After my Dungeness trip for my birthday, I spent last Tuesday to Thursday (Sept 4-6) in Suffolk, staying with Dad while Mum was away. I’m tempted to say, ‘looking after Dad’, but although he’s physically very weak, he surprised me by using both flights of stairs several times a day, and even cooked a meal for the two of us. Dad is 75, and now has pulmonary fibrosis added to the medley of deterioration his body has thrown at him for the last few years. There’s been strokes, black outs, arthritis, leg ulcers, and now the fibrosis, which means he has to keep a flask of compressed oxygen to hand, like a particularly cumbersome form of asthmatics’ inhaler.
The fibrosis gives Dad coughing fits, which I find distressing to witness on my first day. It is coughing that goes far beyond coughing, mutating into a painful, drawn-out retching for breath. But come the second day I realise this is something Dad has become used to, so I become used to it too.
I’m also relieved to discover he has no shortage of help: he’s fitted out with a panic button on a bracelet, and carries the phone handset with him everywhere. On top of that, friends who live nearby drop in on him every day.
While there I do the shopping, mow the lawn, take Dad’s watch away to get a new strap fitted (courtesy of the shopping mall near Bond St tube), wind up the ancient living room clock, and refill his oxygen flask from the huge canister that has moved into the garden.
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Thoughts on gadgets and internet addiction. Dad has one of the now-ubiquitous iPads, which he uses for emails, the Web, films and on-demand TV. Mum has one too. I don’t, just as I don’t have an iPhone or smartphone or Blackberry – my mobile is a 7-year-old cheap Pay As You Go Motorola, in grudging pink. I never worry about it being on show and at risk of being stolen, as I think any would-be thief would die of embarrassment first. My only concession to the more desirable cult of oblong strokers is having an iPod Touch, which I have to admit I enjoy, particularly the camera. But I fear I enjoy it too much, using it more as a toy than a tool. Having social media and the Web so easy to access, I find it hard to get on with other things, like the small matter of studying for my college course.
By way of contrast I’ve invested in what I suppose is the polar opposite of an iPad – a Neo 2. This is a portable offline word processor with a little LCD screen, made in tough plastic and aimed principally at schoolchildren. In my case, it also suits someone with the self-control of a schoolchild. All you can do on it is write: a USB cable allows you to upload the results to a PC when you’re finished. It’s so basic that the battery lasts a whole year. I’m typing this on it in bed in the morning, in fact, as unlike laptops, it doesn’t get overheated on a duvet. Though I take what overheated bedfellows I can get.
The word ’empowered’ is often used for the way the Net has affected people’s lives, but in my case I feel far more empowered when I’m switching the Net off. So I’m trying out ways to cut down on internet usage without being cut off. At the moment I’m forcing myself to use college computers to check my email, and to only do so once a day. My home is now an offline oasis, with gadgets and power cables locked away in a cupboard until further notice. After only one day of not having Wikipedia or Twitter to hand I felt physical withdrawal pangs (how pathetic it seems to admit this), which rather suggests I was addicted. So it’s probably best to keep this detox routine going for a while longer.
Tags: dad, internet, neo2
