Things my mother said to me today

Mom walking (with PT help)

I am so sorry to be continuing with the grim here. I want to be uplifting and life affirming, really. But what I am today is worn thin from being with, and advocating for my mother, who is simply flat-out miserable in her recovery.

Until today she had a bad case of white-coat-itis. She would complain and complain and complain of how horribly sick she was feeling to me, but as soon as a doctor I had summoned came around she was "fine" owning up to being maybe "a little uncomfortable." And I seemed like a nut, like an over reactive nudge. Then five minutes after the doctor leaves the room it's back to "Oh, Varda, I am dying."

Yesterday the GI service doctor was acting super pissy and miffed at me - nearly suggesting *I* was the problem since "No one else has reported your mother's discomfort."

So I then spent the rest of the day asking all the therapists who worked with her if they had noticed any gastric distress, and when they said "of course!" I begged them to PLEASE note it in her chart since it was just not being addressed adequately enough.

The fact that after a week it is getting WORSE, not better, in spite of her actual hip clearly healing, seemed to be of little concern to people until I raised bloody hell today. The fact that *I* had to be the one to point out she is NOT EATING and no one had thought to measure her calorie intake? Really not acceptable.

It also helped that Mom was finally in such a state that she was no longer making nice for the doctors and letting it all hang out, so they got to see and hear some of what I have been witness to over this past week. So now they believe me when I tell them she's been feeling horribly nauseated for days on end and is mostly miserable.

So I will now leave you with this lovely list of things my mother said to me today:

"I have never felt worse in my entire life. Is there a God? Why is he doing this to me? I don't understand, I don't understand.

Kill me! kill me. Let me kill myself. I can't take any more of this. I'm so sick, I'm so sick. I feel so sick. I've never felt this bad before in my life. I feel awful. I'm dying. Let me die, kill me, kill me. Please help me die.

Varda, Varda, Varda, let me die. Varda, let me die. Varda, let me die. Please. Please. Please. Kill me! Let it end!

If I could just throw up, if I could just throw up. If I could just throw up, I would feel better.

I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I'm making you go through this with me.

Oh my god. Let it end. Let it end. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god."

So, um, yeah, in spite of the fact that she actually walked further down the hall than yesterday, today was not a very good day at the hospital.

(And, as you may have figured out, one of the ways I keep from completely losing MY shit while mom is saying all this is to distance myself from it by typing her words it into my phone with one hand while holding her with the other.)