Sunday, March 16
Mar. 17th, 2025 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Getting some sleep.
My Sweetie making breakfast. He often does on the weekend.
We did chores, and went to see River, and I tried to still process feelings about Mom, but allowing that I still wanted to do my normal things as much as possible.
It was still fairly cold today, with an icy wind. I miss the more Spring-like weather we had a week or so ago.
River was a bit distracted, with concerns about what might be going on outside the arena, but he settled down.
He did well over all, and I didn't feel like being intense today. I just wanted to be with him, and to enjoy the physical movement and connection with him.
I did stand on him today, and he didn't try to walk off. I think that trying to stand with the umbrella is a no-go, and I don't want to lose his confidence with me standing on him over it.
I worked on our trot/canter collection, and he did well with that.
As we were finishing up, my brother T called. He is one of the family members who has power of attorney for Mom, and he has been with her a lot over the last couple of days since she broke her hip.
Mom was doing okay after the surgery yesterday and part of last night, probably because she was still pretty knocked out from the sedatives.
Today sounded horrible. She has dementia, so there's no explaining to her why she's in so much pain, or why she's on oxygen, or why she has an IV, and so on.
She's not taking any of her pills, and they can only give her pain medication via IV for so long.
She's upset, she's afraid, she's asking my family why they can't get her out of there, or out of her pain. They try to explain, but it doesn't sink in. She doesn't remember falling, she doesn't remember having surgery, she just WANTS OUT.
My brother sounded absolutely broken by this. He's a pretty gentle person, and it sounds like nothing that they try to do to keep Mom comfortable is working at this point.
No, the doctors aren't giving up, they'll keep trying to get the right medication into her, but this isn't going to be easy. They had to use gentle restraints to keep her from pulling out her IV and catheter and so on.
I did my best to assure my brother that he was doing a good job, and that I appreciated everything he was doing for Mom, even just being there, though that doesn't seem to be comforting her much with her dementia.
He doesn't feel like anyone should be visiting with Mom right now, as it just gets her more worked up, and no one is going to feel better for seeing her like this.
It might be better for Mom in a week or so, once the inflammation from surgery goes down, but that is going to be a LONG WEEK or so for everyone.
Then after we got home from the barn, I called Sister S, who is the other power of attorney for Mom, and who has also been with her a lot since she fell.
It was more or less the same conversation, and once again I did my best to assure my sister that I felt like she and Brother T were doing a good job of caring for her, and that I appreciated her efforts in keeping us all informed.
I asked her if she herself was getting enough help and support through this, as she has a lot of back problems, and hasn't been doing too well herself this winter. She said her partner K has been helping her, and she said she's looking into getting a "sitter" (available through the hospital, presumably a service covered as part of our healthcare system) to start helping with Mom, so that my sister and brother can get some rest.
I've been feeling really strange about all of this. It's not exactly worried, since there's nothing to be done, and though I would spare Mom suffering, I'm glad she got the surgery. I know that if she passes, she is at an age and stage in life where that is not "tragic", but a sad but inevitable loss.
Sister S said she was "really worried about me", and how I would be taking this, which I was a little surprised to hear. Yes, I have gotten very upset about other situations, like when Mom NEEDED to go to the care home but no one seemed to be doing anything about it. I was very worried at that time that Mom would fall and hurt herself, since she was living in her home alone.
I was also VERY UPSET about Trainwreck living in unspeakable squalor in her isolated trailer only a year or so ago. She's only in her early 60's, but her health/alcoholism put her in a category of high risk for dying out there alone if no one did something.
So, that's the thing. I am usually extremely upset in situations where something MUST be done, and no one is doing anything. Where you can see that someone is at high risk for death/injury, and no one seems to be ready to intervene.
With Mom's current situation, everything that CAN be done is already being done, so there's no sense of panic, just sort of a heavy, dull sense of...something. Not quite sadness because she's got some hope of healing, not quite worry because there's nothing to do, just...awareness of the situation? Feeling very tired and empathetic for my family, and for Mom's current suffering?
It's sort of a feeling of surrendering, as I cannot control this situation at all. It's not in my power to help her, or to comfort her, and I can't fight anything because there's nothing to fight. I'm trying to just feel what I feel, without struggling with any of it.
While I was talking with Sister S, my Sweetie made supper, and we watched a ho hum movie called "Unknown", a fairly generic thriller with Liam Neeson from a while ago.
