Boiling The Frog

[I started this post two weeks ago, when it was all happening. It continues to unfold]

I often speak of boiling the frog -- frog (me) starts in a pan of cold water and as the temperature of the water (life events) rises, the frog adapts to the change in temperature until, at last, it boils to death.

Where are we in the analogy these days?

Pretty close to boiled. We're in year 6 of caring for Mom. Shelter-in-place. Caregivers working 7 days a week. Working from home. My kitten experiment didn't turn out well and we're bringing in behavior specialists. Mom crisis in the middle of last year that left me miserable and needing a therapist so I can deal with my sister.

It gets better. I write a philosophical email to my sister, telling her that our siblings are too frail to continue caregiving (as they have) once shelter-in-place is over. I ask whether it's right to sacrifice the happiness of our entire family for the benefit of one person (our mom). I worried for the caregivers who were spending all of their days and nights with Mom to do that long-term (we were only a month or so into shelter-in-place). And:

As much as I love her, I don’t want caring for Mom to be the last thing that happens before my siblings or I die this year, as Mom continues into her 93rd.

To which she replied that she had enough to deal with without my theoretical questions.

My theoretical questions were asked before my brother (two cancers and other health problems) had a car accident the other week and fractured his sternum, before our oldest sister started treatment for cervical adenocarcinoma and BEFORE OUR CAREGIVER'S HUSBAND DIED OF A HEART ATTACK YESTERDAY. She spent almost a year of nights with my mom in the last year of her husband's life. It's beyond sad.

I wanted to prevent some of this. I wanted to get a third caregiver so that the regular caregivers could get a break. I wanted Mom to move to memory care, where professional people can help her. None of this was possible because my sibling was unmovable. I now have a therapist specifically to help me deal with Mom and sister issues.

So yeah. I had to take my mom out of her community yesterday and bring her to live at my house for some period of time. It was the only thing I could do to help (since we don't have a third caregiver and our caregivers are mother and daughter). I told my job that I won't be in for a week or two. We had to rearrange the house quickly so Mom and the cats were safe. This suuuucks.

I checked our caregivers' church Facebook page. They are devastated. He was a lay minister and much beloved. There will be a large funeral of some sort.

Last night Mom was up five times in the middle of the night. I got up when the motion sensor woke me. Without her main caregiver she is lost. Mom was in the dark, looking for her keys.

We are all in the dark, looking for our keys.