better day

    

       A miracle happened and my MIL slept all night.  Rick got a much needed full night sleep.  It makes a huge difference.  But things are definitely getting bad.  She is no longer able to walk very far at all.  Mostly just pivot with help.  Very flat affect.  She rarely talks anymore and is apathetic.   Time is getting close.  I told hospice I will need pads and things for the bed.  Time to move the commode in close to the bed and time for me to take my leave. 

     I talked to Rick about the snapping.  The thing is we have been taking care of my MIL for a very long time.  Not just since she got sick, but since my FIL passed away 7 years ago.  It is amazing what the woman was unable to do. 

    And she can be very difficult to get along with at times.  She is obsessive about things.  Garbage needs to go out a full 24 hours in advance.  When she wants something she want it now.  You will hear about it daily until it is done.  It doesn't matter what you are doing it has to be dropped.  She also doesn't ask out right for anything.  When my children were little and she thought they needed a hair cut it was,  Come here sweetie, let Gramma brush that long hair out of your eyes,  Gee can you see to read with those long bangs.  On and On.   Shoes were the same way.  Oh honey, are those shoes pinching you little feet.  Poor dear.  It would make you crazy.

    But......I told him we had to put those feeling away now.  This was different.  This was getting to the end and in all probability his mom will be gone in less then a week.  Now is not the time to change her lifetime of behavior.  Now she has just enough energy left to do what little she can.  He hung his head.  He realizes that.  He is having a difficult time knowing anytime he might sleep all night and look over to see she has died in her sleep.  It haunts him.  He also is mourning for the brother he will never want to see again.  Basically he is losing the last of his family.

        Me, I would be crying and bawling and talking about it to deal with it.  Rick, he keeps it in and gets snappy.  I lost my mother in 1980.  It was the single most painful experience in my life.  I do know what he is going through.  I ache that I can't help him.  Only time helps.

     So time is getting short.  Betty asked me about the light, what is the light they talk about.  I told her it was the candles on her welcome home cake.  She smiled.

      I was wishing today I was a better person.  A better friend, wife, DIL, nurse.  Do you ever do that.  More even tempered, smarter.  Things more important then being the thinnest or richest.  Thinking about how to do that.  Determined to make a conscious effort to be a better person.  One I can look back at and say, I like that person.  Anyone ever feel that way.  Tired of your shortcomings and ready for change.  Maybe going through this with my MIL is giving me these thoughts.  I am no saint.  But I could be better.

       

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is the nature of your emergency?
Caller: I'm trying to reachnine eleven but my phone doesn't have an eleven on it.
Dispatcher: This is nine eleven.
Caller: I thought you just said it was nine-one-one
Dispatcher: Yes, ma'am nine-one-one and nine-eleven are the same thing.
Caller: Honey, I may be old, but I'm not stupid.