Well here I am, sitting on a plane again flying over the Atlantic! Who knew having parents could be so hard ?there really should be some law in place that either prevents parents from living far away or there should be some suicide pact thing legalised, Like, ok kids, I'm getting old now so I'm gonna just top myself to save you from all this grief and pain that you are sure to encounter! I mean as parents isn't it their duty to look after us and protect us for ever more???
Liberty, absolute liberty.
Perhaps I should start thinking of my own demise soon and start preparing those kids of mine and picking which kid I'm living with 🤣🤣🤣🤣 The wife will be far too busy running her 80th marathon or becoming some super super head or climbing up some god forsaken mountain trying to find herself or something!
My last trip to Mum, a little over 3 weeks ago , was traumatic as absolute fuck. Their timing sucked for starters as there was a hurricane in Florida and could I fly out? Could I fuck. My step sisters had now swapped over and my military step sister was now caring for mum and poor broken Doug. She was amazing and got the ball rolling for everything . I eventually got there via what seemed like everywhere... seeing mum was amazing and sad all at the same time. Her Alzheimer's has escalated but she still kinda knew who I was on and off, depending on her mood. Some days I swear she does it on purpose.
So between me, my stepsisters and my brother we've all taken it in turns to fly over since my step Dad decided to throw himself down the roof. I mean I know living with mum has its challenges but I thought this a little extreme. His story is he slipped as he was trying to clear the leaves from the guttering!!! Likely story 🤣🤣 luckily my step sister was visiting, also, luckily, she's a nurse practitioner that forced him to go a&e! Turns out he'd broken his ankle in 3 places and needed an op. No weight bearing for 3 months. Bad news all round especially for my poor mum. No one to care for her full time meant we needed to place her in a memory care unit near enough that Doug could visit. Doug had been preparing for such an emergency and me and my brother had already visited a few but we never expected it to be now, this was just incase of extreme emergency until we could come over and if need be, bring mum home.
Needless to say, this was the absolute hardest thing I have ever had to do. I felt like a bad Mum abandoning her child. I swear she knew too and would just stare at me with utter contempt .
She wanted me to trim her hair one day , it was very long and needed a few inches off and she never lets anyone tough her hair...ever, she was like, oooh yes trim it as no one does it. So I did, 3 inches, nice and straight and then I plaited it for her. 'Ooh that's lovely Ev, much better' ..... I swear, less than ten minutes later she's trying to pull her hair over her shoulder and noticed it was shorter. She looked at me and said 'what.. who the fuck has done this, you see, you see what everyone does, where the fuck is my hair?' .... eerrrmm, but it looks lovely mum. 'Oh shut up' she says, then hobbles off looking for her daughter who she is going to kill, I wasn't sure what to say or do...so I offer to help her go find her horrible daughter who cut off all her hair 🤣
The second day of being in this place she's decked it, knocked herself out and ended up in A&E. oh that was fun, driving a left hand drive on the wrong side of the road, on my own at 7am trying to find the bastard hospital she was in. I'm surprised I didn't end up in the bed next to her. Luckily (or not) it was the same hospital I collected my step Dad from the night before as he had had his op! These pair of oldies were clearly having a laugh and trying to kill me. So I eventually find her, which is no mean feat seeing as I can get lost in a toilet. She's totally catatonic, just staring into space, head cut and bleeding, occasionally turning to stare at me, with I swear that same look of contempt. This was just fucking horrific. So there she was, catatonic like, and the nurse comes in to put the pulse thing on her finger...which she then immediately pulls off and throws it on the bed, nurse tries again, but feisty ,catatonic' mum, grabs it and throws it again. Nurse gives up, tries blood pressure cuff.... ha, no chance I thought. Mum promptly tells her to fuck off. Oh sweet Jesus, bad daughter who cut her hair steps in, 'come on mum, I'll do it so we can get you out of here' she just looks at me and raises her eyebrows.... yep she hates me but we finally do it. Why oh why is she such hard work, why couldn't she be a little sweet old alzhemic lady!!?
So after scans and blood tests and insurance papers filled in (it's America) I get to drive her back. It had been a long, scary, lonely, horrible day for everyone, Yet all along the drive home she's saying she's had a lovely day but has a terrible headache!! No shit Sherlock. Same Mum, same, wanna go for a drink???
She doesn't like it there, I know she doesn't. There has been a lot of drama, after the fall she was even more confused, and very angry. At one point she thought it a fabulous idea to keep using the cutlery as weapons of threat!! Mum will not be told what to do and she made sure everyone knew that. She would grab the cutlery and tell them that a fork is really good for stabbing them and would wave it at them like a sword . Ffs mum, leave the croydon girl at home will you? You were born in Camden and raised in Kingston... enough of the Croydon already 🤦🏼♀️ I mean shit!! She's since been banned from the knifes at least!!! Anyway, turns out they were giving mum some shit medication we had specifically told them not to give her for this exact reason...it turns her Croydon !! 🤣🤣. well they soon stopped that medication didn't they and she calmed the fuck down.
The day I was leaving I turned up to spend some time with her and she looked so sad and just opened her arms up and I hugged her, she started sobbing saying it's horrible and they don't like her. (Stop threatening to kill them all for a start might help that situation mum) I was devastated. It literally broke me, I felt so shit and helpless and like the worst daughter ever!! I mean what was I supposed to do? I wanted to scoop her up, put her in my bag and make everything ok for her.. but I couldn't... that sucked. Ten minutes later it was all change again , she was laughing and chatting away but she would still throw me that dark look as if blaming me... She knows, I knows, we both know , she doesn't belong there.
My brother was next, he did two weeks of visiting mum and helping Doug, he equally hated seeing mum in there, albeit she was more settled but still the occasional sad cloud would enter her big brown eyes. It's horrendous She's killing us here. Nothing prepares you for the emotional exhaustion seeing your absolute hero , your queen, the last remaining member of us as a broken family, deteriorate into resembling nothing of the amazing woman she was. If you haven't experienced this horrible disease first hand, you will never understand the mixed crazy emotions and total heartbreak it causes. I've said before, watching my Dad die at 19 on the kitchen floor feels like a walk in the park next to this. Me and my brother lived that trauma together too! Bloody selfish parents we have !
We do try to see the humour in everything tho coz that's what we do. If we can't laugh about the tragedy then how do we survive? Mums still smiling. When she's not glaring that secret hate at me secretly ...
I'm dreading this visit and also can't wait to see Mum and Doug... mixed crazy emotions, mixed with guilt and a little hairdressing fear for cutting mums hair which I know she'll bring up again 🤣🤣 bloody selective Alzheimer's I tell you !!!
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