| Mom and 6-month-old me (July 1953) |
| Mom (right) and me wearing identical blouses (May 1993) |
Headache all night and all day today so far. It's 4:11pm.
The stove went out sometime after I hit the hay last night, later than I wanted due to an unanticipated chat with my sister on FB. I shouldn't have checked for messages there before shutting down my laptop but I did. She had left me a message about our dad now being out of the rehab facility and back in his home, where he needs someone to be there 24/7. He's been home a week and she has been staying with him, with her oldest daughter A staying while my sister is at work. Sis was complaining about the lack of help from my brother. She has a lot of nerve.
Well, the hard feelings over my mother's will brought that about, since Sis got the bulk of the money and Bro got shafted with only a tiny percentage. His daughter M got a significant amount; M and Sis are the ones who brought about my mother's untimely death and caused her to receive very inadequate care during her last year of life. M worked for home hospice at the time and wanted Mom on it so that she would get paid to help take care of her. Mom did not want hospice care; she had made that clear for years*. M told Sis that all Mom's medicine would be free via hospice--a lie!**--which Sis fell for. Sis was against paying for anything, as if it would come from her own pocket. I guess in a way it would, since she finagled things to get the bulk of Mom's estate.
When I talked to Mom before she was put on hospice care for her Parkinson's, we discussed what that would mean--that she would not receive treatment to help her, just medicine to make her "comfortable". That it was a death sentence. She sadly said that she didn't want to hurt M's feelings, after M got wind of our conversation and came flouncing into Mom's room at the nursing home (where M works!) Mom had gone to after release from the hospital after treatment for sepsis***. M flounced in, yelling at me and my daughter D, showing her ass and saying "I'm doing the best that I can!" and then flounced out. Since Sis was my parents' legal representative she had control and used it selfishly, signing the hospice contract as Mom's legal representative. I still do not believe that Sis had a right to use her power of attorney when Mom was in her right mind, just couldn't walk any longer. But she did. And Mom didn't want trouble, so didn't want me to fight it.
*Mom's sister was starved to death via hospice years ago after having suffered a stroke and ever since then Mom (and I) have been against hospice care unless in horrible pain from terminal cancer. Mom didn't realize that hospice had removed her sister's feeding tube until it was too late; I didn't know until after she died. When I had visited my aunt I had held her hand and told her that when she got out of the nursing home (post-hospital) I would make her a big Thanksgiving meal and she squeezed my hand and smiled. She loved to eat. Her daughter had her power of attorney and had decided to go with hospice because it was more convenient for her, the daughter. Mom and I were horrified and traumatized by this experience, knowing that her sister wanted to live and was counting on recovering from the stroke.
**Free is a lie because hospice receives all of the patient's Medicare benefits. The patient cannot have any non-hospice-approved tests or treatments or office/hospital visits done unless they pay out-of-pocket. So hospice is making a lot of money and, the hospice Mom was forced into at least, tries to spend as little as possible on the patient.
***Mom's sepsis put her in the hospital in the Spring before she died (late October). She had had a urinary tract infection that went undiscovered and untreated until she developed sepsis and had to be hospitalized. I was visiting D and the babies at the time and we all quickly got ready and made the trip to see Mom, having heard that she might not live. We stayed a week with Bro. During that week Mom was transferred to M's nursing home, where D and I visited her and discussed the topic of hospice care that M had brought up to Mom's doctor in the hospital. When I talked to her doctor he was surprised, saying that he didn't think Mom was a candidate for hospice. She wasn't terminal. But M told Sis that I was lying about what the doctor said and Sis believed her. M went ahead and made the arrangements and Sis signed the contract.
Mom told me, after she had been put under hospice care by M and Sis, that they had told her not only that all her medicines would be "free", but that it was the only way she would get any doctor's care or prescriptions because they would not take her to her doctors any longer. They said that she was too heavy for them to get into their van or a car, so it was hospice or nothing. Mom had to resign herself to this. I had looked into using a bus designed to pick up patients in wheelchairs and transport them places but both M and Sis said it was out of the question because Mom would have to have someone go with her and they were "too busy". Every alternative I came up with they shot down. They clearly wanted her stuck at home and in bed all day for their own convenience--and for M's extra income.
I will never forget or forgive how badly Sis treated me when I tried to help Mom, and how she accused me of stealing from Mom, and how she and M and A all pitched a fit in front of Mom when I tried to arrange to get Mom out of bed daily via use of a special sling lift I had access to for a mere $50. It could be operated by one person but was best with two. They would not hear of it. They said that there were never two people at Mom's at the same time, as they all three stood there, thus proving they were lying. A yelled at me, in front of Mom (her grandmother!) that if I brought in the lift I would have to stay to operate it "until she died!" M said that Mom would be too scared to use the sling lift to get into her wheelchair. Sis said that all Mom did when she sat up in the living room was just sit there--so why bother? Mom wanted so much to get out of the bedroom, to sit up and be in the living room for part of the day. But M, A, and Sis were adamant that this would not happen. They didn't care about her quality of life, just their own convenience and their determination to thwart my efforts to help Mom. They also were content to let Mom lie until she developed horrible bedsores, with the incompetent hospice nurse and M (a nurse!) denying that there were any bedsores until I looked and pointed them out to Sis, who at least had the decency to be horrified.
