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8:49 p.m. - 2006-03-19 How I spent my SundayOK...this is my diary and so I am going to be honest at the risk of sounding oh so evil and selfish. The fact that my Mother In Law lives with me and putting up with her and her daily rants to my husband about how I am spying on her and stealing from her and pacing back and forth in her room while she sleeps glaring at her...the smell....the sounds...the always being sick...the crying...my husband sinking into a low low depression so bad that he will hardly get out of bed...it is all waring on me, as is my job which is very very stressful and I am drained at the end of the day only to come home to what I find even worse....my Mother In Law and that awful talcum powdery smell mixed with whatever smell they put in those adult diapers to make them "stink proof", which has taken over my entire first floor. I wake up in the morning finding my microwave door ajar, light on...the fridge blocked open by the open lunchmeat drawer and hardened lumps of oatmeal all over the countertops, not to mention coffee which she trys to make sleep walking all over the counter top all of which I have to clean up before I go to work. If all the above is not enough, we have to listen to constant wailing and crying and moaning of "This isn't right what you and she are doing to me" We say "What....opening our home to you?" I would like to add..."and working a stressful job to pay for this house you are living in and supporting your son so he can give you full time care?"....but the words would be wasted. In her mind...we are out to take every last dime she has and make her miserable. There isn't enough money in the world to make me do this for money. Today, I slept in and at 9AM really wanted to just continue sawing logs but thinking of all the things I wanted to accomplish on my last day off before going to the salt mines, I rolled out of bed and went downstairs to make the coffee. My Mother in Law was sitting in her chair with a funny look on her face. I knew instantly something was wrong aside from her normal hypocondria. I told her I would make her oatmeal because I could tell she han't eaten. When it was ready, I called her and she couldn't get out of her chair. I went to help her and could barely drag her out of it...she was so limp. She hung on for dear life while I led her to the kitchen chair. When she tried to talk, her whole left side of her face was drooping and she was slurring badly and didn't make sense. I knew there was something seriously wrong. Now...here's what I felt. Compassion for her fear and concern to do the right thing along with................. I went up and woke Mike. He got dressed while I went back down to be with her. By then, she was crying and confused and had lost all the feeling in her left arm and hand. I got dressed. We got her dressed. By the time we got her dressed......... Guess what my inside brain said..."Shit...I knew this was too good to be true." See....for 30 years my Mother in Law has been at deaths door. Many a time doctors have tried to prepare us for the inevitable and she just come right back like a strong battery that simply needed a charge. We went to the emergency room anyway. EKG of the Heart?....strong heart....EKG of the brain....no sign of a stroke and certainly no damage (this in comparison to the Brain EKG she had last week)...Blood...Good blood. Absolutely nothing wrong with her....but they admited her anyway because she said she has bad headaches (which she has had along with a daily heart attack for all the 31 years I have known her.) We sat in the emergency room from 10AM until 5PM waiting for a room with nothing to look at but Mom. "Oh boy" She'd yell out "I have a pain in my left eye"...."Oh boy...I have news for you...I have a pain in my right eye"....."Now I feel good"...."Oh No...now I'm having a heart attack"...this went on and on and on, while the doctors told us in what great shape she is. Since they are taking our word that she had a stroke this morning (and she did have one)...they say it is called a TIA (which she has had before) and that blood clots form in her brain and they dissolve with no damage to the brain, allowing her to recover on her own. I feel let down...because she will be back. I am acting the right way...cairng and dutiful the way a caregiver should be...but my thoughts...my inner most thoughts feel like a kid at Christmas who just opened a lump of coal and shall never see another toy agay. P. I. Yarnsmith
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