[eskielover]

I am going through a tough situation right now dealing with the death of my Mother in January. As some of you know, I had my mother put into the hospital just before Thanksgiving because she was having serious trouble after her cancer surgery in June. During that time, I made it known to the nurses station & the social worker that I needed to be included in on the conversations that would be taking place on what kind of treatment my Mother would be needing after she was discharged from the hospital. Being the only child & living over an hour away from the hospital, I requested a 24 hour notice as to when the conversation would take place. I would come in to see my mother every day & she told me they talked to her & I wasn't included in on the conversation. I started to get very irritated about it especially when my mother kept telling them she could get around with her walker when I knew she no longer could. No one at the hospital would talk to me about the care she would need & I felt like the jerk who needed to make the arrangements without any information to make any intelligent decisions. I kept getting more irritated with the staff which got me no where.

My mother's boyfriend had a neighbor who was an oncology RN who said she could make everything go smoothly when my Mom was sent home. I wasn't really impressed with her nor her personality, but all of a sudden after we all met in the hospital, the RN had called up the social worker for my mother & told her that she was the RN that would be setting up the 24 hr a day care for her & found out that my mother was to be discharged that day. I hadn't even had a chance to look into any alternative options & a meeting was set up with the three of us. Even the social worker seemed to think that this RN knew what she was doing. I felt I had no other choice than to have my mother sent home that day. I had responsibilities with my horses an hour away at home, so stupidly trusted this RN because my mother's boyfriend & his daughter had nothing but great things to say about her & that she was very pationate regarding cancer patients because she had lost both of her parents a few years earlier to cancer & was working with them in the hospital. I gave the key to the house to her so that she could be there when the caravan from the hospital brought her home. I took care of all the things I needed to at home them drove back down to my mom's home to make sure things got settled. She had a financial specialist available to help make sure that the bank issuse were taken care of & set up an appointment for the next day. The first night things seemed to go ok, & the saturday seemed to be ok also. My mother was getting to the point where she was having a hard time signing her name, so I had her sigh a few checks so I could take care of some bille until the paperwork went through at the bank. The sunday, my husband & I had a Dr appointment & left the house for a few hours & wouldn't you know it, some of her friende came by to see her. I hadn't put her checks in a safe place because the RN said that if I took them away & would be considered controling her since she was still considered to be capable. Things didn't seem to be going well at my mom's home & I ended up not going to plans I had made for my own life. The Sunday morning, my mothers wedding ring ended up missing. Not that it was that valuable but it was just the concept. How funny, when the RN started looking for it later that day, it showed up. The next day, I looked through her check book & found a check filled out & the RN told me to just forget about it (at that amount I decided to have my mother help me put a stop payment on the check). Later that day the check book was missing again & when I started getting irritated & had my husband help me look for it, the RN started looking too, & guess what, she found it in a place that would have been hard for it to have been without her putting it there. I also caught her on the phone earlier that morning giving out names & social security #'s. I got the phone away from her & it was a wireless phone. I took into the back bedroom to find out who was on the line & what was going on. The phone went dead & later when I looked over the phone, I found it disconnected from the connection & the wire was cut. I also decided to look at the check book that had been missing & another check had been written which I had my mother help me put another stop payment on that one. At that time, I decided to look for a new nursing group that were professional & not just friends. The next morning, she needed to leave to take care of getting her daughter to school (another issue that was that she was required to provide 2 12 hour shifts & she ended up being the whole 24 hour shift) The wed morning when my mom was supposed to have a Dr appointment after getting out of the hospital, I got a phone call with her carabbien accent, claiming to be a social worker giving a phone # that ended up being a web design company. A little while later after I had called the police about what had been going on over the last few days (& they said they couldn't do anything about it until I had written proof), there was a knock on the door. I had called my husband & neighbor for help since I was alone with my mom at that time. There at the door were a couple of police asking me if I knew why they were there. I mentally went back to the conversation I had with the police about an hour earlier & couldn't figure out why they were there. Just as they came in the house, the RN followed & I had asked her to stay away until my mother's lawyer had finished with the legal issues that had to be taken care of. I was so stressed about everything that had been going on over the last few days that it all came poring out when the police started asking me questions. The one told me so just be quiet until I was asked questions & wondered why I was so nervous. How do you not tell them why you are so nervous & be quiet at the same time. It seemed like for at least 1 1/2 hrs I kept getting asked if I knew why they were there. They did go in to talk to my mom. I still didn't get what was going on until they finally told me that I was being accused of elderly abuse to my mother by keeping her closed in her room & keeping the phone away from her. I only had her in her room when i wanted to talk with her privately, & she couldn't handle the phone without my holding it up for her to talk into anyway. By that time, my mothers lawyer had showed up & went over the trust with her & I was talking over with him what had been going on along with the police being there to discuss it with us too. The trust got finished, & I had made arrangements with a new nursing group to come in & talk with my mom, & husband to set up something new. By that time, the lawyer & the police had left. I asked my mom's boyfriend & the RN to leave for a while during the time we were to have a discussion with the new nursing staff. By that time, my mother was having the shakes & could hardly communicate. I did get a chance to find out that she had been given a pill that slipped out of her hand but by that time, the new nursing staff showed & the RN called 911. Once the 911 looked her over & asked if we wanted to take her to the hospital of have them, I decided to have them & had the RN & the boyfriend leave the house. As the RN left, she said that my mom would not be coming home. On the way to the ER, I thought about a possible OD since she was reacting the way I did when I had OD'ed myself. I also decided that my husband should change all the locks on the doors. I had her transterred to the hospital where her normal MD's were & after talking to the security, had her placed there under an alias. Unfortunately, her boyfriend had already found her & I had to go through all kinds of issues to finally get an alias that worked with her boyfriend being escorted out of the hospital also. Later that week I found out that several of her credit cards had been stolen & one used with a call put in as my mother telling the credit card company that her daughter was financially abusing her. I spent 24 hrs a day with her not feeling that she was safe even with the alial & felt like I needed to be there to answer questions that would come up, knowing that she was dying from cancer. I don't know where she was coming from, but it seemed she had no idea that she knew what was going on with her unless she believed that prayer was going to stop this from happening. I found out several things from her Dr's that really pissed me off about her & there were things I just couldn't put up with anymore so when she asked me some of her questions, I put it back on it being her fault that these things were happening because she didn't take care of herself.

