Mothers

My mom has had a pretty shitty year. She needed arthroscopic knee surgery to correct a problem with some cartilage in her right knee...they discovered she has no acl, that there were microscopic tears in her miniscus...she opted not to have knee replacement because she wants to be able to go skiing with my brother and his kids! Never mind the fact that she hasn't been on skis in about 25 years...she wants to go skiing. She should have had the knee replacement. While she was visiting I realized she can hardly walk at all - stairs are a huge problem, any kind of incline is a problem and she tires very easily. I can't imagine how she expects to ski. She got the orthopedic who did her surgery to fit her with an athletic brace - of course she doesn't use it when she walks. Fortunately she doesn't want to go skiing with my kids so I don't have to tell her I think she's absolutely fucking crazy! I'm going to leave it to my brother!

Around mid June, right after my husband and I returned from Europe with Andy, I talked to Mom and realized that, after she told me she hadn't been out of bed all weekend nor had she eaten all weekend, that she might be sick. I left for Texas a few days after I got home from Europe. Mom was really sick. She had diarrhea, fever and had not been able to keep any food in for a few days. I had called her doctor, got them to get her in, before I managed to get to Texas so they could start to treat her. Long and short of it - someone had authorized a change in her cholesterol medication, she had been taking it since April, and it had a really, really bad effect on her. She had elevated sugar levels, elevated bun and creatinine levels, blood pressure around 80...On the way to her house from the airport I stopped and got two whataburger juniors with japalenos. Mom had been trying to change the sheets on her bed since early in the morning - I arrived about 9:00 and she had not been able to get things in order. I'm glad I got there when I did. I was able to get her to the doctor another time, got her to eat, got the diarrhea under control - stayed for a week. I am worried that she won't realize, if she gets sick like this again, that she is as sick as she is! It scares me.

Then she had a problem with a tumor in her ear. The doctor took it out - had to remove skin from behind her ear because he took a huge hunk out of the inside of her ear. I was not there for that one. I should have been there. She had problems with bleeding, infections...all that shit.

Hurricane Ike was next - she lost power for a week. The day before she got her power back she manually opened the garage door so she could get her car out and she got her finger stuck - the middle finger on her right hand. Crushed it - fractured the entire end of her finger off - fortunately the skin was still intact or she would have severed her finger completely off. That also turned out to be a huge problem...extgreme pain, bleeding and infection! Her fingernail finally came off while she was here visiting - she was really willing to share it with everyone!

Mom has been here since November 23. It's challenging for me because she wants to be with me every second of the day. If she woke up before me she would come upstairs and sit in my office, reading yesterday's paper and watching CNN or MSNBC. As soon as she heard me coming down the stairs she was with me - in the kitchen, in the laundry room, walking the dog, anything I was doing she was doing it with me. Most of the time I don't mind but sometimes...It's really hard to constantly be taking direction for how to do things - specially when it's something you do all the time without direction. I got to go to yoga two days and got two walks in - each time I came home, she mentioned that she didnt' understand why it took me so long to do what I did and why I did it!!!!!! A couple of times she would sit in my office while I was trying to work - talking, asking questions, reading the newspaperout loud to me - there is absolutely no time for me to be alone, to be quiet and to think. I need that time.

She's on a plane back to Houston now. I feel guilty when I wish she wasn't here because I know that one day she won't be here. That's not a pleasant thought and as soon as I think it I push that thought out of my head. I enjoy what I can...ignore most of the stuff that bugs me.