My Weekend in the Woods

Well here it is. Mom's house. Note the new ramp for the wheelchair. I arrived Tuesday evening, and GF brought home KFC for the occasion, a special thing according to Mom (the leg and thigh bucket, but special nonetheless). I felt bad telling them that I couldn't eat KFC, so I ate it anyway, and suffered the consequences. I don't think I have been that sick since.. well since the last time I consumed that much grease. Breakfast the next morning was eggs fried in butter and ham grease, with red-eye gravy (translated: grease) and biscuits, which my GF was picked on relentlessly for burning in the toaster oven. According to Mom, he burns everything he cooks. According to mom, he doesn't do anything right, and won't "do anything around the house" just to spite them apparently. Never mind that he is 81 years old and can't stand up without wobbling like one of the weeble people.
Indiana is looking like a stately old lady these days. She is such a good dog. But she is not happy with the state of affairs as they are now.. Not happy at all. She follows Mom's wheelchair as far as she can (she isn't allowed into the house).
Here's Mom on the phone. She's quite a piece of work, let me tell you. She had another appointment on Wednesday which she neglected to tell me about until we were on the highway, about to turn off to go to the main doc's office.. across town from where she wanted to go first. This of course made me furious because I didn't have directions to this other place, and she had plenty of time to tell me before we left, and didn't. Anyway, she seemed to do whatever she could to induce stress.. refusing to wait to try and stand up from the wheelchair until I could get her walker in position, bellowing every time a transfer truck got withing 100 feet of us on the highway, reminding me of the speed limit every 4.2 seconds, and then bringing up "abandonment issues" and "sexual abuse" and being generally melodramatic about any and every thing. I love her.. she just wears me out. And that's before she starts on the "give me five years!!' speech.

"Give me five years" is what she says when she wants someone to walk away from their entire life for the next five years to do nothing but wait on her, cook her food, and empty her bedpan. I'm sorry, but I am not a primary caretaker. I can't physically or mentally handle the stress of doing that hands-on. There are home health people that come there to help, as well as a nurse and a physical therapist. Sure, it would be great if they had someone 24-7, but I can't be that person. I tried to explain to her how unfair and absolutely insane it was to ask me or my sister to give up getting married, having children, graduate school, a career, everything to do something that would make us want to commit suicide within 3 days!

I will be there for her in any way I can, but she fights me every step of the way, and I cannot be what she wants. Even if I tried, I would never get it right enough for her, just like GF.

Speaking of whom.. He had some skin lesions removed from his head. I don't think they were cancer, but the doc wanted them off just in case.

This picture makes me sad, because every time I look at it, I think why why why didn't they plan for retirement so they could have enough money to live on without scraping???

And here's mom's world these days.. recliner, potty chair, walker, and wheelchair. The good news is that she has a new surgeon at Duke who is willing to fix her hip. He said that he can do the surgery 4-6 weeks from now, depending on whether or not she has cleared the MRSA infection, and how high they can get her blood counts in that time.

All in all, it was a good trip, I guess, gastronomic difficulties and stress notwithstanding. I must have moved a ton of furniture and boxes in the shed getting out the wicker furniture for the sunroom. Mom was shouting directions from her perch on the golf cart ("don't do this! No! DO that! Ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhaarrrrrrggggghhh!). Grandmother asked me to move a cast iron daybed (OMG it weighed more than the SUV I was driving!) and then a huge rock the size of a tabletop. After the bed, I said that ain't gonna happen today. I now understand GF.. they are asking for feats of superhuman strength for one person to accomplish, and when someone says no, well, they "refuse to help." Aha. I understand now.

Needless to say, I almost cried when I got home, so happy was I to be there.

Yesterday I went Christmas shopping. Today I am going riding, if Trigger is feeling up to it. He has been under the weather with a nail in his hoof from being shod. The farrier pulled it yesterday and Mr Maw soaked the foot for me. Hopefully Trig will be back to normal today, so I can ride with the group.

L isn't up yet.. He is sleeping in, amazingly enough.. I am the one who woke up early today, for some reason. :)