Getting some sleep.
My Sweetie making breakfast. He often does on the weekend.
We did chores, and went to see River, and I tried to still process feelings about Mom, but allowing that I still wanted to do my normal things as much as possible.
It was still fairly cold today, with an icy wind. I miss the more Spring-like weather we had a week or so ago.
River was a bit distracted, with concerns about what might be going on outside the arena, but he settled down.
He did well over all, and I didn't feel like being intense today. I just wanted to be with him, and to enjoy the physical movement and connection with him.
I did stand on him today, and he didn't try to walk off. I think that trying to stand with the umbrella is a no-go, and I don't want to lose his confidence with me standing on him over it.
I worked on our trot/canter collection, and he did well with that.
As we were finishing up, my brother T called. He is one of the family members who has power of attorney for Mom, and he has been with her a lot over the last couple of days since she broke her hip.
Mom was doing okay after the surgery yesterday and part of last night, probably because she was still pretty knocked out from the sedatives.
Today sounded horrible. She has dementia, so there's no explaining to her why she's in so much pain, or why she's on oxygen, or why she has an IV, and so on.
She's not taking any of her pills, and they can only give her pain medication via IV for so long.
She's upset, she's afraid, she's asking my family why they can't get her out of there, or out of her pain. They try to explain, but it doesn't sink in. She doesn't remember falling, she doesn't remember having surgery, she just WANTS OUT.
My brother sounded absolutely broken by this. He's a pretty gentle person, and it sounds like nothing that they try to do to keep Mom comfortable is working at this point.
No, the doctors aren't giving up, they'll keep trying to get the right medication into her, but this isn't going to be easy. They had to use gentle restraints to keep her from pulling out her IV and catheter and so on.
I did my best to assure my brother that he was doing a good job, and that I appreciated everything he was doing for Mom, even just being there, though that doesn't seem to be comforting her much with her dementia.
He doesn't feel like anyone should be visiting with Mom right now, as it just gets her more worked up, and no one is going to feel better for seeing her like this.
It might be better for Mom in a week or so, once the inflammation from surgery goes down, but that is going to be a LONG WEEK or so for everyone.
Then after we got home from the barn, I called Sister S, who is the other power of attorney for Mom, and who has also been with her a lot since she fell.
It was more or less the same conversation, and once again I did my best to assure my sister that I felt like she and Brother T were doing a good job of caring for her, and that I appreciated her efforts in keeping us all informed.
I asked her if she herself was getting enough help and support through this, as she has a lot of back problems, and hasn't been doing too well herself this winter. She said her partner K has been helping her, and she said she's looking into getting a "sitter" (available through the hospital, presumably a service covered as part of our healthcare system) to start helping with Mom, so that my sister and brother can get some rest.
I've been feeling really strange about all of this. It's not exactly worried, since there's nothing to be done, and though I would spare Mom suffering, I'm glad she got the surgery. I know that if she passes, she is at an age and stage in life where that is not "tragic", but a sad but inevitable loss.
Sister S said she was "really worried about me", and how I would be taking this, which I was a little surprised to hear. Yes, I have gotten very upset about other situations, like when Mom NEEDED to go to the care home but no one seemed to be doing anything about it. I was very worried at that time that Mom would fall and hurt herself, since she was living in her home alone.
I was also VERY UPSET about Trainwreck living in unspeakable squalor in her isolated trailer only a year or so ago. She's only in her early 60's, but her health/alcoholism put her in a category of high risk for dying out there alone if no one did something.
So, that's the thing. I am usually extremely upset in situations where something MUST be done, and no one is doing anything. Where you can see that someone is at high risk for death/injury, and no one seems to be ready to intervene.
With Mom's current situation, everything that CAN be done is already being done, so there's no sense of panic, just sort of a heavy, dull sense of...something. Not quite sadness because she's got some hope of healing, not quite worry because there's nothing to do, just...awareness of the situation? Feeling very tired and empathetic for my family, and for Mom's current suffering?
It's sort of a feeling of surrendering, as I cannot control this situation at all. It's not in my power to help her, or to comfort her, and I can't fight anything because there's nothing to fight. I'm trying to just feel what I feel, without struggling with any of it.
While I was talking with Sister S, my Sweetie made supper, and we watched a ho hum movie called "Unknown", a fairly generic thriller with Liam Neeson from a while ago.