The longer this went on, the less I could get food down until the point I was put on the TPN using a PICC line until it quit working after a few days. Then I left AMA to go to the graveside funeral & ended up back in the hospital with a central line put in without any pain meds because I was alergic to the the lidocain & no one thought to give me any other pain meds. I thought I would die going through that pain without anything to help. I was on the TPN for about 2 weeks & still couldn't get down any food. My GP thought if I ended up home that everything would get better (little did he know that home was a worse place for me to deal with). I ended up back in the hospital a week later & the psych was to try to take care of the fact that everyone was thinking of it as my anorexia coming back. They finally let me go & told me to find an eating disorders treatment center that I could handle after the bad experience I had the last time.

While trying to find an eating disorders center, I started asking questions about how they would treat some of the issues I was having & most of them agreed that I was not just dealing with the anorexia because there was no body image issue. They dedided it is PTSD that needs to be treated first then the eating will be easier to deal with. Now I am going through the dieagreements as to what I really am dealing with & have been told the same thing as to find a place for treatment. I have gotten no responses let alone the fact that there are only a couple of places far from home that even deal with the issue. When you can't find any help & no treatment seems available, it is time to give up? No one even understands the problem & questions like you mean the death of your mother it the trauma. Live through the 4 months I did with things going on under your nose that make it look like they aren't happening & see how you feel. I wish the Dr's had lived through the experience & then not be able to find any help. From what the psychiatrist said, without eating or drinking, it is really easy to end the whole thing which at this point in time doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

It is really sad to end up having your mom die & feel the way I do about her. I should have stayed away & just let her deal with her problem she got herself into by herself. It was her choice to ingnore her situation & then be stupid enough to insist on home care without letting me know what was needed, let alone protecting the few valuable things she had in her home anyway. Part of me says that she got what she deserved because she wasn't smart enough to take care of herself while a small part feels sorry that she was so nieve to understand what was going on. I'm just exhausted with dealing with the police, feeling the way I do that seems to be causing me the nausea toat makes it hard to eat. I'm just tired of it all & want to give up. And am also exhausted in trying to find help when no one agrees on what or how to help. I know that means that I have to help myself & just can't find the energy for that either.

Just plain frustraited,
Eskielover