| Melancholy Autmn |
[Dec. 2nd, 2010|12:57 am] |
I spent last week visiting my family in Houston for Thanksgiving. Normally my Texas visits are pretty good as I get along well with the various members of my family--something many of them cannot do.
To add additional angst to the situation, it looks like my mother, who is 85, will probably have to be put into a nursing facility. She had been living with my sister, but as my mother got older, especially over the last couple of years, it's become harder for my sister to care for her. I'm also the youngest of my siblings, my sister and brother in Houston are both in their 60s.
The event which set the current state of affairs into motion happened in October, when my mother fell and broke her ankle. My sister temporarily put my mother into a nearby facility to recover. This seemed OK. My sister and my brother then began talking about finding an assisted living facility for her. And then they started to bicker. I won't go into detail, but my three older siblings (I have a sister who lives in Virginia who doesn't speak to the rest of the family except for me) grew up together and have issues with each other. I'm aware of them, but not a part of their feuds.
So, when I arrived they weren't talking to each other. They have since gotten back in touch and are working out plans for mother's care. I'm basically acting as mediator and go-between since I'm out of state.
And then there is mother. My mother is old, there's no getting around that. But she has a forceful and intelligent personality (which makes her both very entertaining to know and sometimes a pain to live with) that's been sharp up until now. She looked very weak and frail in that hospital bed. Her hearing is going and she's too proud to wear a hearing aid, so conversation with her became a bit like a game of telephone, very circular. To see someone who has been so very central to one's life at that stage is quite shocking, no matter how you try to prepare yourself beforehand.
I got the suspicion that my mother is becoming tired of living (and who wouldn't in that state?). The nursing facility didn't help. It was OK and the staff seemed to know what they were doing, but there's something very depressing about these facilities. to compound things, mother's foot gets infected and her doctor recommends that she check into a hospital for a course of antibiotics.
So all of these issues of impending mortality suddenly presented themselves at my doorstep. Well, they'd been there for a while, but we tend to look past these things until they start pounding on the door. My mother recognized me (she'd had trouble identifying some of her nieces and nephews) and we spoke, albeit in a rather limited fashion.
I spoke to my sister afterward and she decided that after mother is better, to move her to another facility, one with physical therapists and with much more social interaction. We agreed about this, because the social aspect is very important to keep people from checking out mentally. By this week, my sister and brother had papered over their differences and agreed to move mother to a better facility located next to where most of the family lives. This will be good.
So, one age-related, angst situation down. Then there is my brother. My brother, the oldest sibling, is 18 years older than I am. He's intelligent and well read, and he can be juvenile and a jerk. But for the most part, we've always gotten on fairly well--the bulk of his issues were with his two sisters.
My brother has Myasthenia Gravis, which is a degenerative neuromuscular disease. It can be treated with drugs, which my brother is taking. But the trick is that if you start taking medication after the symptoms manifest, they are alleviated but don't go away. So he's managing things, but if he over exerts himself, especially late in the day, his muscles can give out and he'll collapse. I saw this firsthand and had to help him to a chair. And it hit me then that my brother was old. Yes, it sounds funny, but he's a big, burly guy who's worked in the oil industry all his life and watching him shake and shuffle like that really affected me. He was better in the morning, but it is always there.
Which also means that I've got to get tested for it, as it runs through the female side of some families. My grandmother died of it. If I come up positive, all I have to do is start taking medication. For the rest of my life, but if I can avoid symptoms, it will be worth it.
So my family is falling apart physically. I'm also afraid that when my mother dies it will totally splinter. I suspect my siblings will all stop talking to each other. Mother was very much the center of gravity we all orbited around.
So all of these things weighed on my during the holidays. Then I got my brother's cold and I can tell you that being hung over, with a cold and with a head full of cold medication on Thanksgiving day is a recipe for a zombie. I had a good time, but I could barely keep my eyes open. But then again, spending the previous evening with another relative, talking and drinking lots of wine, was really important--if only to blow off steam.
God, that sounds miserable. But at the time, it didn't seem that way. There were sad moments, but most of it hit me on the flight back as I had time to begin analyzing thing. Ah, the joys of age and other melancholy things. Well, here's hoping for a non-traumatic new year. |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
novaya_zemlya's journal
