This morning, I had a meeting with the nursing home staff. It didn’t go great. Then it got worse. Fuck me.
I met with Kamal, whose title eludes me. He did the “intake” interview. Here’s how it went down.
We met in the lobby then went to his office. He asked if my mom wanted to be part of the discussion and I said no. You know why? Read this, this, and this.
(She says “NO!” to everything now. “Hey Mom, you want ice cream?” “No!” Cut off nose to spite face, you belligerent dummy. But I digress.)
She’d have just acted the way she eventually acted later on in the 10 o’clock hour (more below).
Kamal asked me a bunch of questions, then Casey came in. He’s my mom’s OT. He’s a “tough love” kind of therapist. He rubs my mom the wrong way. But then again, who doesn’t nowadays? Me included.
He proceeded to tell Kamal that my mom said–numerous times–that she wanted to kill herself. Yay. Now I have to deal with that…
Fuck.
(Maybe this blog should be called “F-bombs from me”.)
Then I met with “Set” or “Sat”. Yeah, I’m serious. We actually had an okay discussion. All background stuff, really.
And then it happened. I made the mistake of dropping by my mom’s room.
Of course, Casey was doing his tough love thing and trying to get her to eat breakfast. Mom says:
“I’m going to throw up!”
Why, Mom?
“This food didn’t go down well.”
What was it – the oatmeal?
“No, it was a piece of bread.”
Um, okay. You’re not going to throw up. Where’s your Boost?
Oh, they didn’t bring it to you? How fucking hard is it to follow fucking directions? I told them, on DAY FUCKING ONE, “Give her a Boost with every meal. It’s the only thing she’ll eat.”
EVERY GODDAMN MEAL I’ve been with my mom for–guess what, no fucking BOOST.
I’m about to boost one of these up somebody’s ass. Not really. I don’t care any more. Here’s why:
So Mom proceeds to tell me that she won’t drink the one I brought her. I tell her, “You have to eat and you have to do the therapy if you want to go home.”
“Get out!” she says. “And don’t come back.”
Now, I’m thinking, hey, she has zero short-term memory and she won’t remember this in 10-15 minutes. So I leave. I talk to the head nurse. It’s all the same bullshit, the same story I’ve told a 100x now. Mom says she just wants to die. But I can’t send her home in good conscience yet. I want the anti-depressant to kick in. The doctors at John Muir said it would take about a month to make any noticeable changes.
It’s been about 7 days. So we’re far from seeing any real results. Just give it time…give it time.
I see Casey wheel my mom past me, out to the patio. Hey, 10 minutes has elapsed. I can go try again.
Mom, Casey, and Tina are out there trying to get her to finish her Boost and do some very light therapy (not photon-light but easy-light).
She’s bitching again about how she just wants to go to sleep and die. She doesn’t want to live. She doesn’t want to do anything.
“Mom, can you do this for me?”
“You don’t care about me,” she says.
“I’m here every day. Why would I come here if I didn’t care about you. I care about you and I love you,” I said. And now I have witnesses. MUAHHAHAHA.
“Do this for me,” I say.
“I won’t,” she says.
Gee, thanks Mom.
I told the therapists to stop, put her back in bed, and I’d have to find another place for her to go. They can’t help her here because she doesn’t want help.
She then told me to leave again and not ever to come back.
I might just take her up on that.
What the hell is this???? Lol
Thats exactly how mine and my Moms visit went. We don’t love her, we don’t care if she lives or dies. They told me when she says shes gonna kill herself they need to take it seriously and send to to a mental facility. WHAT! I said.
That’s what’s going to happen to her. She’s closing off on even me and I am tired of it.
Oh man does this sound familiar. If it isn’t your mom it’s the medical staff. Try to not let it get to you. After a while, I had to look for the lesson or humor so it didn’t get me down.. Now with my dad I’m finding it has effected my entire family which really isn’t fun.
Yeah, my a-fib has been creeping its head back around the corner. I really don’t want to encounter that again. I need a swift resolution to the uncertainty. I can handle most things, but her attitude towards doing the things she needs to do to get what she says she wants is something I’m having immense difficulty coping with.
I also need to stop starting every sentence with “I”. 🙂
Bill, I may have missed this but which facility is your mother in? If you don’t mind me asking.
Kindred in Livermore.
This is the part where you basically wait to see what the “new normal” is.
She’s scared shitless, mostly of stuff that can’t happen.
But her brain already failed her.
She’s not sure every time who everyone is.
Everyone wants her to DO something- and she already knows she’ll do it wrong.
That may or may not be true in real life.
But she already thinks it is.
The hardest part for me was to realize I CANNOT fix this- I cannot help her not be scared- I can’t do anything but recognize the debt by my presence.
And that’s what I did, for many years.
She once got on the phone and claimed we were “selling her to black men for sex”.
Fortunately, I was a local boy, and the cops who responded were people i knew.
After a year and a half, we put her in a nursing home. She had decided she wasn’t going to get out of bed for something as ephemeral as a bathroom trip. Too far.
Her body lived for many years after that.
The woman we had known and loved left a lot sooner.
We’ll hope the meds help.
But it’s NOT your fault, And for us problem-solver types, an insoluble problem that affects those we care about is the worst.
Strength to you, bro.
edit: the woman I went thru this with was my mother-in-law.
Hagar – I really appreciate what you said. I’m beginning to realize that what you said is very much true for me and my mom, too. Thank you for commenting. It means a lot to me.