I have no sound on my laptop, but I did listen to this on my DVD player, I am feeling so crap! Having an awful day, well it's been pretty much constantly an awful week or so. I have been "off the Radar" since before the weekend, Thursday was my last attempt at blogging, and pretty much things were just like a bad dream since then.
Thursday evening I visited my mum in the Hospice, she had spoken to the doctor that day about the results of the MRI scan she had on Wednesday, turns out she has serious damage to the nerves in her spine, so bad she might never get any relief, also damage to muscles, the bone disease has basically pulled and pushed, twisted her soft tissue. The doctor did ask her how she managed the pain, "Neurofen", my nearly 64 year old mum answered, but the doctor then told her there were people in the hospice with less severe damage than mum and they were on morphine, the pain is that bad, so my mum laughing says to me, "so you know what I said to her?" I said no, she then said, "I told her I've been married for 36 years, and if I can put up with him I can put up with anything!" We broke our hearts laughing, actually it just broke my heart to see my mum there, so old and frail and stiff. She was wearing a tracksuit....my mum NEVER wears tracksuits, or even trousers, she is a real lady, loves to look pretty, loves her skirts, her hair was limp and she just looked so unlike herself! The physio is hard, and she is doing hydro therapy, even though she has a mortal fear of water. She isn't complaining, in fact the opposite, the ward cheerleader, she did exactly what I knew she would do, she found people who needed her to help, people less well of than herself and she took them under her wing, that's mum!
I love my mum so much, and i saw her future on Thursday night, slowly her body seizing up, until she is unable to do what she wants when she wants, which is gonna kill her. Some people make good patients, they take to bed with a cold, love to be pampered, like to be taken care of, mum is not like that, she is always gonna be the care taker, if she can't do it physically she will do it by giving out advice and listening to me talk about my life and my worries. Even on Thursday when I was leaving she insisted on walking me out to my car, having her second cigarette of the day on the way (her vice, two cigs a day) so we get to my car in the car park and she says, "now you get in", "no mam you are grand, I'll get in a few minutes" So we are chatting away and I get into the car, she walks off and I make a phone call. So about ten minutes later I am driving past the entrance to the hospice unit where she is, and there she is, waving, waiting to make sure I am OK before she went in. I am 35 years old, I am the mother (quite an OK, responsible one at that) of three children, and she is making sure I'm OK! She will always be my mum, maybe that's what keeps her going? The feeling of being needed?
I saw far too many sad cases to blog about here, mum was saying how lucky she felt, some of the other patients were so much worse than she was, but as I said I think in her case it's mind over matter a lot of the time. There was one young girl, in her twenties with Motor Neuron Disease, now my aunt has this and she is in her 60's, it's tragic at any age but it's just so unfair (sorry, I have no other way of expressing it except "ITS NOT FAIR", then again life is not fair, who read that bock "Why bad things happen to good people"? I wish I could keep the feeling I had in my heart on Thursday, the feeling of live in the moment cos basically you never know what's gonna happen, OK so last year my relationship ended after a couple of lifetimes (sorry for harping on...can you hear the tiny violins?) but I still have my health, and so do my kids, and apart from mum most of the people I love, we are so Blessed! I also have amazing friends and family whom I share my life with, who love me and allow me to love them, life is a wonderful gift, and not only is your body a wonderland, so is your brain and your soul and every aspect of every day of your life!
I think the rest of my crap week can wait for another post.....this was pretty heavy!
5 comments:
Aw Midge, don't know what to say. Be strong. :-)
Thanks Ash, you are a sweetie! I am there for mum, all I can do is support her!
Sorry to hear about your ma Midge. Think I missed an earlier post about this. I'm in lifelong denial of all illness so would be crap in that situation.
I think you're right though. All you can do is go galss-half-full on it. It's the only way to rationalise the evils of the world.
Take care, be strong and all those platitudes that sound like they would be annoying to her. She's more of a natural fighter against anything stopping her from doing what she wants to do. Am I right?
Just keep on loving her and giving her a hand as best you can.
Post a Comment