What to do When Mom Can't Advise Me
My mother is a stubborn person and when it comes to illness, it can be maddening. She waited 4 hours into her heart attack to tell me she was in trouble. She masks pain to keep from going to the doctor like no one I've ever met.
She began feeling bad on Wednesday. I was at her apartment that day and while she said she didn't feel well, it seemed like the episodes she gets occassionally. That night, she sounded really bad on the phone, causing me worry. Thursday and Friday she assured me she was better. I was so convinced, I didn't protest when she cancelled a doctor's appointment on Friday because she said she didn't want to go into the cold.
Saturday morning, a little cause for concern when her neighbors couldn't wake her and called the weekend manager to open her apartment. She hadn't removed the ring from the door that tells the floor monitor in her building that she was ok. Knowing Mom always does this, they were a bit alarmed by 10:30, a half hour past the time she was supposed to have removed it.
Still, my mother assured me she was feeling better. I went and saw her for a little while. She did seem more alert.
On Sunday morning, she sounded better than she had in almost a week. Later that afternoon, I talked to her on the phone to ask her if she would like something to eat. Again, there seemed to be nothing to alarm me, except a bit of confusion (and this is another thing you never know to freak over or chalk up to normal aging).
When we spent an hour with her later last evening, she complained that her back was hurting a little again, but she masked her pain very well.
It wasn't an hour after we left that my sister called and said Mom was feeling so bad that she didn't even want to stay on the phone. I called her and it was a complete turn from the visit we had just hours earlier, and I had to drag it out of her what exactly is hurting and how that is affecting her overall.
The uncertainty and worry from last week follows us into this one. And the worst part about it is that my mother has always been my adviser. The irony is that I can't even trust her to tell me what's really going on inside her own body.
She began feeling bad on Wednesday. I was at her apartment that day and while she said she didn't feel well, it seemed like the episodes she gets occassionally. That night, she sounded really bad on the phone, causing me worry. Thursday and Friday she assured me she was better. I was so convinced, I didn't protest when she cancelled a doctor's appointment on Friday because she said she didn't want to go into the cold.
Saturday morning, a little cause for concern when her neighbors couldn't wake her and called the weekend manager to open her apartment. She hadn't removed the ring from the door that tells the floor monitor in her building that she was ok. Knowing Mom always does this, they were a bit alarmed by 10:30, a half hour past the time she was supposed to have removed it.
Still, my mother assured me she was feeling better. I went and saw her for a little while. She did seem more alert.
On Sunday morning, she sounded better than she had in almost a week. Later that afternoon, I talked to her on the phone to ask her if she would like something to eat. Again, there seemed to be nothing to alarm me, except a bit of confusion (and this is another thing you never know to freak over or chalk up to normal aging).
When we spent an hour with her later last evening, she complained that her back was hurting a little again, but she masked her pain very well.
It wasn't an hour after we left that my sister called and said Mom was feeling so bad that she didn't even want to stay on the phone. I called her and it was a complete turn from the visit we had just hours earlier, and I had to drag it out of her what exactly is hurting and how that is affecting her overall.
The uncertainty and worry from last week follows us into this one. And the worst part about it is that my mother has always been my adviser. The irony is that I can't even trust her to tell me what's really going on inside her own body.
posted by Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell at 5:12 AM
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