My niece IS Cosette from Les Miz! Awesome.So, my mom is STILL in the hospital. It's been 8 days, which is sort of unbelievable when you remember this is her second hospital stay for one "simple" procedure. Thankfully, my mom's best friend Barb is back in town from vacation. Barb is the sweetest woman alive and is eager to help. I can tell her presence makes my mom feel better.
My dad, however, is NOT doing well. They say people with Alzheimer's need routine to feel like they are in control, which makes sense. You wouldn't want to go shoving all sorts of surprises and changes-of-plan in their faces, because they get agitated. My dad is getting agitated. He's been at the hospital more than anyone else, alternately sleeping in the hospital chair and staying at his sister's house so he doesn't have to drive an hour home. This change in routine, coupled with my mom's state, is messing with his stability. He's frightened for her, and for himself, and he's been testy and unhelpful. My mom says he's gotten much more sarcastic over the past year, and I can definitely see it. Sometimes it's hard to have a straight conversation with him because he makes all these stupid sarcastic jokes. My mom rolls her eyes at him a lot lately.
He is not the best person to be in the liaison position. He can't remember what the doctors tell him about my mom's condition, so every time someone asks how she is he tells us how her general state is - "she had a really rough night," or "she's been nauseous all day"- instead of what we really need to know, like WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER? What did the doctor say? What about those tests they did? He couldn't tell ya.
So, my mom's sister's daughter, P (who looks exactly like my mom, weird) has stepped in, along with Barb. Now, Barb is so sweet and wonderful that I almost want to tell P that we've got it covered, she can go now, but that would be selfish and unwarranted. P is a CEO. She's really good at getting answers now. She played the patient advocate role when her father, brother, and (other) aunt were sick at the hospital, so this is nothing new for her. What bothers me? She's been a bit of a bitch to me. I swear it's not all in my head.* I think P believes I should be doing what she's doing. And you know what? She's probably right! This is my mother we're talking about, right? If it were Micah in the hospital, I would be ALL UP ON some answers, his health status, never leaving his side, everything. So why can't I do that for my own mother? I DON'T KNOW. The easy answer is that P, Barb, and my brother have been ALL UP ON IT and we have the answers we need. The hard answer? Does anyone really want to watch me try to work through that one? I didn't think so.
Barb decided to make up a schedule for a rotating cast of aides for my mom. The aides being her family and friends, the ones who can donate chunks of time, including overnight. The problem is the response time of the nurses and doctors is startlingly slow. If something is wrong, unless my mom screamed "I'm bleeding out of my fucking eyeballs!!!!" into the nurse intercom, no one shows up for fifteen minutes, sometimes 1/2 hour. They apologize and say the hospital is full and the nursing resources are thin. But that's just not good enough for my mom, the most popular and loved gal in among her set. So we all feel more comfortable, especially my mom, when there is someone there all the time to physically GO GET AN F'N NURSE if she needs something. Because on Sunday my mom had another episode of the same type and severity as what put her in the hospital in the first place, and it's just not acceptable that the nurses didn't come immediately.
Thursday is my night! If she's still in the hospital by then, I'm staying the night. I'll put on my jammies and bring a movie (my bro hooked Mom up with a DVD player today!) and my favorite pillow and settle down as well as I can into that fucking chair. The one that squeals and hisses when you move but lays completely flat. Shit, if my 63-year-old dad can sleep there, so can I.
*I swear her attitude HAS NOTHING to do with the one time I house-sat for her and her husband and they came home early and found their house decorated with beer cans and their Grand Cherokee NOT IN THE GARAGE. I mean, come on! That was, like, YEARS ago. She's been nice to me since then! And she has a REALLY messed up step-daughter! Cut a bitch some slack! WTF!
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