starting with the postscript because the main post is whiny

p.s. I got a lot of bruises and scrapes trying to squeeze around the wheelchair to help her. And a lot of sore muscles, tired tendons, etc (can’t think of an alliteration for ligament) in my arms and back. The weirdest was this random feeling like a scab was tearing, which I assumed was some freaky torn ligament around my legt scapula. Today I finally took a pic in the mirror.

Bestie thinks maybe alien abduction, which honestly makes as much sense as anything. No take-backs if they harvested a lung (the only organ I feel like they could get to from here). Right now my lungs are just bags of pollen. Enjoy the yellow powder, ETs. No, you will never get rid of it. Pollen is worse than glitter.

Here ends the postscript. Read the main body if you choose (and want to know who was in a wheelchair and why), but you are under no obligation.

My mom fell and broke herself again. She broke her humerus up near the shoulder. She couldn’t figure out how to call for help or get up from the kitchen floor, so she just lay there for about five hours until I got there. We spent most of the night in the ER while they did I think about every image and blood test they had. We were in the hallway because all of the trauma rooms were full with seriously serious injuries. Then I spent the next week off work, living in her guest room. Because even tho she broke her arm, she couldn’t (wouldn’t) stand on her own. She insisted her leg was broken. She insisted her back was broken for a couple of days. She absolutely would not believe me when I said she was understandably very very sore but she had just the one broken bone. She also said I was wrong the day she got very dizzy moving from the toilet to the wheelchair. I said it was middle of the afternoon and she’d only eaten half of a piece of toast while taking her AM meds which mostly have to be taken with food. She demanded I call an in-home care company she’s used in the past for OT. Nurse Mike said the dizziness could have several origins and the easiest one to fix was food. After much negotiation she finally agreed to eat some leftover chicken broccoli alfredo. (I didn’t point out her lactose issue because often it’s only an issue if she’s thinking about it.) That was a long day. They were all long days. I sympathized with her pain, her fesr of falling again — until she insisted no one knew how much pain she was in, no on knew how scary it was. A week of that. Eight days of drama and self-pity piled on more drama. I finally snapped and told her she was certainly allowed to be scared, to hurt, and it all sucked, but she absolutely could not deny everyone else in the family having painful accidents and scary medical issues. And pretty much stopped talking to her.

And her cat died. I don’t think she ever stopped feeling sorry for herself long enough to process that Coraline is gone.

All of this happened while my brother’s family was on vacation. On a cruise. In Hawaii. I tried to not bother him every day other than she’s fine but whiny basic updates. Mom messaged him constantly. So the last week of what should have been an amazing trip must have been absolute shit for them.

Moving mom almost next door to my brother was supposed to help with the falling and waiting hours for someone to help. It was supposed to let her keep her independence as long as possible. But now I’m afraid we need to discuss a nursing home. And even though she spent those eight days telling me how inadequate I was and how unsafe it was for her in her home, now she’s able to go to the bathroom without someone helping her in and out of the wheelchair and pulling her pants up, well now she doesn’t want a nursing home. And I’m afraid she will decline mentally and physically very quickly in one.

So beware the aging parent trap.