From a phone conversation:
Me: Hi, Mom. Whatcha doin'?
Mom: I was just about to climb the ladder again, and trim the tree that beat my antenna to pieces.
Me:...You have someone holding the ladder, right?
Mom: Your sister is upstairs in her bedroom. She's mad at me* for some reason, and took off last night. Haven't seen her since.
Me: What about your sisters?
Mom: They're gone.
Me: Then please get my sister down to come hold the ladder.
Mom: I can't. She's mad at me.
Me: Then please wait until one of my aunts gets home to hold the ladder.
Mom: I'm not stupid, daughter. I have it braced. It's not going to fall.
Me: I would not call trusting a braced ladder with nobody there to help anything but stupid.
Mom: Well, what do you expect me to do? It needs done, and nobody else is around to do it for me! And I don't like climbing ladders. If it wasn't braced, I wouldn't be climbing it.
Me: Fine. Break your fool neck.
This woman has an unruptured aneurism in her brain, behind her left eye. The neurologist has told her not to strain herself, and not to fall. She also has arthritic bone spurs in both hips. Bad balance due to inner ear issues. Weakness in her hands and shoulders.
I'd rather she didn't climb anything--even a step stool--but short of being institutionalized and tied to a fucking hospital bed, nobody's going to be able to keep her from doing stupid things.
And it's going to be her killed, yes, but it's going to hurt my kids knowing that their grandmother was killed because she did something so far beyond stupid that it's not even visible from there.
*My sister is mad because my mom brought home a dog that has a tendency to go insane, and is at least part Pitt Bull. /And Mom won't hear a word against the stupid thing.
25 minutes ago
I understand your mother's position perfectly. I am frequently faced with exactly the same situation, barring the mad family member. Most of the time, I do the work and forget about it. Sometimes, if I have to go way up the ladder, I will put it off but only rarely.
ReplyDeleteIf she would wait a few hours, she would have help. This is what irritates the hell out of me.
DeleteYour mother is my mother's twin. 83 years old, suffered a stroke, doctor released her from the hospital only on the condition of a caregiver living with her 24/7, or transfer to a nursing home. My daughter left her job and moved 600 miles, with her five year old son, to be the caregiver. Now all she hears all day is, "I'm not a baby, and a I don't need a babysitter". Yeah, balance issues and memory issues, so she insists on going down into the crowded basement via the steep stairs every chance she gets. We have now scheduled a family meeting to decide what to do with Mom. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThank God Mom doesn't have a basement, or she'd be doing that, too. And yes, my mother has also had a stroke. It's how they found the aneurism.
DeleteMy mom will be 69 in August.