Curve Balls
My personal Grinch did apologize for ruining Christmas by hellishly yelling at the tv for 12 hours. He has groveled and someone has an apology gift of rather nice new earrings by a custom jeweler in town. Water under the bridge that has rushed to the shore and been subsumed in the vast aquatic expanse of the Pacific.
No, the horrible is almost unexplainable. My mother.
Mom seemed fine the few times I managed to catch her at home. She had Covid, but like Jim and I, only found out she had it on the back side while she was recovering. She got her gift, and we had several nice conversations.
I am always on tenterhooks calling her because I don't know what I'm going to get for sure, bad mom, good mom or something inbetween? She drinks pretty heavily and I've learned do not call after 1 pm!
Then my aunt called, the one only a few years older than I that was raised as my sister for a few years. Apparently my mother has lost her damn mind. My aunt had been telling me some rather concerning tales about mom since August. Every time I told my mother I wanted to visit and had dates in mind she did that thing she does best. My mother pretended I'd said nothing.
It's gotten much much worse, to the point where my mother's doctor is telling my aunt that she's not well, she's not capable and needs to be in assisted living care in a facility.
Oh hell, let's have that other cat now, we're going to need it!
Comfortable? Have the beverage of your choice? Good.
My mother has said for ages she's not going into a home. No, never, no matter what. She fears old age and death so much and hates being reminded she's not Miss Scarlett O'Hara of sweet 16.
This is going to be one hell of a fight to get her in assisted living. I've come up with a various of places and different things we can do, like get her a service like Home Instead with a aid or helper in the house. There are some truly luxurious places she can go too. She can come here and take up residency in our guesthouse. These are just a few. I think she in my guesthouse would drive me mad, but it's a sacrifice we are willing to make if needs be.
So the last week has been buying airline tickets, booking a condo, booking a rental car, etc, etc, etc world without end. Mentally gearing up for this clash of the estrogen titans about to take place. She does not know I'm coming. She does not know that my aunt and many others have been in contact with us. She knows nothing about any of this.
There have been many conversations around this in the past seven days. Sadly we've all concluded this is likely to be very unsuccessful. Even if it is another dangerous time starts. Detox - we might have to place her in a rehab to get clean from the alcohol and pills, and it's not a for sure thing either. Older people die when they try to give up a lifetime of bad habits.
If she refuses its likely going to go down like my father's most hateful sister who also refused. She had a car wreck, the cops realized pretty quickly she wasn't in her right mind and my aunt was placed in a locked senior mental ward. I pray that's not what happens, that she listens, and cooperates, but realistically I think this is how its going to go.
I'm not looking forward to this trip to South Louisiana where on a clear day you can smell the Exxon refinery forever. I get dreadfully sick with the asthma the second we land, I know it's the pollution. At least we're going in winter so that will hold it down a bit.
Was going to talk about having asthma out at the bar last night watching a band and the cluster you know what that spun into but no. Just know some little cretin lifted my box of Benadryl, most of the vials of Xopenex leaving me one, a prescription bottle of stuff I take when the asthma is bad that does not exist here, and a tiny bottle holding two teeny Ativan for the panic attack that accompanies that level of asthma. Ticos steal the strangest stuff. They left the portable nebulizer, the backup Albuterol inhaler and both of the Epipens. I guess I'll remember to lock the car now and put my emergency asthma meds bag under the car seat.
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