Well she's kind of difficult

And this isn't entirely about that

But Shirley is in the hospital now

my mom texted me and so she doesn't know whether she's going to want to work tomorrow or whether she's going to need to do something with Shirley

I'm not sure what she would be doing with Shirley because the woman who is hercaregiver isn't exactly the right word because she's in one of those kind of halfway houses for old people that you put people in when you can't really afford to put them in a nursing home

And she's already been in it a couple of them I think

At least one she got moved out of that one because she said they were mistreating her and then she had a strangely broken toe and so they moved her out of there and put her into this new place but now she has something wrong with her finger and she's been saying these people are mistreating her

And this woman who's her like I said caregiver isn't the right word because she's not staying with her and as it turns out Shirley is having visits from hospice care though although my mother talks about her with some degree of regularity she passes out actual information pretty badly

The last information my mother gave me was that she was not Alzheimer's she had dementia and that that was different and that she could live indefinitely with dementia

Well apparently she's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's at some point subsequently and she's receiving hospice doctor and nurse visits through her insurance 

But the woman who's in charge of monitoring her situation because my mother decided she couldn't deal with it and she'd been living with that woman for a while but her condition deteriorated to the point where she couldn't handle her anymore so now she's in charge of making sure that everything that needs to happen for her happens for her she saw her Thursday and she said she was fine Thursday but then apparently today she's got blood poisoning

So you know they don't know yet and she's in the hospital

And I don't know how hospital is for you there or if you even would know that but here they are currently allowing people to have visitors but they allow one visitor so since Shirley doesn't necessarily recognize people and this is the person she sees the most and this is the person who's in charge of making sure that all her stuff goes right That's the person who's going to be her official visitor so my mom will not be going to visit her while she's in the hospital but the hospice worker said she needs to move out of that place and they recommended a place to move her to so that's going to have to happen and I don't know whether my mother's going to need to be involved with that or not

But she said that she wasn't sure whether she was going to want to work or not so I told her I would be up and ready so that if she wanted to or if she needed me I would be available and she should just keep me posted so I may be free tomorrow or I may not

But the reason why I said my mother is difficult is that you know she's supposed to be monitoring her blood pressure and she's supposed to be monitoring her water retention because she had to be hospitalized and it was a pretty big ordeal and if her weight goes up two or three pounds she's supposed to call the doctor

But she went to see her cardiologist without me and he apparently told her she should just take an extra water pill which you know is probably what the other doctor would tell her to do so I don't necessarily have a problem with that as a thing to do but she's lying to me when I ask her about her numbers

I know this because hey I was pretty sure she was lying to me and then b she told me oh yeah I was lying to you and I'm pretty sure that she was up 15 lb and that was fluid maybe more than 15 lb that she had to be hospitalized but then when I was talking to her today she said it was 10 lb and she's up 4 lb now and I'm like well you know if did you call the doctor and she's like no I just took an extra water pill and I'm like okay but you're supposed to call the doctor if your weight goes up 2 or 3 lb and she's like well that's not what the cardiologist said and I'm like okay but what I understood was the agreement was that it was your regular doctor who was going to be monitoring you because it's hard to get in to see the cardiologist and she said call and she said that you needed to go in more frequently to be checked and she's like well she told me 2 to 4 weeks and it's been 4 weeks so I was going to call her tomorrow but she wasn't going to call her tomorrow

So I'm like okay well you know she took her extra water pill tonight because apparently she's taking the water pill one time a day now instead of two times a day

and she sure that it's all going to be fine in the morning and I'm like okay well you know way yourself before you call the doctor to try to make an appointment so that you can tell them if it's up and I mean it's not like I think 4 pounds is such a big deal

And it's not like I want to be you know the military police or something

But I mean I thought we were all on the same page that you know this is something that we need to be taking care of before it gets out of control and it wasn't 10 lb it was more than 10 lb but if she thinks it was 10 lb then she's almost halfway and she just is blase about it

I told her that the covid is coming and the hospitals are about to be completely overrun and that she wouldn't be able maybe to get medical treatment if things got out of control and besides she didn't want to be back in the hospital but I'm not certain that she's taking it seriously

And apparently I can't tell by looking at her if she's retaining a couple extra pounds of water That's just too small of a threshold

