Life has a funny way of repeating its lessons. I don’t talk about the day in day out struggle of taking care of Mom mostly because of the lack of time. And partly because she is so changeable – from one day to the next, I don’t know who I am dealing with.
I think that is the hardest part of elder care. I have told many I have come in contact with that I would almost rather deal with a hormonal teenager than my dear demented mother in law.
So much of the story of the past 5 years has been left out but I will begin to try to tell it, if only for you, dear reader. Maybe it will help you with your own struggles with mom or dad.
I’ll pick up the last few months for now to bring you up to speed. Mom (remember she is my mother in law but Mom is just easier to say) had to go to the ER at the first part of February. She had had a runny diarrhea for days, a fever, acted confused, was vomiting for hours and had bad stomach pains so against her wishes, we called “the guys” (paramedics) to come take a look at her. Yup, something was not right so off to the ER.
Mom was very sick. She had been vomiting for hours and at the ER they almost pumped her stomach to stop the process as she was getting so weak. The fear was that she would aspirate her vomit and that would be deadly. Thankfully for her sake, she stopped long enough to just leave her be.
It turned out after all the testing that she had a partial bowel obstruction hence the vomiting . The contents of her last few vomits were stool like… AND an advanced UTI which explains the confusion the last few days prior to the ER visit. Don’t ask me why I didn’t see the symptoms of UTI as I had seen them twice before. I just didn’t.
Anyway, she was very upset that she had to be admitted to the hospital and yet there was no choice. She needed to be on at least two antibiotics on IV and she was raging with the fever and the confusion caused by the UTI.
She did stay at the hospital for 6 days till the concern over the bowel obstruction had cleared. The doctor told me she would leave the hospital the next day so I came prepared to take her home. When I got there, he took me and husband aside and basically told us, get on with your own life. Your Mom is taking away from precious time with your family life. It’s time to have her cared for at a rehab/long term care facility.
After years of hoping to never be institutionalized, now came time to face facts. She was too sick to stay at home anymore. After years of caring for her at home, I had to tell her no. This “no” seemed to kill her and a bit of me died too.
Sadness and relief came at the same time. And guilt. Even though I never promised to care for her no matter what, Mom assumed I would. I finally had to tell her she was too ill for me to take care of her at home. My family was suffering for all the time I was spending with her. And telling Mom ‘No” has been the best, hardest decision I have ever had to make.