In addition, they were content to make Mom lie there without being about to hear due to faulty hearing aids. No one cared enough to see to it that she got new ones. I tried to arrange for new ones and even had a hearing aid specialist come to test Mom's hearing and get his recommendation. You would have thought that I was asking Sis, M, and A to fork out the money from their own pockets, when my parents had enough money in savings to have bought the hearing aids with no problem. They made poor Mom feel like a physical and financial burden the whole time I was there, which was altogether a period of a few months. I'm weeping at the thought of the things they said to her and about her in front of her, during times when her hearing aids did work somewhat. It was appalling. Regarding the new hearing aid possibility, Sis had yelled in Mom's ear about how expensive they would be ($3000 for a pair) so that Mom felt guilty asking for them. I told Mom that she had enough money for them; she said she would leave it up to my dad. He said no. Selfish bastard. I told him that if it were him who couldn't hear he would have new hearing aids pronto. I said this in front of the hearing aid guy, who looked on in sympathy with me, also appalled by what he witnessed.
My dad, the selfish bastard, did nothing to improve Mom's quality of life unless it was free or convenient for him. So no working hearing aids for her. No allowing her to play the music CDs in the bedroom that she asked me to play for her; when I hooked up the player and started playing one, pleasing her, he came in and said to turn it off--he wanted to hear his Fox News Channel. Which blared all day and evening the whole time I was there. It was hell. The only good thing I saw was on Friday nights when he turned the channel to one with a gospel program and then a polka dance program that they both liked to watch. Mom was happy then, with him beside her. She often asked me to ask him to come and lie down beside her at other times but he rarely did, preferring to sit in the living room and watch Fox News spew its hateful propaganda. In fact, he took over the lift chair that had been bought for Mom before she was forced to stay in bed because no one would help get her up. With her Parkinson's, Mom could not get up from a chair or sofa without help. The lift chair took care of this, helping her stand so that she could grasp her walker or ease into her wheelchair. Well, my dad sat in the lift chair and claimed it for his own. Mom had to sit on the sofa, unable to pull herself up and no one else there willing to help her to the sofa because they didn't want to deal with the hassle for themselves.
When Mom needed reading glasses to see to read the newspaper my dad did get her a pair, but they were the wrong strength and she couldn't use them; the ones he had were the right strength for her but she rarely got to use them, even though he only used them to read the newspaper. Which he had to read first. When I learned that she needed reading glasses and that his were the right strength for her, I noted the # and my son, who had come to see his grandmother, and I went out to buy her a pair. My son picked out a very fashionable pair and insisted on buying them himself. Mom was so proud of them. I took a photo of her wearing them and showed her. She said "I look like a smart person!" I told her that she was a smart person!
| Mom: "I look like a smart person!" |
The incompetent hospice nurse assigned to Mom killed her before her time. Mom had been doing much better; I was staying there, working on improving her quality of life as much as I could. I made her coffee each morning, which she had not had for many months--the others didn't drink coffee and didn't think about making any for her. She was so grateful. I paid to get her hair permed while she was in the nursing home but M told her the perm was "free from the nursing home"--a big fat lie. When Mom told me that she had a free perm I told her that I had paid for it, had handed M the money for it. She said "I guess nothing's free." I agreed. Anyway, while I stayed with her in her home i fixed her hair every day. The perm had grown out a bit but I bought some velcro hair rollers and rolled her hair. I made the hospice-hired woman who came to bathe Mom twice a week stop using dry shampoo and helped her wash her hair with good shampoo. Afterward I rolled it and then combed it out when it was dry. I bought pearl earrings and put them in Mom's ears for her. I bought her two pretty neck scarves and made sure that she had one of them, or one of her older ones, on every day. She had no Internet access for the tablet I had bought her the year before, so I let her use my pre-paid Internet to look at her Facebook feed. I held Skype visits with D and the boys so that she could see them. And one of the best things I did was call her best friend from childhood, a friend she seldom saw but had a strong bond with and exchanged birthday and Christmas cards with, as well as an occasional phone call. Her friend J was so very happy that I called to let her know that Mom was unable to go anywhere but would love to see her. When I told Mom that J was coming to see her her face lit up. And when J arrived and loved on Mom it made me cry. J came to see Mom at least twice a week for as long as Mom was conscious. Each time she thanked me for calling her.
| Mom and her best friend J, Aug 2016, 2 months before Mom died |
I had been there for several weeks in a row and needed to get home to check on Toad. Mom was stable, eating, reading, talking; I felt it was okay to head home, with a stop to see D and the boys on the way. I called Mom while I still in the states; she was upbeat, said she felt okay and might live to be ninety. That Friday I was four hours from home when Bro called to say that Mom was dying and the nurse had called the family in. What?! I had to go on home and check on Toad and arrange for a flight; I didn't have the stamina to drive the thousand miles again. By the time I got there on Monday Mom was still alive but looking poorly. That stupid nurse had declared Friday afternoon that Mom had no bowel sounds and was therefore dying, and had stopped her medications, including her Parkinson's meds. Mom couldn't swallow very well and was anxious. She was getting morphine to "make her comfortable", something she had dreaded and hoped to not be given.
