Monday, January 16
Jan. 17th, 2023 02:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Very moderate temperatures still.
Today was not an easy day. I woke up about two hours early, after a night of interruptions and me and my husband taking turns getting up to go to the bathroom. I woke up tired and in the wrong place in my sleep cycle, feeling disoriented.
I had been dreaming about a period in my Mom's life. It was metaphorical in the dream, but I recognized it. It was when I was living in Wyoming, and my Mom and my brother were trying to figure out how they were going to transfer the farm to him and his new wife. Mom could not afford to buy a house in town, and was trying to stay on the farm alone while my brother and his wife were living in town and driving out to look after the farm.
She was not driving anymore, almost never left the farm, was alone almost all the time, was suffering from what was later diagnosed as gall stones (her doctor said it was indigestion for two years, even though it was damn near killing her with the pain), and cataracts (so she wasn't even reading books for entertainment).
She was nearly bankrupt, but no one knew. Mad Cow disease had made cows almost worthless.
It was literally ME coming home to visit and actually just seeing what was going on to uncover much of what was happening to her. I chewed my brother a new ass for not noticing that she was buying almost no groceries, and not having money for her medication. My brother never noticed.
Because of my visit, he finally sat down with her to talk about her finances, which they did sort out, but he was SUPPOSED TO BE HER BUSINESS PARTNER. He should have recognized that if the cows were worthless that she would have NO INCOME.
It was soon after I told my sister Susan how Mom did nothing but sit in her chair all day with her eyes closed that they finally took her to a specialist who immediately took out her gall bladder, and not that long after got eye surgery.
That trip home haunts me. Mainly because no one in my family seemed to be paying any attention to her, and my Mom didn't feel like she was safe to ask for help.
So that's how my day started, thinking about all of that.
The contractor stopped by to show us some wood he thought would work for the interior window frames, and was not really in a place to be chatty with him. My husband did most of the talking, and after I got the details, I just walked away. Partly because if you let him, the contractor just yaps and yaps about how hard it was for him to find the wood, or how hard something else was, because he wants you to know how hard he's working all the time, and I find it tedious.
Well, then it was time for my husband to leave for his job, and that was the icing on the cake. No, it is not his fault that I get to be alone for ten days again (that is usually his schedule, four days at home, ten days at work). I hate being alone so much, and on a day like today when I feel like crap, I get to be alone.
So, there was my day.
I tried to nap, but that didn't work. I had a bath. I painted for a while.
I'll live, but days like today just hurt.
I learned that ping pong balls were first made of cork, then celluloid, and finally plastic.
https://pingpongruler.com/what-are-ping-pong-balls-made-of/
Very moderate temperatures still.
Today was not an easy day. I woke up about two hours early, after a night of interruptions and me and my husband taking turns getting up to go to the bathroom. I woke up tired and in the wrong place in my sleep cycle, feeling disoriented.
I had been dreaming about a period in my Mom's life. It was metaphorical in the dream, but I recognized it. It was when I was living in Wyoming, and my Mom and my brother were trying to figure out how they were going to transfer the farm to him and his new wife. Mom could not afford to buy a house in town, and was trying to stay on the farm alone while my brother and his wife were living in town and driving out to look after the farm.
She was not driving anymore, almost never left the farm, was alone almost all the time, was suffering from what was later diagnosed as gall stones (her doctor said it was indigestion for two years, even though it was damn near killing her with the pain), and cataracts (so she wasn't even reading books for entertainment).
She was nearly bankrupt, but no one knew. Mad Cow disease had made cows almost worthless.
It was literally ME coming home to visit and actually just seeing what was going on to uncover much of what was happening to her. I chewed my brother a new ass for not noticing that she was buying almost no groceries, and not having money for her medication. My brother never noticed.
Because of my visit, he finally sat down with her to talk about her finances, which they did sort out, but he was SUPPOSED TO BE HER BUSINESS PARTNER. He should have recognized that if the cows were worthless that she would have NO INCOME.
It was soon after I told my sister Susan how Mom did nothing but sit in her chair all day with her eyes closed that they finally took her to a specialist who immediately took out her gall bladder, and not that long after got eye surgery.
That trip home haunts me. Mainly because no one in my family seemed to be paying any attention to her, and my Mom didn't feel like she was safe to ask for help.
So that's how my day started, thinking about all of that.
The contractor stopped by to show us some wood he thought would work for the interior window frames, and was not really in a place to be chatty with him. My husband did most of the talking, and after I got the details, I just walked away. Partly because if you let him, the contractor just yaps and yaps about how hard it was for him to find the wood, or how hard something else was, because he wants you to know how hard he's working all the time, and I find it tedious.
Well, then it was time for my husband to leave for his job, and that was the icing on the cake. No, it is not his fault that I get to be alone for ten days again (that is usually his schedule, four days at home, ten days at work). I hate being alone so much, and on a day like today when I feel like crap, I get to be alone.
So, there was my day.
I tried to nap, but that didn't work. I had a bath. I painted for a while.
I'll live, but days like today just hurt.
I learned that ping pong balls were first made of cork, then celluloid, and finally plastic.
https://pingpongruler.com/what-are-ping-pong-balls-made-of/
no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 10:51 pm (UTC)Here's the thing. When we were growing up, Mom was always very strong and stoic. She never talked about her feelings, ever. She didn't talk about money problems, nothing. She had to be like this, especially after Dad died and she ran the farm and looked after us. She could never show weakness.
So, as she got older, that just kept being her way of dealing with things, and for the most part my family didn't want to "interfere".
She should have asked to see another doctor, when her family doctor just kept saying her pain was just a bit of acid reflux (and it turned out to be gall stones). That ongoing acid reflux could have destroyed her esophagus. Instead, Mom just kept sitting in her chair with her eyes closed, accepting her pain, and "not wanting to bother the kids" by getting them to take her to see a specialist.
Of course, "the kids" should have insisted that she do more, but as you well know, it can be so easy just to tell themselves that it isn't their job to do that. Everyone was just so willing to let her sit there, because no one ever stayed with her for more than a few minutes to see that over the course of a day, she would spend most of it sitting in her chair in pain.
I think a lot of people just don't want to see bad things. They don't want to see that someone is sick, or dying, or in pain. They want to believe that they are fine, so that's what they see.
I see the bad things, because I would rather be ready to help make it better, or to accept what is happening.
It was me who saw how bad things were for my sister N, and paid to have her washer and dryer brought upstairs and have the plumbing and electrical moved so that she didn't have to go downstairs any more. Even as she herself was saying it wasn't necessary (and the moment it was done, realized how helpful it was). Her own adult children didn't do anything or see what was happening to her. Just me.
It was me who yelled at my sister S and my brother that Mom needed to be moved to a care home NOW, and they muttered about how they were thinking about it. Then as I was driving back home she fell and cracked her pelvis and they finally admitted that it was time.
Part of the problem is my family's culture of not asking for help and pretending to be fine. The other half of the problem is that...well... my family does almost nothing to help each other.