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The Evil Son

I awoke Sunday morning with gloom in my mind and sadness in my heart. It was much nicer to be in the world of dreams and to simply sleep life away. Real world interaction can sometimes be so painful.

I began to try to awaken my mother at around 8:30am. When I went to speak with her, nothing had improved. She was still very confused, still very rude and belligerent, and still very adamant about NOT going to the hospital. By 9:30, she had refused to eat or drink or to get up out of bed and I finally told her she WAS going to the hospital, even if I had to carry her myself to the car to get her there.

She then got up and decided she needed to take a shower prior to going to the hospital. She was still very obviously weak and extraordinarily confused and angry and mean. Of course she would not allow me nor my wife to help her to get ready. A slew of very rude phrases and words came from her mouth. After nearly 2 hours of this she finally had taken a shower and was ready to go. As we started out the driveway, she then realized somehow that she had not actually washed her hair with shampoo but had instead used cream rinse. She wanted me to head back home so she could rewash her hair. I simply told her "no".

At the hospital, she was admitted and yet was very angry, very vocal, and extremely rude and unpleasant. She not only accused me of trying to put her into a nursing home, she called me every name under the sun. When one of my sisters finally arrived 5 hours after I had called her, my mother let loose with the same torrent of vehement hate and rancor at her. My sister cried. I had had tears streaming down my cheeks for much of the day, already, so it was nothing new to me. I hoped my sister realized what I have been dealing with for the last several days. I am not sure if she does or not.

With my sister there, I was rather unhappy and fed up sitting there and taking more abuse. So, I asked my sister to give me a two hour window where I could go home, take a shower, shave my neck, and just relax a bit before I had to come back.

In the rush to the hospital today, I had forgotten my pipe and pouch and lighter, so when I got home, I went to the back yard for a bit to smoke my pipe and to try to regain composure. As I sat there smoking, tears streamed down my face and I started to sob.

Suddenly my wife comes out the patio door and said that one of the workers from the hospital called and needed to speak to me immediately.

My mother had started to be more belligerent and was demanding to leave the hospital. My sister, as is typical, was unable to handle the situation, and so it escalated even further. I raced back to the hospital where my mother was in hysterics and was cussing and cursing and calling each of us every vehement, horrid, nasty thing she could formuatle in her mind. She was livid and was p*ssed as hell saying that we had put her into a nursing home. She told us point blank we were lying about her being in an emergency room at the hospital, and nothing I nor anyone could say would change her mind. This went on for at least three hours, upon which the emergency room physician finally came back with some results about her blood work.

Her oxygen levels were fine, so it was not that. Her blood pressure was fine, so it was not that. What it turned out to be is exactly what I had been worrying about since Thursday... her eating and drinking..... or to state it more clearly... her delusions about eating and drinking. Since Thursday, she had consumed AT MOST 250-300 calories each day, and if she had consumed even a full cup of liquid on any of those days that would be a lot.

Because of her refusal to eat and drink, she created a situation in her body where her kidneys started to malfunction, and also one where several of her heart medications became catastrophically too high. All of these aspects helped to explain her really negative behavior.

But instead of treating her condition immediately (at roughly now 6:45pm, nearly 8 hours after arriving), instead the staff said... "Oh, we will wait to move her now until after shift change (7:30pm). Being between a rock and a hard place is not a helluva lot of fun, but there was nothing to do but wait it out and let mom yell and curse at us some more.

At 7:30pm, just as the staff was starting to begin to consider thinking about having my mother actually be moved to a floor of the hospital for treatment (meaning leaving the emergency room), another of my sisters decided to show up.

I got my other sister up to speed, and told her I was dead tired and psychologically torn apart. I asked her very firmly to stay overnight in the hospital to check on mom and make sure she did not try to flee or pull out her IV or other ports. She agreed.

We will see if she remembers what she said tomorrow as the fluid will hopefully have reduced her levels and improved kidney function. To be perfectly frank, I am not the least bit optimistic. I suspect many of you may wish to tell me... you cannot subscribe to all the b*llsh*t your mother hollered at you about... she was not in her right mind at the time. You are correct, yet it still hurts like hell to hear something like that come out your own mother's mouth. Only time will tell if there is any sort of return to normalcy.

I am angry, hurt, and I am going to bed.

PipeTobacco