The hospice doctor came to see her only once, after she had been on it for six months and was up for renewal. At that time the idiot nurse S had told him that Mom had no bowel sounds; he listened and disagreed, pointing out that Mom did have bowel sounds. One time the nurse said that Mom's blood pressure was very low, that she was dying; the on-call nurse that I phoned came that evening and said Mom's blood pressure was normal. I told her that Mom's nurse wasn't competent; she said that the new 1-year RNs don't get the training that the four-year RNs got. She was sympathetic but was there and then gone. Mom's nurse was so eager for Mom to be dying that a few weeks later she killed her after I left. Taking away her meds was the death sentence, as Mom's muscles stiffened. I told the nurse that Mom should still take her meds and she said that they wouldn't help; I had her call the doctor to tell him what I wanted and he said to go ahead and give them to her. But it was too late. She couldn't swallow. It took her over two weeks to starve to death, the same fate that befell her sister. It was a horrible way to die. She was very anxious. M, my niece, another 1-year RN, didn't want to administer the sedative and morphine to Mom; since I was staying there I had to do it. It broke my heart to give her those meds and to watch her die so unnecessarily. She was 82 years old.
So if I sound bitter it is because I am. I have no desire to see any of those people again, relatives or not. My dad was abusive toward me and my brothers when I was young and emotionally abused my mother throughout their marriage, belittling her and making her totally dependent upon him. He was insensitive to her needs when she was confined to bed, as mentioned above. He missed her when she died, though. Still does. I have minimal contact with him--an occasional phone call, food gifts on Father's day and Christmas. Bro was keeping me informed about our dad's health when hospitalized, but things turned sour with the will business. And then he quit Skyping me after we disagreed about the current POTUS, who Bro supports. So I check FB messages to see if there is any word about his status, which is why I ended up chatting with Sis last night. As I said, she has a lot of nerve complaining about the lack of help. Considering what she said about our dad's condition, I don't expect she'll have to stay there for long, and I told her so.
Back to today, I slept last night but still felt fatigued all day, even after having a coffee. Did manage to cook for the chickens and for us. Made us a brunch of eggs on toast with fruit (clementines and blueberries). Trying to cut down on the amount of food I eat. Took my meds and made sure that Toad took his. Took Tylenol for my headache and used my pain medication but still had the headache all day. It began to lesson a couple of hours ago after my Skype visit with D and the boys, but I still have a headache and my neck muscles are rigid with tension. I did today's jigsaw puzzle but have not yet practiced French due to my headache, mainly, but also due to spending a lot of time and energy writing about what happened to my mother. For dinner I made us each a cheese pizza using naan, organic marinara sauce and shredded Tex-Mex cheese. They were delicious. I've kept the woodstove going all day after starting it from cold around noon today.
The Skype visit with D and the boys was a pleasure, as always, even though GC went upstairs early on during the visit. Neither of them wanted to eat, frustrating D, but had fun pretending to feed each other. They would not feed one another real food, just pretend food. GT said that what he was feeding his brother was "Fuzz soup". He's such a comedian! I was able to have a good visit with GT as he talked and played with several of the colored chenille stems (pipe cleaners) I had sent the boys, while D washed dishes, mopped the kitchen and did laundry.
It is now 10:00pm and I need to practice French if I am to maintain my streak, which is up to 105 days not counting today. I'll feel guilty if I don't do it. I peeked and see that the bastards have un-golded five units on my French tree since yesterday! Finished re-golding the tree at 11:30pm. sigh.
The weather has been depressing today. Cold and overcast. At the moment, 11:42pm, it is -2C (28F) dropping to 12C (10F). La température tombe.
Goodnight.
I'm Reading:
- A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
- Il m'a aidé. Meaning: He has helped me.
- Mon pantalon est étroit. Meaning: My pants are tight.
- J'aime passer du temps avec elle. Meaning: I like to pass some time with her.
- Nous n'allons pas oublier ceci. Meaning: We are not going to forget that.
- Je vais arrêter de manger. Meaning: I am going to stop eating.
- Les côtés d'un carré sont égaux. Meaning: The sides of a square are equal.
- La température tombe. Meaning: The temperature drops.
- C'est aléatoire. Meaning: It is random.
| Today's colorful jigsaw puzzle |
| Jigsaw puzzle description |
| GC feeding air to GT |
| GT feeding air to GC; GT called it "Fuzz soup", a joke based on GC's propensity to eat fuzz at times |
| GT playing with chenille stems (pipe cleaners) |
