Easter Sunday...go down swinging, Mom

Exhale, inhale, exhale again....inhale again...repeat until I feel calm again. Today was a tough day with Mom. She called this morning before I left for church, but I just did not have the strength to deal with her. Every call has been the same for a month.

"The doctor says I can go home. Come get me today, tonight, right now, so that I can sleep in my own bed. Bring my purse, bring my checkbook, bring cab fare so I can go HOME. I want to go HOME....I hate it here, the food is terrible..all I do is sit in a wheelchair....they are taking my money...get me out of here NOW!"

It is a variation on this theme over and over again. I know that the doctor has not released her. I know that she is bored and anxious. I know that she is more scared than she has ever been before. I know that is she more manipulative than she has ever been before. She is not in control now and she wants to get back in control and she will say and do almost anything to make that happen.

I tears at my flesh to see Mom like this, but I cannot physically or emotionally take care of her anymore. We have crossed into a new frontier of nursing assistants to take her to the bathroom, dress her, get her into her wheelchair...take her to her physical and occupational therapy.

I have no idea if she will ever be able to go back to her apartment. It seems unlikely from everything I have been told so far. She needs help going to the bathroom, and getting dressed. She is a high fall risk because of her hip and her age...and her instability. I have talked to her physical therapist and her occupational therapist...both say that she can never be alone again.

All I know is that I can never take on her care again. I have done it for four years and I just don't have it in me to take on anymore. Of course, Mom will not understand this...my need to have my own life, my own family, my own breathing space. As a narcissist, she will only she herself and her own needs. She has made me the enemy now, but she will become anything she needs to become to get her way.

To find her ticket back to her apartment...where she was miserable before...telling me how blue she was, how lonely, how lost. There is no good solution here. She will fight me every step of the way until she is finally gone. This resilience, this stubbornness, this is her legacy to me. Go down swinging....Mom, go down swinging.