Life has hit me hard and I really feel like I’m just now able to come up for air. The past three weeks have just been a slap in the face, punch to the gut, and a kick to the knees. While this doesn’t explain my absence maybe it will shed light on the chaos that fate has seemed to drop on my life recently.
Well I guess let’s start with the most recent thing that not even the SO knows about yet and that’s the discovery of a patch of water under the paint on the wall in the kitchen and the rug that was doused in some animal pee. That I discovered because my best friend FaceTimed me because he was having a health related issue and needed moral support. To which I get out of bed, leave the room (as to not disturb my sleeping SO) and shit the door behind me. I walk into the kitchen and step on the rug below the sink only to discover a puddle. This is a new rug so I’m beyond unhappy and now as I type this I have realized who it was. Dang it dog, I though we had worked though this. I BOUGHT A NEW DAMN RUG BECAUSE OF YOU! Anyway I proceed to take the rug to the laundry room when a weird bubble on the wall catches my eye and and I ask my best friend’s opinion on it and then spend the next 15/20 minutes lancing and drying out this bubble of water from I don’t know where so hopefully it doesn’t lead to mold and mildew problems. Once all of this is done I proceed to have a nice conversation with my best friend and end the evening.
From that we have the past week of my dog being in pain due to his innate ability to ignore me and rocket propel himself from heights and mess up his back. Sorry grandpa, no more leaping up for you for a while. When I finally figured out that it was most likely his back I began to panic and stress about if he was going to be okay, if I was going to loose my job because I’ve had to take off so much recently, and how we were going to afford all of this. Getting yelled at by my mother did absolutely nothing to help my anxiety in all of this (her only child that came to the hospital and yet she yells at me. Keep reading you’ll see what I’m talking about. ) Luckily I was able to take him to the vet and they said it wasn’t a rupture but just some bruising and due to his age we were going to medicate him for a few weeks while it heals. My dog is an older dachshund so I get a little overprotective of him. (I’ve had him longer than my entire relationship with my SO. )
Then there was the week before...
And that was one hell of a week. It started off fine, until midweek when my dad calls and tells me my mother is being transferred to a hospital that is in my area because she fell. I was too worried till he told me that they already had to call an ambulance to take her to to hospital in my hometown first.
The one thing about my parents and emergency care is: unless you are bleeding out, shot, dying, having a heart attack/stroke, or head injury you NEVER CALL THE AMBULANCE. EVER. They are expensive and money doesn’t grow on trees. This has been the mantra my ENTIRE life. So when dad says the word ambulance my stomach drops and I feel the blood drain from my face. He explains that they just left and that she hit her head and they found a bleed on her brain which is why they transferred her. We hang up, I text the SO telling them that we were going to the hospital after work and then immediately call my sister because she’s one of the few people that can talk me off a cliff (proverbial or otherwise). She gets me to calm the hell down and tells me to keep her updated. I should also mention she is a nurse in the hospital in our hometown so she had explained that it was better my mother was transferred due to resources and equipment.
We go to hospital and I tell the person at the desk who we are here for that this is my mother and the lady says “ She’s in trauma, they will call you and let you know what’s going on. Just take a seat and wait. “ My anxiety has just heightened to a new level because no one wants to hear that their mother is in trauma.
We are called back I shown where my mother is being kept and it’s one of the single most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. My mother barely covered to her chin with a white blanket, laying flat with all sorts of IVs and hospital I’d bracelets surrounded by machines and lights. I walk up to her as if I’ve seen a ghost and take her hand and say quietly “I’m here Mama.” To which she groggily replies, “Hey baby” and then “I want to go home” the latter repeated a few times through boughts of her squeezing my hand in pain. It’s at this point I start to lose it and I have to prop my forehead on the rail of the bed to cry so she doesn’t see me. I can’t let her see me cry right now, she needs me to keep it together. She never said this, but I know. It’s been my role for years. We proceed to sit with her for maybe another fifteen minutes before they kick us out of the bay due to another person coming in. We are sent back to the waiting room and proceed to sit there for the next two or three hours. My dad shows up shortly after we make it back to the waiting room. During the waiting my Dad tells me how this has all happened while I update my brother through text. My mother (in her stubbornness) was cleaning the gutters and fell from the ladder and hit head first on the ground and blacked out.
Then we are told she is doing better and being sent up to a room and we meet with her and ride up the big elevators. They proceed to tell us we have to wait some more while they set her up in her room and shoo us off towards yet another waiting room and after maybe 40 minutes of waiting dad decides to take matters into his own hands and go find her. A few minutes later he texts me and we go back too. Mom is more alert and we visit for a moment before the staff tell us she going to go back for more scans and my mother kicks the SO and I out telling us to go home. So we say our good byes and the wheel her off and Dad takes us to eat at a place across the street. At this point I have not eaten for over six hours and my body is both repelling food and craving food. Factor in the anxiety and it’s not a winning combo. We eat and chat and then go home.
The next day we go back and she’s much more alert and conscious. We talk and visit and she rests. My dad had to go back home for more clothes and the likes so we plan on staying till he gets back. During this the doc is wanting to do another test and Mom green lights it. We sit in another waiting room for about 45 minutes. My anxiety was high. It probably wouldn’t have been as high if my mother hadn’t said “tell your dad I love him” “tell your brother I love him” right before the test. It took all I had to not sob right then. My mother is not a sentimental creature so words like that carry much sway. The test goes great the doctor is thrilled and green lights her discharge for that night/next day depending on the trauma staff. When we get back we wait for a few hours till dad gets back and fill him in with the news and everything and mom shoos is off telling us to go home and that she will be fine. So we go home with dad on mom duty.
Next day I’m scheduled to go in later for work and my boss tells me to stay and be with my mom. Which I was immensely grateful for. We visit more and it follows the same pattern.
During all of this I’m eating little and taking potentially high doses of pepto, texting my small circle of friends/family about what’s going on and just generally trying to keep calm. My SO is a damn champ because I did lash out and they took it like boss. I still feel bad about it and I immediately apologized afterwards admitting my wrong.
My mother has been released and is home slowly getting her sense of normalcy back. She is absolutely forbidden to do the gutters and my brother and I are going to figure out a system. She thinks it won’t happen.
My brother never showed up at the hospital. (Yeah, this is what I was talking about and yes I do realize it’s fucked up. )
I shut down most of my emotions while my mother was in the hospital, they didn’t start to resurface until the night I called my parents about my dog. Which I finally got to sob over everything and proceeded to sob in the floor of my bathroom. I cried over my mother, my dog, the injustice of how my mother was treating me. Just all of it finally caught up with me.
I’m still not eating loads, but my stomach isn’t revolting against me anymore so that’s a plus.
Since all of this I’ve just been trying to take everything as it comes. I’m still not fully sure how to deal with the issue with my mother in the hospital and what I saw and felt there but I’m also not ready to unpack that baggage yet.
I’m going to leave this ar this point because really that’s where I am right now. Confused, jumbled, unsure, and exhausted.
Sometimes it’s just better to just be here.
