Actually I got back Sunday night but yesterday was full of errands and mental/emotional processing. I still haven't accomplished the latter. My mother is still fighting for every sliver of life she feels entitled to. And she is entitled to every single one of them. They moved her to the nursing home Sunday for rehab so she can get her legs back and be able to go home again. I don't know if that is a reasonable goal or not but giving her a goal is what's important, in my opinion.
She had a steady stream of visitors the whole time we were there. My younger sister had a previous commitment and wasn't around much, aside from a hand-off at the hospital early Saturday morning. (Yes, early...sometimes I do get up before noon.) My aunt (Mom's baby sister) was there with my dad. Mom was up and alert and even walking to the bathroom with some assistance. It wasn't as emotionally painful as I thought it would be to see her but it was still hard. The entire weekend, however, was one of being on edge and walking on eggshells.
Daddy was uncommunicative, speaking in short answers and abrupt with me. We've always had a difficult relationship so it wasn't surprising, but still a bit painful. Okay a lot painful. When we left he finally spoke to me about Mom and was warm. I talked to him last night on the phone and he was full of conversation and affection. I know he's in pain right now; the woman he has been married to for 62 years is fading away. That has to hurt. Plus he has COPD and is in need of a caregiver himself from time to time, which he won't accept right now. He's pushing himself, taking care of Mom.
I handed off one pair of socks to my aunt and showed her the pink pair. She loves them. I told her about the shawl I was making my mother, which I now realize probably won't be done before she leaves us but Aunt J told me to make it a priority and not worry about the last sock. I still work on it when I'm reading or online because I don't have to think while knitting it, but I still want to finish up the sock. What is painful is to look at the sock yarn I bought for my mother's socks. I know I'll never knit those socks for her.
Mom had a box of yarn for me and was insistent that I pick them up while I was there so I went over to the house and got them. Inside the box was a pair of her winter socks, needing repair. I had told her to send them to me if they got holes as I still had the yarn and could re-knit the feet. I told her I got them and she said she'd like me to fix them for her. I had to fight back tears because I don't think I'll be able to finish them for her.
Today will be a day of mundane tasks and a monumental mountain of laundry. Right now I'm awake ahead of everyone else and battling an anxiety attack that woke me up much earlier. I'm almost back to breathing normally again. They have chosen to take it one day at a time, knowing that the infection that is raging inside her will eventually start causing a fever or that the cancer in her kidney will start causing her pain and then the dialysis will end and she'll slip into a coma and drift away from us. But today she's still alive. We don't worry about tomorrow.
She had a steady stream of visitors the whole time we were there. My younger sister had a previous commitment and wasn't around much, aside from a hand-off at the hospital early Saturday morning. (Yes, early...sometimes I do get up before noon.) My aunt (Mom's baby sister) was there with my dad. Mom was up and alert and even walking to the bathroom with some assistance. It wasn't as emotionally painful as I thought it would be to see her but it was still hard. The entire weekend, however, was one of being on edge and walking on eggshells.
Daddy was uncommunicative, speaking in short answers and abrupt with me. We've always had a difficult relationship so it wasn't surprising, but still a bit painful. Okay a lot painful. When we left he finally spoke to me about Mom and was warm. I talked to him last night on the phone and he was full of conversation and affection. I know he's in pain right now; the woman he has been married to for 62 years is fading away. That has to hurt. Plus he has COPD and is in need of a caregiver himself from time to time, which he won't accept right now. He's pushing himself, taking care of Mom.
I handed off one pair of socks to my aunt and showed her the pink pair. She loves them. I told her about the shawl I was making my mother, which I now realize probably won't be done before she leaves us but Aunt J told me to make it a priority and not worry about the last sock. I still work on it when I'm reading or online because I don't have to think while knitting it, but I still want to finish up the sock. What is painful is to look at the sock yarn I bought for my mother's socks. I know I'll never knit those socks for her.
Mom had a box of yarn for me and was insistent that I pick them up while I was there so I went over to the house and got them. Inside the box was a pair of her winter socks, needing repair. I had told her to send them to me if they got holes as I still had the yarn and could re-knit the feet. I told her I got them and she said she'd like me to fix them for her. I had to fight back tears because I don't think I'll be able to finish them for her.
Today will be a day of mundane tasks and a monumental mountain of laundry. Right now I'm awake ahead of everyone else and battling an anxiety attack that woke me up much earlier. I'm almost back to breathing normally again. They have chosen to take it one day at a time, knowing that the infection that is raging inside her will eventually start causing a fever or that the cancer in her kidney will start causing her pain and then the dialysis will end and she'll slip into a coma and drift away from us. But today she's still alive. We don't worry about tomorrow.
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