Can't sleep clowns will eat me

Ok so maybe not the clowns but sleep? Please.

This will sound judgemental, harsh, and unbelievably childish. All I can say to the critics is you've not lived my life with this person - I HAVE.

Mother.

One of my earliest memories is she teaching me to pull the stool up to the hanging wall phone (rotary back then) and telling me to dial 0 for the operator if I came home and found her asleep on the floor with a bottle of pills or if she was in bed and I could not wake her up.

Judging from the fact I couldn't read yet it's a safe guess I was around 3 give or take. This wasn't the first time. I was taught to drive for when she had a 'spell' and would pass out behind the wheel. I was 9.

My life has been to serve her needs when she needs and be absent (but available) when not. She currently lives with my husband and myself because she sold her house and had previously lived with HER parents but her mother died and her father in essence kicked her out in favor of an assisted care living situation.

So - she moves out with me. It wasn't going badly until this year. Ok we had the typical fussy high maintenance stuff that goes with life with Ma - the competition with the children - the drama over her long distance phone relationship with her first husband (a blog for another time) - the normal stuff with her.

This year, however, she upped the ante a bit. On Friday the 5th of October she came downstairs (quite agiley I might add - that comes into play later) and said "Steph (side note - the winds ne'er blow well when she calls me steph - it's either to insult or to dramatize) we have a problem. I had a stroke Wednesday night". OK I'm thinking "really?". Then she baldly states: "oh damn you're going to miss faire [MDRF]". I'm thinking ahhhhhh so THIS is where this is going. Anyway so I talk to her for a bit while I attempt to get ready for work and tell her to call her doctor. At 9 a.m. she calls me to tell me she called an ambulance. Seems as though when she called her doctor HE was under the impression she lived alone. Charming. OK so yes she had at some point had a light stroke (possibly) and was admitted for 5 days (until Tuesday the 9th) because she 'wobbled' for Physical Therapy (as she told me - "I wobbled for them just a bit") and insisted on self-medication (never a popular thing with hospitals.

--side note #2 - I had scheduled oral surgery for myself for the 24-26 of October. It had been scheduled since way back in September.

So she's now out of the hospital and charmingly has scheduled her tests and physicians appointments for - yep you guessed it - October 24, 25, and 26th. OK so I saw that coming and we've worked around it.

Monday October 15th. "Steph - we got another problem. My tooth is broke and hurts. Its EXCRUCIATING." OK so I schedule an emergency dental appointment for her for that Monday. She has such a fit in the office that they refuse to touch her (telling various people she'd just had a stroke and could barely walk, her blood pressure was 'high erratic' and her doctor knew another stroke was on the horizon yadda yadda yadda). So they schedule her for the oral surgeon the next day. At this point she has thrown herself from the chair, is on the floor on her knees, and screaming. I'm nonplussed what to do. I pick her up, pay the dental fees, and take her home fussing all the way. Anyway on Tuesday the tooth is extracted and she has pain meds etc sent home with her.

More nights no sleep.

Fast forward to today: "Steph we have a problem". *sigh* "My first BM since the surgery [she meant tooth extraction but ok] and it's black and sticky. Those antibiotics are making my stomach hemmorage I just know they are." *sigh* I read it in my book they would do that. *sigh* I give her the standard schpiel - call your doctor yadda yadda yadda. She tells me "Well now I know it's the last weekend so I WANT you to go to faire ... even if I am in the hospital ... even if they do SURGERY ... EVEN IF I'M IN ICU. Oh and you HAVE to have your dentist appointment on Wednesday. Well you just do that and don't worry about me."

Anyone else see where this is going?

So now it's 6:35 a.m. = I came in extra early because I know I will be going home to rush her to somewhere where she will laugh and entertain or possibly scream and cry and tell people 'Good Old Steph' without a thought of anything or anyone.

Sound childish? Sound like I"m mean? No it just sounds like Life With Ma.