Once again

I haven't posted on the regular blog in quite a while, for no particular reason. I haven't posted here because I haven't needed to. But now I do.

I think I'm having an anxiety attack. My brain keeps circling back to the same thing, over and over obsessively. I'm shaking and trembling and on the verge of tears. Or laughing, I'm not sure which. I want to crawl into a corner and I want to run into the street.

Mom's back in the hospital. She fell in the garage of her place, looking at someones brand new shiny motorcycle. She probably wasn't paying attention to where she was going and tripped. Her skin is thin and she's on blood thinners so it was a mess. Because she seemed to have hit her head (and she was pouring blood from various places) they called an ambulance to take her to the emergency room.

The ambulance arrived and she was sent off. By herself. Without her purse, without her phone, without her ID. They had called Ron and knew one of us would go to the hospital sooner or later, but mom was still alone. I'm furious. Sending off an 83 year old woman who had just fallen and hit her head? You DON'T leave her alone, that's one of the things we pay such a high monthly rate for.

Luckily I was able to drive in and meet her there. She had been triaged and stuck in the same room she was in the last time (when she had chest pains a few months ago). She had a bruised lip, bruised eye (and chipped glasses), torn up left elbow, very torn up left knee, scraped left hand and right knee, various other scrapes, bad bruises on her right hand and arm. She had pulled lots of muscles in her back and chest when she fell. But she was in surprisingly good spirits, for all that.

About 5 hours later, after cleaning all the wounds and putting 11 staples in her ugly knee, and patching up all the other bloody parts, she was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics. Unfortunately being Sunday evening, every pharmacy in the area was closed. We decided to just cross our fingers and hope they'd get it filled early on Monday.

Which, they didn't. She didn't get her antibiotics until Monday night, 24 hours without any drugs. Their claim was "it was a holiday, nowhere was open." I cry bullshit; all the pharmacies were open, they just forgot.

Tuesday she went to her doctor for follow-up. Since it was her doc's day off, she met with the PA who inspected and rebandaged her wounds. The PA wasn't too happy about how her knee looked and instructed mom to keep an eye on it. They made an appointment for another follow-up for early the next week. I joked with mom that she'd be back there before then; she never likes how her wounds look, whether caused by injury or surgery, when they're healing and always needs to revisit the doctor.

She's been in a lot of pain, not unexpected. Mostly she's stayed in her apartment, not even getting dressed to go down to meals. Today she went back to the doctor since her knee was all red and her ankle swollen. Sure enough, they sent her back to the hospital to get an antibiotic IV.

Ron met her there so that she wouldn't be alone, but needed to get back to work when they decided to keep her overnight. I made plans to pick her up and take her home tomorrow.

I just spoke with her and now it looks like she won't go home for 2-3 days. They're that worried about her. She's getting fluids and antibiotics and of course, hates the hospital. I'm terrified that they'll give her something that will make her crazy and we'll be right back to a year ago.

I haven't been sleeping well for the past month and her situation has increased my insomnia. I'm so afraid of what can happen and even though I know that probably nothing worse is going to happen, I can't stop thinking about it. I try to read and realize I thinking about her. I try to watch tv and realize I thinking about her. Try to nap and the same thing.

It's natural to be worried, but I feel like this is obsessive. There's a good reason that I didn't have kids, why I don't have pets. Too much caring, too much anxiety. I never thought I'd be responsible for someone like I am for mom. She hates that she relies so much on me but at the same time, tells me that she only wants to spend time with me. All the time. Way more time than I already do.

I feel like my cup is full and I'm leaking all over.