And see this is part of the reason why I have to be doing this because she can't be trusted

And you know if she wanted to die I could respect that I understand that I've wanted to die lots of times but she doesn't want to die

and I feel like she isn't taking the cover to seriously if she should be and I don't know how to ask her more specifically about her numbers without just being a complete b****

I don't know

I don't know

I'm not sure how to handle her

Anyway I thought I had written you this morning but I see that I haven't and I'm sorry I just to be honest I just watch Monty Python episodes all day and talk to her on the phone and you know I don't even know what else just kind of veged I mean it's been probably 5 hours since I stopped watching Monty Python episodes

I need to go to bed because I need to be up in case she wants to work and I didn't have to do it that way I could have said no if you don't know now then let's not do it but to be honest with you I didn't want to do that because I kind of feel like I should be watching her so if she wants to do it I kind of feel like I need to just so that I can keep an eye on her and try to make a closer assessment of her water retention and whatnot

Anyway I didn't mean for any of that to interfere with you

So I'm sorry

I am feeling some stress

But you know I don't know how much longer she's going to live like this I mean she has really good medical care she has much better medical care than I think I probably have ever had and for sure she has better medical care than what I'm going to have when I'm old and childless so they won't be anybody checking on me

I was thinking about that too

What it's going to be like when I'm old

although realistically I don't know how old I'm going to live to be

So you know that's not help helping anything

I think I told you I had a vision a few years ago that I was going to die alone in the desert

But I'm not like afraid of that

I kind of go back and forth about whether I think that's a good thing or a bad thing but I'm not afraid of it

I just really hope that I don't like fall down and break my hip and have to lay there until I starve to death or oh no I would dehydrate first so three days it'd be a long three days laying on the floor waiting for somebody to come by and find me and why would they I'm a f****** hermit I aspire to hermit this in a lot of ways so these are not happy thoughts but you know it could be worse

But this is not what you want from me this here

So then what do I say right so now it's late and I'm just saying it anyway I may as well have said it hours ago

If she does want to work tomorrow I may have to bust out the real makeup because I'm more broken out now than I was before

I don't know

I just don't know

I'm sorry I'm not more there for you

And I worry about you

Whether you're healthy or not

Whether you're taking good care of yourself

I hope that you are

And I hope that you understand why I didn't say anything earlier

And I hope you aren't unhappy with me for saying this now

I tried to get all upbeat I really did

I just didn't quite manage it

Then I'll be fine maybe

I wish I had another sibling

That Jennifer wasn't just the imaginary kid she talks about but was actually somebody I could stick her with

But truthfully there's a way in which this is psychological work that I really need to do to be able to have any closure about this

And she's been saying you know how I'm so awesome and talented and whatever and of course it's all because of what a great mother she was and when she said she had lied to me and I was like yeah I kind of thought so she's like oh we can't lie to each other because we're bonded at the heart

Can I just I don't know about that stuff I don't think she was a good mother and I don't know if we're bonded at the heart I don't feel very bonded at the heart

But she is my mother you know

And I love her

Even if I also hate her

Does that make sense

But my brothers they're not her kids

I'm it

And she's got her self all tied up with Shirley because she didn't want to trust Shirley's son and she keeps trying to get me to sign on to be in charge of Shirley if she dies and I'm like no I'm not going to do that I don't really want to have to deal with you dying and you know going and digging through your house and trying to figure out what I have to do and I'm not really emotionally prepared to deal with any of that but I'm not taking on extra people who aren't my responsibility

I didn't want my mom to take on this responsibility because she's old and she has a hard enough time taking care of herself

And that's not so much because she's old as it is just because she's crazy

But I'm I'm not taking on extra people I'm not and what she should do if that's the issue is go get a lawyer who would be in charge of that stuff but there isn't really enough money for that

Me and Shirley doesn't really have enough money for that she was just so determined that she needed to be in charge of all that

But when Shirley came down here to live with her you know she asked her son if he could take her one day a week and he was like no

But I think she had a worse relationship with with her kid then I have with my mom for sure and you know men aren't really expected to do that kind of stuff anyway

So whatever

You know

Yet another reason why being a girl is a bad deal

And that's enough of that

I love you very much sweetheart

Going to try real hard to wake up with a better attitude