Major drama on August 30th. At least I think that was the night. I received the proverbial emergency end of life phone call. Both from mom's friend Iona and Golden Living. Mom was in dire straits with chest pain on her way to the emergency room. As usual trying to keep calm... not knowing whether this was my mother's last breaths or yet another panic attack or manipulation... or gas for that matter. I jumped into my truck and headed to the hospital.
Once I got there I found out that it actually was a good thing she ended up in the emergency room because she had put herself in danger with her contrary shenanigans. She is on some heavy duty diuretics and had been telling the nurses at Golden Living that she had been taking her potassium, but had in actuality been stashing most of it in some kind of a cup in her room. As a result of her nonsensical behavior she was dangerously low on potassium. The ER put her on a potassium/magnesium iv drip and got her levels back up to a safe level.
As for the complaint of chest pain which is what took her to the ER in the first place. The blood test showed no damage to her heart. This is a good thing.
Once I found that out I said good-by and headed to Wal-Mart to get supplies. I thought I had handled the stress of her threatening to die once again fairly well. Unfortunately it manifested itself in a full on gastric attack while I was in Wal-Mart. In between abdominal cramping and dashing to the restroom to keep from defecating in my clothing, I managed to get my supplies picked up climbed back into my 4 wheel drive pickup truck and headed back out to the ranch. I was massively relieved to be home when I drove down that last hillside to park my truck. Relieved and exhausted. Mom seemed to be ok, and I had managed to get home without messing in my clothing. So charming the way stress overload shows it’s self.
Mom was released back to Golden Living and life went on from there. We visited on the phone and all was supposedly well. I started to relax once again. Well sort of. Along the same time frame my cousin and I started finding our way to a speaking relationship... working towards friendship. Both of us have been caught up in the drama surrounding my mother for so long for a time it was better for both of us to have limited to no contact for a time. Sometimes it takes space and time for folks to regain balance after being caught up in continual stress overloads and adrenaline dumps. We have been sorting through some of the wreckage in our lives from over the past years trying to make some semblance of sense of it. This is a good thing but it is also a very emotional and highly stressful thing.
Meanwhile I was experimenting with limiting carbs in my food intake and starting the second month of workout goals. I had workout goals for August as well and had fallen short of where I wanted to be. There was some progress however. Not dramatic progress, but progress just the same.
September I started on another month long goal set. Walking on the incline trainer and doing turbo jam. I did pretty good the first week. Then pandemonium broke out once again. 2:39 in the morning of the 8th of September another emergency call from Golden Living came in. Once again it was chest pain, heart attack and threatened death. I love my mother so I got up trying to stay calm enough to drive to the hospital, 30 or so miles from my ranch. Deep breathing, and reciting the Serenity Prayer got me to the emergency room without a full on panic attack or truck wreck.
Mom looked pretty wretched when I got there. She was obviously afraid she was dying. The emergency room doctor turned out to be the same one that had treated her 10 days before. He drew blood to test for the enzymes indicating heart damage. There were none. He got in contact with her other doctors and they admmited her to the cardiac unit. I stayed with her for hours visiting, and she seem to improve dramatically. She was exhausted, but then she had been awake all night as well. Once she was ensconced in the cardiac unit they did a series of 3 tests to check for heart damage. All three came back negative. This is a good thing. It is also a very frustrating thing.
I'd managed to stay calm all the while I was in the ER waiting to see what was actually going on. When I found out she was in the clear I lost it. On the way out of the hospital the tears started and so did yet another gastric attack. There has got to be a better way to handle stress than what I am doing.... hence writing it out.
This cycle of behavior with my mother is not new. As I was trying to get home from the hospital with my guts churning, I was thinking about all the "medical emergencies" over the years. Wondering how many were actual medical emergencies, how many were panic attacks, and how many were outright manipulation. By the time I got home I was a combination of, relieved, tired, sad, and angry.
How many times has mom's own behavior put her health in jeopardy? Years back, 1978 actually, mom ended up partially paralyzed from a potassium deficiency. She was in the hospital and they were giving her heparin to dissolve a large blood clot in her thigh. All this time I thought it was the doctor's fault for not giving her potassium. Now I wonder, I remember her talking about sticking pills in a plant that was sitting on her night stand rather than taking them. I didn't think anything of it at the time, as she said they were pain pills. But, what if they were the potassium her body needed to continue functioning.
There have been so very many trips to the Emergency room, over the years, many with stays in the hospital afterwards. Mom called it a "silent" heart attack. I wonder now, how many of those emergencies were heart related, how many were panic attacks, and how many were abject manipulation. I wonder was she caught up in it unaware of what she was doing, or were her actions and words a cruel manipulation? Could my mother actually be capable of such cruelty? Are her cruel actions and words just happenstance, or are they deliberate.
There seems to be a crisis pattern related to behaviors or conflicts with others. But then again that could be circumstance, or it could be an actual linked pattern. I wonder just how much actual damage she has done to her body over the years with her various machinations. I wonder how many of her physical health issues are directly or indirectly related to her mental, emotional, and spiritual issues. Mind body and spirit are all interconnected what effects one tends to have a ripple effect across all three.
I started seeing these patterns years ago but refused to believe it. Onus on me for that one. It is true, I am very good at denial. There has been a pattern in my life as well, coinciding with the patterns running through mom's life. One of denial, frustration, capitulation, resentment, sadness, and rage. Intermixed with self destructive behaviors and long stretches of no emotions at all. Then Wham here come a tsunami of emotions, overrunning and overwhelming everything in their path.
This is not a good way to live. It is erratic, emotionally painful, extremely frustrating, and physically detrimental to my body's health. Not to mention mentally, and spiritually devastating. I choose to no longer live this way. However, I do choose to live. I seek balance, peace, and health in my life. I choose to get off the roller coaster of false responsibility and unrelenting guilt.
I am putting up the closed sign. I am no longer an emotional dumping ground for those that refuse take the responsibility for their own choices. By the way, refusing to make a choice is still a choice and you are still responsible for it; as well as being responsible for the consequences of said choices.
It's amazing to me how many people go through their lives blaming others for their own choices and the circumstances they have created themselves. Squirming, this way and that way trying to avoid the responsibility that is theirs.
Am I blaming my mother for the choices I've made in my life. I did for a while, but that is pointless. She may have been pulling shenanigans but I am still responsible for the choices I made. What is done is done, there is nothing I can do about that. What I can do is go on from here. I choose life. I choose to actually live the rest of my life rather than endure it.
Just as September is the end of a season where I live, from summer into cool crisp autumn, this is the end of a season in my life. I am moving on to the next, excited at the prospect. Is this the autumn of my life, perhaps, I am 51 years of age closing fast on 52. But then Autumn has always been my favorite season.
Life is a journey, how you travel is your choice.
Mary E. Robbins
307.788.0202
May you have peace and joy in your soul.
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