[gloria]

I guess loosing a member of your body also makes you go trough grief.
My brother in law (who I adore) had an accident with a bungy cord and lost an eye.
He now is overeating, doesn't care anymore about his health and is kind of down and up through the day.
Our biggest concern is that, he suffers from High blood pressure and he's overweight. We love him and I personally suspect he's having a hard time accepting his eye is not going to work anymore.
Any thoughts?

gab

[Rapunzel]

Certainly. That would be very difficult to deal with. You are right - the grieving process applies to losses of any kind.

<font color=orange>"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill "</font color=orange>

[gloria]

I have to say this is a new thing for me. I'm not sure how to help him. I've checked with every doctor there is in the net and he trully is out of options.
Emotionally, well, this is a new one for te too. I've dealt with dead but never with the loss of a limb or eye...
He does know how much I love him, and so does my sister ( his wife ) because she's kind of down too ... other than that, I guess they both have to go through the process, right?

gab

[SeptemberMorn]

Gloria, I've known people that have lost a member of their body and they all go through a grief period, too. I've thought that I'd go nuts if it happened to me. I can't imagine not being all there.

Does he know that his other eye will soon learn to compensate for the lost one? It will. I'm thinking that there must be glasses and/or physical therpay he could get to help him.

It's easy for me to say, but maybe you could remind him that it could have been an arm or worse yet, a leg! YIKES!

Encourage him all you can, Hun, and look up either in your phone book or on the web, what would be the next step for him so he can get back in the groove of things. I'm thinking an oculist, (I think that's what they're called!) not an optometrist would have some answers for you.




<font color=blue>"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt" --Shakespeare</font color=blue>

[Rapunzel]

One thing to consider is that therapy can help with grief like this. If his doctors haven't suggested it, then maybe you might. It's not fundamentally different from losing a loved one, losing a house, losing a job, ... Grieving is the way we adjust to any significant loss. Probably the thing that helps the most is to have support from friends and loved ones. He needs to adjust to the change in his body and his ability to function (and may need help with doing things until he is able to recover and learn to compensate), as well as to know that the people who matter still accept him and are not going to reject him.

Yes, the loss affects his wife too and maybe other people, so the grief process would apply to others besides just himself.

<font color=orange>"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill "</font color=orange>

[darkeyes]

My mom had lost the sight in her left eye, permanently, due to stroke, high blood pressure. She now has poor vision (almost legally blind) due to her HBP, and diabetes.
Not that her loss is the same as your brother-in-law's, but I noticed since that happened years ago, she too, started to withdraw, eat more and just basically give up on life. . . depression she was in denial over, I had suggested she try to join some support group, being with those that have or are going through a similar situation may have helped her to find ways of working through this, but she was bitter, which is understandable, it is devastating to lose one of our senses or body parts. It may help if your brother-in-law gets some sort of counseling, help him not to isolate himself, perhaps if this is started sooner than later, he will not continue to fall victim of dark depression, we all need help at times, sometimes a professional nudge.
It sounds like you are loving family, and you adore him as you said, has anyone spoke with any of his doc's?
He can chance losing his good eye to HBP and the many complications of HBP and obesity, that would be tragedy upon tragedy. OKay, I am going on too much here, but if I werein your place I would sit with him and cnvince him he can get some help adjusting to this, it is hard to accept but now we can't go back and change what had happened, but try to make him understand that he still has a life living, and he can go on well in time, especially if he takes the weight off.
Maybe someone in the family can be a walking buddy and make a time to go together for a nice walk?
Just throwing some ideas out there.
I wish him luck, it has to be so tragic, I know my mom grew more and more frustrated only having sight in one eye, cause her depth perception got all off kilter, she slowly got around, I still feel that had she got into counseling and support groups, maybe one just for visually impaired it could of helped.
See if there are such things available to him, and have the family share some of the running around, that helps too.

Please take care,
DE

In giving advice seek to help, not please your friend
SOLON