2007-08-20
so much venting the steam is rising off the page
|Today I need to take care of some venting.
My mom is okay and the doctor isn't sure why she had so much pain, but on Thursday night last week my mom and dad spent the night in the hospital. My mother had a severe ache in both of her shoulders and when my dad lightly touched her arm she screamed out in pain. It is important to note that my mother never experiences pain. It's not like she's stoic and is quiet about it, she just never has a headache, she never takes Ibuprofen because she doesn't need to. Recently she had her teeth cleaned and found out there was a huge abscess along the gum line. But she didn't know that because it never hurt. So it is highly unusual for her to scream out in pain. That's why my dad took her to the ER that night.
As you probably know, my mom has Alzheimer's. Whenever either one of them goes to the hospital my mom thinks she is being committed to a nursing home and becomes very agitated (even if it is my father who is in the hospital bed). So it was the middle of the night at the hospital, she had to have her blood drawn every hour for three hours to make sure she wasn't having a heart attack and she wanted to go home. She became agitated and three separate times she was given some sort of sedative to calm her down.
So in the midst of this my mom had to use the bathroom. My dad was pressing the button for the nurse on the other side of the hospital bed when my mom swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand up. Because of the sedative she was dizzy and she fell. She grabbed onto the curtain that hangs between the beds to catch herself but it ripped and offered no support. As she fell, she hit her head on the handle of a wheelchair and bled profusely. She now has four staples just above her right eye along the temple. They did do a CAT scan and she seems to be okay.
Needless to say, it was a traumatic night for my parents who are 80 and 81. They did not get home until the next day around 1:00 pm. My mom slept at the hospital, but my dad stayed up all night. He tried to call all of us to give an update, but he only reached Caroline (my oldest sister). He told her the story and asked her to contact the rest of us, but to let us know they were both extremely tired and please do not call the house.
Caroline never called anyone. She took it upon herself to decide for us that everything was fine. She also decided none of her siblings (who range in age from 51 to 39 years old) could follow directions and refrain from calling our parents. I found out about this at 5:00 that evening when my dad called me on my cell phone as we were driving home from a water park.
He casually mentioned that Caroline must have called everyone because no one had called him all day. I initially assumed Caroline called everyone but me, since her jackass of a husband has destroyed our relationship. (The abridged version: her husband tried to start an affair with me then wrote me an open-ended letter extending the invitation. You can read about that here and here, if you're interested. Caroline decided I erroneously misinterpreted the situation and that I am being too uptight. Hence, our current lack of a relationship.)
After calling some other sisters I found out Caroline didn't just exclude me, she didn't tell anyone because she felt it was "trivial considering no one had died and no one was in the hospital." Can you believe that?!!! That is a direct quote from Caroline's conversation with Kate. Tell me that is not arrogance in its worst form.
I am so angry at Caroline. I sent her an e-mail telling her exactly what I thought. In my opinion, I was holding back as I didn't call names or hurl insults. This is the strongest paragraph of the message I sent her:
This is not a failure of communication; this about your character and your sense of superiority. Your willingness to make this decision FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY smacks of the utmost arrogance and lack of respect for every single one of your siblings not to mention your parents. It also speaks to your inability to accept responsibility. You showed poor judgment in a matter that is serious to EVERYONE else in this family but obviously you cannot admit that.
I haven't heard back from her and I don't expect to.
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My reminder which will go away on September 1, 2007:
Don't forget my goal of getting enough votes so I can donate money to Gilda's Club. You don't have to leave your name or your e-mail address, just anonymously click the the thumbs up icon at this website. That's all it takes!
2007-08-20 at 6:18 a.m.
