My mom’s heart rate was 128 last night. I checked it three times before bed and it was above 100 each time. Her face is swollen on the right side. She is breathing heavy. Her head hurts. Her chest hurts. She feels miserable. I continue to watch her fade away as the illness has progressed over the last decade, the most ever the last three months. This is very hard. I wanted my blog to be a place for learning and encouragement on our journey to parenthood, but this post is about sadness and heartache, some venting and despair on being a caretaker for someone with a chronic illness.
Our home health nurse stopped by on Wednesday night and said to take her to the hospital, but she refused. She is too weak. So we agreed to call doctor in morning. Today, he said to up one of her medications keep checking her pulse and blood pressure and bring her in if pulse remains high and blood pressure low. Her blood pressure had remained fairly normal most of day with pulse around 90-110 each time and she seemed so much better by noon today. Just now when I checked her, her blood pressure was 90/66, that is pretty low. I think the nurse said to bring her in if the bottom number got to the 50s.
Sometimes I don’t think she has the best medical care. We have some pretty crap doctors. But I don’t even know where to start with finding new ones that will take Medicare or take time to understand her very complex history. And maybe he is a good doctor for her and the others are too. I don’t even know. We have family doctor, pain management doctor, endocrinologist, GI, OBGYN, OBGYN GI, cardiologist, neurologist, psychiatrist. It is a full-time job keeping up with all their appointments and tests and waiting hours to see them for all of 37 seconds.
This will be the 7th day I’ve taken off from work and it is only Feb. I feel pretty bad about that. Then I feel bad for feeling bad about that. Then my list piles up at work and I can’t keep up and I worry I am doing a disservice to my team to keep this job while juggling this at home. We have some pretty bad stuff happening at work right now and they need me up there. But then mom has this roller coaster thing where she is good one day and bad the next. I go to work on the good days and it is so freaking fun and relaxing to me. That is sad because my job is darn stressful, but compared to what I am dealing with at home work is a vacation that I actually have some control over and manage as good as I can when I am there. It is the one thing I am good at lately.
My whole life is work and mom, and everything else gets neglected. I am not even wearing contacts right now because I am not sleeping and crying so much that my eyes hurt too much to put in contacts.
I have taken my name off the adoption waiting list temporarily until God reveals more to me in this season of taking care of my mom. I don’t see how I handle this job, children and taking care of her.
I am swimming in medicaid paperwork right now and a mighty to do list at work. I am overwhelmed.
We are put on this earth to love others, not just to work. I need to make some serious decisions right now and could use your prayer. I am numb.
Tagged: Addison's Disease, adoption, chronic illness, chronic pain, sick mother
