No One Said Life Was Fair........ But Jeezus, Come on Now.......

My last post was about the fear I had after taking my mom to the hospital for what we thought was a chest infection or the flu and then came to find out was the compound problem of a large aneurysm on her aorta and chronic lung disease from years of smoking. As I begin writing this the latest turn of events is that she still has these problems after spending 22 days in the same hospital although she was released to spend some time getting her lungs healthy enough for the open heart surgery she still faces. This tough old broad (as she describes herself) fought through those 22 days including a bout of pneumonia on top of the two initial problems with an amazing courage. It has, needless to say, been a very hard, painful road for her. But I really need to take a little time and speak to my pain. This is a long post so my apologies up front.


For 14 of the 22 days I was, for all practical purposes the sole caretaker. Daily there were at least two trips to the hospital and some days three or four. In addition, I brought mother's little dog, Chelsea, to my apartment and I had to juggle stops by my place to walk her (but I did have incredible, consistent help from two friends....I will never forget Velvet Sage and Adamo's almost daily stops to walk her....when the chips are down and your back is to the wall, you find out who really cares and, unfortunately, who doesn't). I only spent one night at the hospital and that was in the middle of the worst of the pneumonia days when I had real fear that she might be on her way out. But 95% of those days began around 7 at the hospital and ended around 10 after her night time pain meds began to take effect. I also tried to work as much as I could but I missed several days and numerous hours here and there. The paychecks and the bank accounts reflect this fully.

Of my two immediate siblings, one was on the west coast and didn't arrive until two weeks into the ordeal and the other, who lives just outside of Austin, was able to come in every other day for 1-2 hours and was in east Texas for a week for a training he had to attend. The one who lives close by has had no need for a relationship or communication with me for the better part of a decade partly due to behavior when I was using and partly due to a controlling wife that he recently divorced. In an attempt to be communicative and informative (something I thought that siblings do for one another), I called this sibling almost daily that first couple of weeks. Turns out he perceived my calling as me making the assumption that he didn't know what was going on and was irritated. Rather than tell me he's irritated, he tells our sick mom.....no communication you know. So I quit calling. Of course no communication means no coordination on help, something I could have really used.

The west coast sister operates on her own time frame. After she arrived on the 14th day, I thought that she would be my relief and allow me to work my usual 8 hours. I was at this point going unpaid for any hours I didn't work. On the 17th day mother was finally strong enough for the heart catheterization she had to have to proceed on to surgery. I called the sister the night before advising that I would be at the hospital at 8 am shortly before they wheeled mom to the procedure and I could come get her after that. "So about 10 or 10:30, right?" No, more like about 9; the procedure only lasts 1.5 hours. Well, she tells me that she just didn't get moving that fast and she'd take the 10:26am bus. I said nothing. Sure enough, at 10:30, mother was wheeled back barely conscious and with orders to lay flat for 2 hours. She was dry and needed someone to hold her hand and give her ice chips so I didn't go to work and just stayed bedside tending to her. My sister showed up at 12:30 just as the nurse was cleaning mother up and getting her set upright. So what it boiled down to was that she could be there from around noon till about 6 every day.

After that episode, the brother blows up because he finds out he wasn't mother's medical power of attorney (of course, if he had been would 2 hours every other day been enough time?). Rather than let it ride and stay calm, he regressed into childhood and ran to our ill mother insisting that the POA had to be changed. Major childhood insecurities reared their ugly heads. I was the recipient of some very angry, hateful emails that referred to me as an "ass", "condescending" and having done a "somewhat ok" job the prior 2 weeks. This all culminated on the 19th day with a meeting in mom's hospital room and each of us being allowed to speak uninterrupted. I got to hear how condescending I was, how inconsiderate of people's feelings I was, how I hadn't done everything exactly right. No good dead goes unpunished. Another brother later chastised me for using the term "my mom" instead of "our mom" in a thank you note I'd written he and his wife. Let's focus on what's wrong, shall we?

If all that wasn't enough, while walking Chelsea (during yet another trip home from work during my lunch), a neighbors pit bull attacked and I had to break it up. Fortunately Chelsea had minor wounds but the neighbor has now said I would need to sue her to get my $135 in vet bills back. To add insult to injury, I called my ex, Jameson, and asked him to go over and check on the dog as I finished work. Well, it seems he had an auto accident while doing so and now he's become non-communicative. It's been the only thing I asked him to do, and he has a car accident and now we don't talk. Am I to blame for his accident?

And if that added to the original family stuff wasn't enough, night before last Adamo shows up at my door at 3 am and is so drunk, he's totally out of it. When he tried to leave, the guy staying the night with me and I tried to stop him as he was too loaded to be driving. Somehow this devolved into a fist fight between Adamo and myself. End result, 2 black eyes, a knot on the side of my head, a bruised lip, general soreness and the death of a friendship.

I really feel like I'm surrounded by insane, self-centered individuals. I've spent a lot of time recently just curled up on my couch just crying and sleeping.

I'm really over people right now.

My Mom's Sick and I'm Scared

This has been a week I wasn't expecting. Tuesday night my mother called me and was having trouble getting a deep breath. She described it like having concrete in her chest. This wasn't totally surprising as she'd been sick with the flu and her usual, but recently rather severe, allergies. What was unusual was how sick she sounded. I immediately hopped in the car and drove out to her place.

I was alarmed when I got inside the house and found her standing, having just finished dressing. Her breathing was extremely labored. We got into my car and I drove to the Heart Hospital of Austin. We were in the ER from 1030pm that night until 1pm the next day at which time she was admitted to a room.

The ER Dr decided to do a CAT scan of her chest to get a good look at her lungs. While the scan confirmed that her lungs were in bad shape with bronchitis and emphysema, the frigtening surprise came in the discovery of an aneurysm in the ascending aorta of her heart. A serious, fairly large aneuryism would be 3-4 cm. Mother's aneurysm is 7 cm.

So she's facing open heart surgery to repair this bubble on her heart. The surgery would be difficult for someone my age who had never smoked. For a 70 year old who has smoked for 50+ years, it's far more than difficult. The odds are not on her side. Currently the Dr's are working on improving her lung function. It's a slow, slow process without much improvement as of this writing.

I've got to admit that I'm really scared about all this and I'm really exhausted. I got virtually no sleep the first 26 hours and was just running on anxious energy. No one else has the time to watch over mother's care so it's largely fallen to me. It means visits to the hospital in the morning and evening and verifying every medication and procedure. It's also not clear how long we're looking at before she can have surgery. But I'll keep on doing what needs to be done because that's what you do for the woman who brought you into the world.

The bottom line is that this son is not yet ready to lose his mother. She's stuck by me and shown me unconditional love always, even when I wasn't very lovable.

I'm scared and hurting.