Well, she had a series of seizures last night and today. Shes had a hell of a lot of tests, and she says they are going to have some solid info for her tomorrow.
Thankfully these ones were far more mild than the previous ones. She doesnt appear to have any additional memory loss or disorientation.
... You know its funny, my mom is so hard to deal with on her medical care..
See the problem is that she is unable to give up control over any bit of her life. She has always had control issues, and her illnesses have just made them worse.
She's the type of person who will deliberately do something that she knows will hurt her.. like take all ehr medications and flush them down the toilet... to maintain the illusion of control, rather than admit she is helpless before the illness, and let the doctors make decisions for her.
Pride is important; without pride what are you; but theres a point where pride must be set aside, and survival must take priority. I can understand not wanting to live with the indignities and pain of a crippling illness, but that's not what we are talking about here. This is lying to doctors, and not following medical instructions, jsut so she can feel like shes in control of her own life; even though by doing so she makes herself worse, which actually REDUCES the control she has over her life.
For some time now it has been clear that my mother needs to assign durable power of attorney to me, or at the very least a medical power of attorney; because there are long periods of time where she is incapable of making decisions for herself. She says she will have her lawyer write one up, but it never happens. She's been incapacitated when some major financial issues have come up, and I have had to work around those as best I could...
She knows hse has to do it; she knows it's the right thing; she even consciously wants too.. but she just cant give up that bit of control.
Aat the Dr.s office the other day, on the elevator ride down, I finally said to her "You've lied to me, you've broken your promises to me, I'm tired of you killing yourself jsut to feel like you are in control. You can do it all you want, but if you do, it will be without me. You need to accept that you are no longer in control of your own life; the doctors are; and that is IT!"
She broke down crying, and I had to almost carry her out to the car. Then she spent the next 20 minutes alternately apologizing for her behavior and trying to jsutify it.
At one point she screamed at me "I'm not a drug addict dammit"... as if by sheer will alone she could control the incredibly intense pain and withdrawals from opiates that happen when she stops taking her medication. I'm still convinced that's what triggered her seizures in the first place.
Finally I told her again "Either you stop trying to pretend you arent sick, that you arent hurt, that you have the capability to take care of yourself... either you give it up and jsut do what you have to do to survive; and MAYBE YOU'LL GET BETTER... Either you stop making yourself WORSE EVERY SINGLE DAY; or you've lost me."
Thats it.
I made a similar speech to my ex-wife five years ago; her decision was to stay sick, and get sicker, so I left.
But this is my mother...
Sometimes I just don't know. Theres nothing else I can do. I'm not going to sit by and watch while she kills herself for her stupid pride.
I'm not.
