Mommie Dearest..

Ok, first let me say – I love my mother. I do.  She worked very hard to take care of us growing up. She has had a very hard life and she (and her siblings)  has been through things that I hate to even think about.  I also believe that family takes care of family.

I do vent on Facebook A LOT about my mom and her seventy hundred and one doctors appointments a month and the fact that I haven’t actually had a day off in months, because on my days off work, I spend those days taking her to the doctor.

I believe that family takes care of family. I do – this being said – I am probably gonna offend a few here – but I have siblings, and so does she…many.  Who don’t even keep in touch with her.

Now, I called her a hypochondriac on Facebook today and WOW! Glad I wasn’t in the room with them!

Here’s the deal.

95% of my mom’s problems are real, and 5% of those are exaggerated. 5% of them only exist as a side effect of some of the 40 or so meds she takes.

Now, the other 5%…

An example :

For many years, mom told everyone she has Grave’s Disease.  We shared a doctor when she lived with us in Washington and gave him permission to  speak with me about any and all of her medical issues.  Nowhere in any of her medical records did it say she has Graves Disease. But yet, she still had it.

She is NOT allergic to soma. She is recovering from an addiction to it.

A few years ago, she was told she has a growth the size of a pea in her kidney. She called me and my sis, and another family member – it was the size of a grapefruit.

Maybe it is perception. Interpretation?

I go to the doctors with her, and one mentioned an esophageal problem. It could be reflux or cancer.

I cornered the doctor and told her to NEVER do that.

But it is possible, the symptoms, while it is probably reflux, could be cancer.

But what you have to understand, is that now, she’ll think she has cancer.

We for a very long time, tried to keep her from reading any kinds of health magazines…cause well, we were afraid she would develop testicular cancer.

So, yes, I know that there are many disease that are quiet and ..

 YES – I KNOW THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG – 

She has lost way too much weight too fast, 

and I KNOW SHE IS IN PAIN! 

But I feel sometimes like she looks for things…

and sometimes – I just need to vent.

Ok, lemme add something here.. I feel maybe I should list the mediacl problems she does have..hell, who knows, maybe a doctor will be surfing the web, decide to waste a minute on some boring blog of some (wish I was ) Stay at home mom who has nothing better to do but complain about her mom and think WOW!  A project!

So.. 6 years ago, she was given 6 moths to live. She has fibromyalgia, neuropathy, (spell check is gonna love this) she has COPD, as of 6 years ago, she was down to a quarter of a lung (Thank you Marlboro man). She has a small growth in her lung. She does have a small growth in her kidney, as well as 6 kidney stones in one kidney and  8 in the other. There’s the arthritis and some sort of esophagus problem  and for this, she has to take some sort of medicine 15 minutes before she eats. She has reflux. She has lost both breasts to breast cancer. Of course, there is the osteoporosis that we women get as we get older, she has cataracts and glaucoma. Wow. Did I miss anything? I think there are some memory things starting, I am terribly afraid of Alzheimer’s, but I don’t know much of family history as far as this is concerned, so not even sure if it is a worry, aside from the normal getting older memory loss and the memory loss from smoking.

So, for the record, she does, genuinely, have many issues. I just sometimes greatly resent having to deal with it all myself. My sis did when she took care of my dad as well, I am sure..however…I lived 4 states away! (just saying, Mel!)