Mom Doesn't Like to be Helped (unless by her children)

Sometimes that's all a person wants. Peace. Today is one of those days.

The weekend nighttime caregiver turned out to be super nice. And I didn't notice if she was "morbidly obese" but I also don't care.

The medication seems to be having some side effects that are distressing to others. Mostly being up in the night talking to my father, long dead. During the daytime she asks the caregivers to call us, so all of us sisters talk to mom pretty often.

Middlesis was really upset about the side effects, and there was some unexplained body stiffness that was weird, and she really wanted to change the medication. Once my sister fixates on this, there is no talking her out of it, so I went along with it. But she doesn't want to be the one who talks to the doctor. But if she doesn't, she rags on the person who does her bidding if the result isn't what she wants. I am not playing that game any longer.

In order to get her to do her own dirty work, you have to coach her. Suddenly Thor has lost his hammer, or Samson his hair and she doesn't know how to make a phone call to a doctor or what to say. So many texts occur. 

The next day, the day of the phone call that she is so worked up about, that she has wound *us* up about, she gets a text from the caregivers that mom is just fine. She decides not to call the doctor. I am fucking livid. Whether it's mom's life insurance or mom running out of money or whether she thinks my brother should not get the extra cushion of cash he gets monthly that we do not, she drags us into her spiral of the moment and then gets over it, leaving us still spiraling. I fall for it every time.

In the middle of all of this I got a call from a hospice / palliative care company that I'm going to call "CozyDeath". CD was prescribed by our doctor, and I promise you that my mom is nowhere near the end. I love hospice, but she doesn't need it. I feel like CozyDeath offers fantastic services (we should all be treated so nicely) that are geared toward clients living and dying at home. I'm willing to check them out, but even that is layered with bureaucracy and spontaneous visits that need to be worked around.

Hospice is challenging. I am so impressed by what they all do, but they're bossy and call me with 15 minutes notice to tell me that they're dropping in on my mom who doesn't like to be dropped in on.

Now she's had some ativan, because she thinks the counselor and the nurse who dropped in are there to rob her. She called me, wanting to call the police.

Oy.