Today I did the obligatory phone calls across America with family. The hardest one was with my mom.
Last time my mom had surgery on her foot, Her doctor didn’t put her on prophylactic antibiotics. (Mom's had multiple bouts with infections in her feet due to poor microcirculation.) When her foot started “looking” a bit infected he still resisted. He wasted over a week and put her on an antibiotic without first culturing the foot. There are countless “Mistakes” my sister and I believe this doctor has made. So of course, we are thrilled to hear that his surgery schedule is too full and mom will need to go to someone else.
But my mom is being difficult. She doesn’t want to go to a different doctor. She likes her incompetent one. I find this so frustrating. Here she is a nurse, and she’s basing her decision on bedside manner instead of clininical skill. I’m not sure when It happened exactly, but my mom stopped acting like an adult in the past few years and now I am finding I have to play the role of parent.
Since I am already a parent to three, I’m not relishing this role!!!
To further complicate matters, My middle sister takes the Licensure exam in December at the same time my mom is probably going to have surgery or be recovering from the amputation. My mom thinks that my Dad, with his Alzheimer’s, will be able to take care of her. That he will be able to help her go to the bathroom, feed her, go to the grocery store, drug store, handle cleaning the house, etc. She isn’t being realistic.
So when I gently tried to discuss this with her today, so we could develop a plan, she went into full Martyr mode. Oh, we’ll be fine. You are blowing this out of proportion. It’s only a few weeks till your sister comes back.
When I pointed out to her that this was stressing my sister out at what is the most important test of her life, she still basically thought we were being ridiculous.
It’s very difficult to manage your parents on the other side of the country. I can’t just fly to Florida because there is no one to take care of my kids. So I offered to pay to have a cleaning service come in once a week and to pay for someone to come in and help out. No… she doesn’t want that – I’m being ridiculous and everything will be fine.
Well…at what point does one say “Too damn Bad Mom…this is the way it’s going to be?” Or at what point do I throw up my hands and say… “You’re an adult, it’s your life and go do whatever you want?”
I’m truthfully doing a lot of this simply because I don’t want my sister to be stressed out during this Important time. Is that awful to say? Is it awful to find it very easy to abandon my parents and simply “not deal” but not so easy to do that to my sister?
And I’m resentful as well. Resentful of the fact that my mom can’t see that decisions she is making or not, are effecting the rest of us. She’s not communicating. She’s not setting expectations. Part of her doesn’t want any help, and then she resents when people don’t step up to help proactively. We are all supposed to fight through her dysfunction.
Oh my God, we sound so dysfunctional don’t we?
My mom takes care of her mom after the death of my grandfather. She sleeps there every night and does her grocery shopping and helps meet her general needs. Well… my mom really isn’t signing up to find her “replacement” while she’s sick. Although she says it’s “covered” she’s not communicating how. Who’s going to take care of grandma? Mom thinks her brother and sister should come down but has yet to pick up the phone and call them. She needs them to help set Grandma’s expectations about the cost of “hiring help” but hasn’t talked to them. She would like them to come down and help, but yet she doesn’t communicate what’s happening unless she has “certainties” and so because she doesn’t have a surgery date, she doesn’t tell them anything but will be MAD when they don’t drop everything and come down with no notice. I tried to explain to her that people need 14 days notice to be able to get cheaper airfares and her response was “I do this all the time, they should understand this is surgery and I have no control”. Ok … fine. But communicate with them.
I hate managing family stuff. My other sister is taking her vacation time and going to take care of my mom the week following her surgery. They have big money issues… my mom didn’t offer to pay her ticket. That really bugs me too. Why wouldn’t she do that?
I don’t like the person my mom is evolving into as she ages. And then the other part of me wonders if I am just not being patient enough and all this is bothering me just because I am trying to distance myself from the pain.
Last time my mom had surgery on her foot, Her doctor didn’t put her on prophylactic antibiotics. (Mom's had multiple bouts with infections in her feet due to poor microcirculation.) When her foot started “looking” a bit infected he still resisted. He wasted over a week and put her on an antibiotic without first culturing the foot. There are countless “Mistakes” my sister and I believe this doctor has made. So of course, we are thrilled to hear that his surgery schedule is too full and mom will need to go to someone else.
But my mom is being difficult. She doesn’t want to go to a different doctor. She likes her incompetent one. I find this so frustrating. Here she is a nurse, and she’s basing her decision on bedside manner instead of clininical skill. I’m not sure when It happened exactly, but my mom stopped acting like an adult in the past few years and now I am finding I have to play the role of parent.
Since I am already a parent to three, I’m not relishing this role!!!
To further complicate matters, My middle sister takes the Licensure exam in December at the same time my mom is probably going to have surgery or be recovering from the amputation. My mom thinks that my Dad, with his Alzheimer’s, will be able to take care of her. That he will be able to help her go to the bathroom, feed her, go to the grocery store, drug store, handle cleaning the house, etc. She isn’t being realistic.
So when I gently tried to discuss this with her today, so we could develop a plan, she went into full Martyr mode. Oh, we’ll be fine. You are blowing this out of proportion. It’s only a few weeks till your sister comes back.
When I pointed out to her that this was stressing my sister out at what is the most important test of her life, she still basically thought we were being ridiculous.
It’s very difficult to manage your parents on the other side of the country. I can’t just fly to Florida because there is no one to take care of my kids. So I offered to pay to have a cleaning service come in once a week and to pay for someone to come in and help out. No… she doesn’t want that – I’m being ridiculous and everything will be fine.
Well…at what point does one say “Too damn Bad Mom…this is the way it’s going to be?” Or at what point do I throw up my hands and say… “You’re an adult, it’s your life and go do whatever you want?”
I’m truthfully doing a lot of this simply because I don’t want my sister to be stressed out during this Important time. Is that awful to say? Is it awful to find it very easy to abandon my parents and simply “not deal” but not so easy to do that to my sister?
And I’m resentful as well. Resentful of the fact that my mom can’t see that decisions she is making or not, are effecting the rest of us. She’s not communicating. She’s not setting expectations. Part of her doesn’t want any help, and then she resents when people don’t step up to help proactively. We are all supposed to fight through her dysfunction.
Oh my God, we sound so dysfunctional don’t we?
My mom takes care of her mom after the death of my grandfather. She sleeps there every night and does her grocery shopping and helps meet her general needs. Well… my mom really isn’t signing up to find her “replacement” while she’s sick. Although she says it’s “covered” she’s not communicating how. Who’s going to take care of grandma? Mom thinks her brother and sister should come down but has yet to pick up the phone and call them. She needs them to help set Grandma’s expectations about the cost of “hiring help” but hasn’t talked to them. She would like them to come down and help, but yet she doesn’t communicate what’s happening unless she has “certainties” and so because she doesn’t have a surgery date, she doesn’t tell them anything but will be MAD when they don’t drop everything and come down with no notice. I tried to explain to her that people need 14 days notice to be able to get cheaper airfares and her response was “I do this all the time, they should understand this is surgery and I have no control”. Ok … fine. But communicate with them.
I hate managing family stuff. My other sister is taking her vacation time and going to take care of my mom the week following her surgery. They have big money issues… my mom didn’t offer to pay her ticket. That really bugs me too. Why wouldn’t she do that?
I don’t like the person my mom is evolving into as she ages. And then the other part of me wonders if I am just not being patient enough and all this is bothering me just because I am trying to distance myself from the pain.
