless cow, but AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH........that feels better

PMSL but only because I can so relate to this. My Mum is the same she is either ill or recovering from the worst flu / cold / virus ever.
She always get things much more severe than anyone else
She only has to read about something in the paper and my sisters and I all place bets on how long it will take her to get it
You have to laugh but I do know how wearing it is

YANBU

I get a slightly different variation with my Mum in that she seems to take great interest in telling me about all the people she knows who have just died or are currently at deaths door - whether I know them or not.

Typical conversation-
Mum: Do you remember so-and-so
Me: Er, no - never heard of her.
Mum: She used to live next door to us before you were born.
Me: Ri-ght
Mum: Well she died suddenly on Saturday.
Me: Oh dear.
Mum: And her husband is in a bad way
Me: Oh
etc.

You are so not being unreasonable

Oh dear, sympathy to you Alice, should i send my DB's around? that might perk them up

Yes, it is exactly like that!

Once when i spoke to her (last summer i think) "Well, you now know someone who has had SF - your brother has got it!" Erm, you must be so proud she was as well, did burst her bubble by telling her that i knew of a couple of people who had had it already (on here, but still )

My pg sis has apparently got pcos, endometriosis, a tilted womb and has a form of Narcolepsy. The Narcolepsy thing has been questioned it is down to huge weed consumption, and the Dr suggested she may have PCOS because of irregular periods (which is common in teenagers anyway) the tilted womb my mum decided she must have because an aunt had it and some similar symptoms, and the Endometriosis she has plucked out of thin air. My sister now thinks she has all these things wrong with her.

At least your mum sticks to people, we can never be as ill as herself ..or her dog

5foot5 - that as well, is always telling me the ins and outs of peoples illnesses that i have no idea who they are or such distant relatives that i have never met them.

Can just imagine her as an old woman leaning over the garden fence gossiping about poor old so and so's sister's great nieces dog's breeder

QA - so literally as sick as [her] dog!

Ithank'ew!

My mum gets the flu jab and then takes to her bed for a week cos she then gets really bad flu. She says this is how it is supposed to work
My mum and I used to have the same GP and one day my mum phoned to say

" Heidi when you phone the GP for an appointment now you will be offered a telephone appointment with the GP rather that having to call at the surgery. "

I have never been offered this service and neither has anyone else I know - just my mum cos she is a pest and the GP was sick looking at her.

YANBU...have the same with my father,he collects ailments as a hobby,I dread conversations with him

My mum is the same. Whenever I phone her and ask how she is, her response is always the same - a huge sigh follwed by 'I've had a terrible day'.

A sniffle = Flu

A bit of stomach ache = Gastric Flu

Combined sniffle, stomach ache and feeling tired = Swine Flu/Menigitis/Multiple Organ Failure

Headache = Migraine (nothing to do with drinking black coffee all day with 6 sugars in)

Stubbed toe = broken leg

YANBU

YANBU.

My mother's always iller than anyone else but likes to tell me repeatedly how Brave she is and how she Never Tells Me All The Stuff because she Doesn't Want To Burden Me.

If there really were any more illnesses they'd have her on some BBC2 programme as a Medical Miracle for still being alive......

YANBU. My MIL does this, and she describes everything she has as being "lifelong." Even a minor skin condition, which my DS also has, and which is basically just cosmetic.

Every sentence ends with, "and I'll be on medication for the rest of my life..."

Her poor husband actually has real medical problems and never gets a look in!!

My MIL is apparently the only one who can survive most illness. She puts her hands over her mouth and says 'Don't come near me, if you get this it'll kill you'

YANBU!

Bumperlicious

YANBU

My mum likes to regale my in-laws with regular updates on her digestive system ("ooooh, i was sick as a dog after that meal out I had last week"). WHEN is that ever appropriate/desirable??!! I just want to crawl away into a corner and disappear from mortification as she dissects what she had and invotes forensic opinions on what could have caused each incident.

DH likes to point out (to me, not to her)that on a number of occasions when she's claimed to be unwell she is drinking coca cola a well-know fizzy drink and that maybe plain water would avoid these problems if she's feeling nauseous.

I don't remember her doing this sort of thing when she was younger, why is it that social rules go out the window the older you get? Whe she was in hospital a few years ago i went nuts because she would screw up her face and exclaim at just the suggestion of particular items on the menu and I clearly remember being told that was rude when I was a kid, in a "all you need to say is 'no thank you'" way.

But hey, I'm sure I'll be doing it too in the 2040s...hopefully DH will be able to stop me!

YANBU

Dh is a bit like this too, one sneeze and its flu Whatever illness he happens to have at the time is obviously far far worse than anyone has ever had before

He never takes time off work or see's the doctor though. Just saves all his moaning for lucky old me.

They never want advice though do they, like stop smoking, or stop eating takeaway 4x a week, or get some vitamins etc.

This is my mother as well. She is always dying of something or another, if it's not her latest cold/ear infection/arthritis flare up she has food poisoning every weekend (usually after Friday nights drinking session but never blamed on alcohol no it's the sausage roll she had for lunch ) it usually means she cannot get out of bed until 3pm on Saturday or cannot get off the toilet (TMI).

Then there's her latest gynaecological complaint which she must go into in every detail, I know about the HRT, her coil and the breakthrough bleeding which she googled and then decided she was having a cancer scare!

And if it is not that it's about my Granpa who is constantly at "deaths door" and "will never be coming home from the hospital" and it's all my Dads fault as he doesn't look after him properly. Depending on the day my Dad is either shoving his Dad into an Old Folks Home and my Grandpa is so unhappy about going and of course thinks he is going to die there or when my Granpa was living at home he shouldn't be there as he is not fit to live by himself.

Oh and whilst I am on a rant if it's not her health it's her money worries, feel sorry for her no matter what I say she can turn it around into poor her.

She smokes as well but nothing is ever to do with her smoking of course as so and so smoked 60 a day and lived to 140.

I stopped phoning her because of this and as she won't phone me we haven't spoken in over a year and it's so nice not getting the depressing phonecalls.

Feel better Sweetkitty? I sympathise entirely.

My Mum is the same and has been for as long as I can remember. Its become much worse over the last few years now that she used the internet to search her symptoms and gets herself into such tizzies about what she has self-diagnosed herself with. Infact the other week I was at hes and asked to borrow her computer. She has the NHS website and Net Doctor on her favourites!

She also reads obituaries for fun, and sometimes she cuts out ones to show me of people I might or might not remember.

So, is this "Mum 'Flu", instead of Man 'Flu?

Hypochondriacs are really hard to deal with, as they are working with material which ought to get you going... only if you have too much of it, you become "immune" to the worry!

Difficult...