Growing Up Is Never Fun

There are times when staying Peter Pan and never growing up sound wonderful. I'd like to escape to Neverland and laugh and play all day. Sleep when you want to.  Eat what you want without gaining weight!!  HELLO! Sign me up!  Okay, yes, I know that part wasn't in any of the Peter Pan movies but if we are having a fantasy world -- no calories will be part of it! :)  Because growing up is hard and there are a lot of parts that suck.  Plain and simple.

Finding out your Dad has cancer and there isn't anything the doctors can do. So hard. Watching your Dad take his last breaths. Hard doesn't even explain it. Now, with my mom, life is hard once again.

My mom was diagnosed with Dementia last year.  But, she was able to fake normal for long enough the insurance said she was fine and kicked out help.  So, I pretended she was fine.  It's so much easier to pretend everything is normal.  When I say "normal,"  I don't mean you and I normal.  I mean, my mother normal.  The paranoid normal that he has been for years.  Where there is listening devices and people following her.  The things that have unfortunately become "normal" for my mother the past several years.  Until you can't pretend anymore.  By the time it reaches this level -- things have gone from okay to really bad. And it did.  I asked for a home visit from the place that treated her last year.  (they have a dementia outreach person)  So, on the 19the of February, my daughter's 18th birthday, she did a home visit.  And there is no more faking normal anymore.  There are pages of notes that my mother openly said.  So, my mother was put in an ambulance and taken to the psychiatric treatment place she was before.

Now, I am having talks about dementia units in nursing homes.  I'm having talks with talks about her insurance and her bills.  I'm having talks about taking away not only her driving but her freedom as well. How is my mother through this?  Angry.  She wasn't happy to see me when when I visited her Sunday.  She knows it is my power of attorney that is keeping her there, so she is asking for it back. The nurses and social worker is putting her off and telling her they can't find it.  But, one day, in the next week -- I will have to have that talk with my mother.  I will have to sign papers and move my mother to a nursing home.  I will make my mother cry.  I will make my mother angry.  She might even hate me for a while.  

This is why my blood pressure is terrible lately. This is why I'm one step away from tears most of the time.  This is why growing up is never fun.  Even in the midst of this mess, I can see God's mercy.  With His help, I will make it through this.