Sitting in a hospital emergency room, again. Been here several times now with one of my parents. I am lucky that within a few blocks of my house is an assisted living facility, a nursing home and a hospital all within a driveway of one another. When I moved here I didn't think I would ever see this as a blessing. It is.
If you don't know both of my parents have dementia. Mom is gone, she doesn't know me, she can't communicate or chooses not to. My dad is at the mid stage of dementia. He can tell you everything that happened in1935-1970. What did he just eat? Not a clue. He has denial or forgets about my mother's condition. He sees her as that girl he married. She still knows him but I can't tell if she knows he is her husband and that they just celebrated 66 years of marriage. Dad cannot be without her. He won't go into another room in their facility unless she goes too. She can't walk without a walker and someone guiding her.
Mother is under hospice care. A sitter is with her Monday through Friday. On the weekends they don't work. Apparently dying is a Monday through Friday affair. This morning, again, my dad decided he wanted something across the hall. He told mom to come with him. She couldn't respond. He picked her up by her arms and dropped her. She hit the bed frame, her head. She is bleeding profusely but that happens with a head injury. She is crying like she really hurts but can't say anything about what hurts so bad. My dad is at the facility freaking out because he can't find her. She is here scared to death not knowing why or who these people are, even me. I can't tell if she is crying from pain or fear.
Eventually they will come get her and decide she needs an MRI or a CT scan or both since she is injured but cannot talk about what hurts when and where. These machines make her panic. They are big a loud and you have to take direction. Breathe, don't breathe. Yeah, I will be there with her watching her panic and cry. Then I will go back and calm down dad. After I think he understands he will ask me where mother is? Did she die? We will talk about it again and again. Then I will go be with mother until she is released or admitted.
They will move my mother to the nursing home soon. It is just next door to my dad but it might as well be half way around the world. He won't leave his facility. Once he got used to being there he didn't want to go outside or for a trip with the other residents on a bus with care givers and watchers and sitters. He has to be in his space.
So here I sit, looking calm and like I might possibly be doing something important with my very impressive laptop. Acting like I have been here, done this. I have. On the inside I want nothing more than to dig a big hole, find my baby blanket and cry myself to sleep as I call for my mommy.
I was supposed to be going to Ft. Worth tonight for a party I suggested to Celebrate Life! Instead I am sitting here praying for death. Hers. Please, God, take her. Please stop this. She was a kind, sweet, sometimes dingy, sometimes bitchy flawed human who I love. I love her so much I cannot stand this. If my mommy, the lady who raised me, was aware that her life was silence, confusion, fear and soiling her pants over and over everyday she would beg me to kill her. And I would. If I had the courage to spend the rest of my life in prison I would suffocate her right this minute. I so want her soul free.
When will we treat humans as humanly as animals? I had to put my beloved dog down when his quality of life was nothing but lying on his side and shitting his life's blood out his ass. It killed me to lose him. I loved him enough to stop his misery. Why can't I do that with my mom? Why are humans kept alive to be shells? Feed the shell, dress the shell, wipe the shells ass. Stab the shells fingers to make sure you don't give it too much sugar and too many carbs. Put the shell to bed. Start over.
We are warehousing people behind locked doors because they are no longer capable of reason or understanding. The cannot navigate life anymore. Some of them seem happy, some of them scream for help all day. Some of them hold baby dolls. It is as sad as anything I have witnessed.
My mother shouldn't live more than a year or two longer according to the way the disease progresses. Eventually her body will not know how to breathe, her brain and organs will just shut down. By that time Dad should well on his way to the confusion and lying in bed and soiling himself.
Dementia is going to kill one of us soon. Mom probably but it could be me. Or dad, or I don't know who. I pray NONE of you ever has to deal with this. I know that actually some of you are. I feel your pain. I feel your heartache. I never imagined in my life that both parents would experience this degrading disease. I thought maybe one...I was going to be so helpful to the parent baring the burden. Now that's me.
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