The inevitable approaches

My mom is sick. It is sort of expected. She never was much for self-care, and has fallen into a funk where she pretty much stopped eating and drinking.  She started refusing entry to the care facility staff, and accumulating garbage again. She stopped walking her dog, and he peed all over the place, including her bed, which she slept in.

Naturally, gross things started happening. Fleas or bedbugs or some sort of mite or pathogen started biting her. Her skin, covered in bites which she scratched and picked at until she was covered in little scabs.  She went into this perfect storm of sickness, her already taxed organs and her existing heart failure on top of her depression, lack of food, lack of water and itchy bug bites brought her close to death. I find it hard to accept that the care facility that takes $4000 a month from her allowed the situation to get as bad as it has, but that's a fish I am not willing to fry right now.

We brought her to the ER last Thursday, and her organs were failing.  That night, and Friday night, she nearly died (although my aunt contests that having discussed it with the day  nurse Saturday morning... but we'll get to that).  They were very grim to say the least.  They moved her to the ICU on Friday, and through Saturday. She bounced back and by Sunday she was sent up to the regular hospital room, and has been there since, slowly recovering, but not without its problems.  As usual, she is difficult to medicate, difficult to manage and difficult to treat for the staff.  I wonder why anyone bothers, honestly.

But in the end, she's doing better. The doctors say her heart and her organs are fragile. She had a mini-stroke on Friday night, it turns out.  There is no telling if she is going to last much longer at this rate, or she could outlive us, who knows. Either way, it's been a stressful week, and tomorrow she is going to rehab where she will work on walking again before we send her back to her assisted living facility.  

Her dog, poor disgusting Jack, was euthanized on Saturday.  I had to do it, the care facility wanted no more to do with him, and the doctors are suspicious that he is the cause of the itchy pathogen (fleas), which is very likely. I've been working the idea into my mother's head that he is very sick and may not make it so by the time she gets into rehab she won't have a stroke thinking that we just murdered her dog.  Jack was old, toothless, blind and was choking constantly. He also had seizures. It was past the time for him to go.

Mom is enjoying a PB&J sandwich. She sharing it with Alex.
She is eating like a horse. She calls it 'old hunger'.

Saturday morning, Uncle Matt watched Alex while Helen and I
visited with Mom in the ICU. When we were done, this is what
we saw. Alex, passed out on his Uncle's chest. Helen said she
fell in love with her husband all over again. :)

Her sister, also a complete narcissist, to whom I have not spoken in more than a year, had to be notified. So I called her on Friday to tell her, and this was the first few lines of our discussion, just to give you an idea what kind of people I have in my family:

Phone rings, answering machine picks up, I say: "Titi, it's Stephanie, give me  call, mom is in a very bad way..."

Aunt picks up: "Ghello? Estephanie?"

Me: "Hi Titi, (that's Puerto Rican for auntie), Mom in in the hospital, she is extremely sick (at this point, the doctors were telling me she may not leave the hospital and to be prepared for that, she was in a very bad way), and she's doing very badly. They think she may not live much longer.  I thought I would call and let you know."

My aunt: "Ooooooh...." a long, pensive pause.. then: "I am very sick too..."

Seriously. She then proceeded to call me back the next day to tell me that mom was never that bad, that she spoke to the nurse in the ICU after she was not that sick. ::eyeroll:: She then started to go on and on about how she was sick and was probably going to be unable to travel to Puerto Rico this week as planned, and she's sure she got sick after she visited my mom and picked up a bug.  At that point my patience ran out and I rudely segued her off the phone.  When she did call my mom, all they did was fight.  I'm so sick of this crap. ::augh::

My sister Helen made it down on Saturday, and if it wasn't for her husband, I would not have been able to trap the dog for transport to doggy heaven. So I was grateful for that.  My other sister is coming out next week with my eldest brother (hahahahahaha).  What a three-ring circus.

Anyway, that is what the past six days have been for me. Oddly, I managed to finish the stays. I'm going to wash them before I 'model' them to get rid of the pencil markings from my cording.  They came out pretty nicely. We'll see how nicely they fit.  Not a single machine stitch on the whole thing, pretty proud of that. I found that when I went to bed at night, as dead-tired as I was, I could not get to sleep because my head was so full of stuff. So doing the sewing was a good way to focus the mind elsewhere, while listening to Austen on Librivox.org. That's my catchup so far.  I'll have lots more to write next month, since we're scheduled to have a family reunion on the coast in Long Beach, Washington in a rented vacation home. Both sisters, husbands, hopefully Mom will be there in addition to myself and my little family and dogs.  It will be nice. It will be the first real vacation we've had together. Ever.  We didn't even get a honeymooon. :( Booo.

I'm done lamenting about mom. The pictures are from this week when mom felt better (the two last were from today). I've been putting Alex in her arms a lot lately, because he brings her so much happiness, and I honestly believe she won't be around much longer so it's time to make those photo memories.