Today I am going to vent, I am going to whine, to complain a little and make it a bit about me. Today was one of those day's where emotions caught up to me. I try to keep them balanced and in check to not let them get the best of me. I try to hold back the mix of anger, tears and frustration that seem to want to wash over me at random most days. However, truth be told, most day's I am just trying to keep it together moment by moment. I am a mother, a wife, I homeschool my kids, I have Dr's apt's for myself, my kids, my pets. I have housewife duties and commitments outside of the home. I was busy before all of this. If the appointment or event is not in my phone I don't make it there! I knew this was going to be hard. That taking all this on was going to add to my already hectic life and schedule. Do I regret taking on this new venture? No, I do not. There are day's when it's overwhelming, there are day's when I feel lost, feel like I am failing or don't know what I am doing. However, for better or worse, no matter our troubled past, she is my mother and this is what needs to be done.
This morning, I had a panic attack and had to just let go of a few things. I had to cry it out and let out some steam. I had to wait out the stabbing pain in my chest, the breathtaking, soul clenching panic that has become my normal for the past couple of weeks. The panic attacks wake me up from the bits of sleep I do get with my brain racing about what needs to be done, what I have forgotten, what I am missing or should be trying to make things easier for everyone. While the tears came slowly, so did the realizations. I am planning end life dreams and a funeral for my last living parent instead of saving to buy a car for my daughter next year and saving for her sweet 16. I can't make plans for more than a couple of weeks out because I don't know what things will look like any further down the road than that. I can't spend more than I really have to because I have so many expenses coming. That was hard for me. I get it, I truly do. I don't need lectures on how my daughter would understand or how things are just things. I don't begrudge this, I understand priorities and lessons for the girls and all of that stuff, but it was hard none the less. It's hard to know I am giving up something that was important to me, exciting for me for something else that is equally important. Something that is necessary and unavoidable. I sat here with my phone going off with 3 different people looking for me, a hospice nurse on the way, a million errands to get checked off and just one of me. I sat here feeling overwhelmed, missing my friends, missing my kids friends for them, wishing things were so much easier.
I eventually just did what I have been doing every other morning with the 4 hours of sporadic sleep I have been getting. I took a deep breath and went up to face my morning, my chaos, my family, my mom and all that is generally waiting for me. I found my mom... sitting in the living room floor, dressed, laughing and carrying on a conversation. She was still not quite with things all the way, but way more than she had been the past 4 day's. She was able to understand and engage in a lucid conversation with me. She was emotional not understanding or wanting to believe that she'd missed the past 4 day's. However, it was nice to have her back in the land of the here and now. She's having pain and it's getting worse here and there with new places popping up now and then, but her mind was at least back to the now.
The nurse came and checked mom out and was pleased with her progress since Monday. It's a big change in her mental status and even though it's not what Hospice wanted me to do initially, I am glad I am doing it my way. I appreciate their guidance, but I won't let her slip into some zombie, overmedicated version of who she still is just yet. Not when the pain can still be managed and the desire to be ever present with her family outweighs the desire to wash over the pain with more medication than her brain can handle.
Today was a mixed day of both ups and down's. Certainly not the first and without a doubt nowhere near the last.
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