SKiN...

How do you comfort and assure the person you love that everything will be as good as new again when that can never happen?? How would you then convince him to take care of himself better when it only seemed to get worse each time?? Although it isnt something life threatening, but its making him feel helpless, uncomfortable and a burden to others.

That person's my grandpa. To many people they see it as him having, skin problems. Easy diagnosis? Not a big deal? Definitely NOT!! Yes, he does have skin problems but how do you take care of skin that's so fragile that even with the slightest knock on anything would cause a deep cut that bleeds for days?? How do you make a skin that's so thin and dry moist and healthier again, so that it doesn't cause itchiness or redness all over his body??

I know and understand that its all part of the aging process. But as you're older, you would prefer a more routined lifestyle and its never easy for an old man to adapt easily to any changes like us. So, each time when I or my parents check his skin, and we find areas of redness and scratch scars... it kinda upsets my grandpa and he'll try with all his might to hide those feelings.

I think that the thing that's troubling him the most is that he feels helpless and a burden to us the family members for having to take care of him in such a delicate way and yet, the skin problem isn't getting better. What made things worse was the petroleum jelly we used to help with his skin cant be used now coz, his skin over-sensitive to it now and we need special type of creams.

Many people think that its soo easy to handle something like that. All they could help with was giving comments like, "Why don't you try this cream?" I know they mean well and all but it makes me frustrated, bcoz how can it be so simple? If it was that easy, my grandpa's skin would have recovered long ago.

When I see my grandpa look so down and discouraged...I really feel like helping him take that load which I myself don't understand 100%. I just hope and pray that God will be his comfort and he'll soon be able to live with it, and learn to take care of himself better so he won't feel so helpless or a burden anymore.