Thoughtless

Living with Mary seems to serve the purpose of constantly proving to me how inconsiderate and selfish I am. Sometimes I wonder at myself, I have to admit. Like tonight.

Mary fell today. I’d just cut her hair and thought maybe we could go get those new shoes today. So I got her to come stand in front of her dresser with the mirror on it, so she could see her hair—before she put her wig on over it. I wanted her to see how short I’d cut it, but she bent her head down. I thought she’d misunderstood me. In retrospect it’s so clear that that wasn’t the case but at the time… I said, “No, look here,” and pointed to the back of her neck. She looked down again and with a second or two, she was crumpling to the floor. I tried to grab her—I always keep her gait belt on her—but she was just dead weight and it was so unexpected. She fell on her knees and then back so that she was sitting on her heels with her feet splayed out under her, too. I still see that picture in my head and it turns my stomach! (In fact, we’d just had lunch and afterwards I noticed that I had a sour stomach from the whole event.) I immediately lifted and pulled her back so that her legs were out in front of her—I believe I lifted her under her arms, which was an awful thing to do and I’m so mad at myself, but I didn’t know what else to do and I guess in the circumstances it was the best thing.

She was pretty freaked out, too, as you can imagine. I ran to get the wheelchair, leaving her lying on the floor. She was crying out that she needed something under her back, but I figured that I needed to get her up and into a chair as soon as possible. I don’t know why I didn’t take the time to make her comfortable. I got the chair and hoisted her into it (thank God with some help from her—105 pounds is heavy!). She seemed to be ok; we were both rather freaked out, though. I didn’t know what to do. There’s always that helpless, confused feeling after she falls. Do I get her to the emergency room or not. She wasn’t complaining of pain, so I decided not to. I took her back out to the back porch, where she’d been all morning, and set her back up in her chair. It was extremely painful, almost impossible, for her to walk—her ankle hurt so bad.

Later, she had to use the potty and wanted to be moved to the living room. It was practically impossible to get her to the toilet and get her pants down. As you can imagine, I was getting more and more stressed. I got her into the living room and turned the Animal Planet on. We called Angie, which only made ME feel worse. She wanted me to put cold and hot on it and call the doctor and take her to the hospital and this and that. Later she called back and repeated everything and how sorry she was that I had to be in this situation. Yeah, right, whatever.

I’d tried a hot beanbag, but it didn’t seem to help, so I tried cold (to suit Angie, although Mom had said that if it wasn’t swollen, she didn’t need cold on it). Well, it didn’t help, either, so I tried hot again. She seemed to like it, but she moved around so much that it kept falling off and it didn’t seem to really help anyway. I also gave her a Darviset and wrapped her ankle up with an ace bandage. Her pain just seemed to get worse. She kept trying to rub her ankle even though she’d told me when I’d rubbed it that that hurt.

I got her to bed at 9 PM and read her to sleep—even though she didn’t want me to at first. I do it probably more for me than her; I love reading aloud so very much. She was awake again fairly soon. She kept moaning over the next few hours about how much it hurt. The thing is that she doesn’t know why it hurts. She forgets that she fell on it. So she thinks she’s just going crazy, with one thing hurting and then the other. (Oddly enough, her right toes only hurt her once this whole day and evening. I got her to stand up, which was very hard for her, and within a half a minute or so the pain had gone away. But it’s hard to tell about these things. She gets confused as to where the pain is coming from. I noticed a few months ago that her sense of left and right is often not there anymore.)

I tried again putting hot and then later putting cold on it, but nothing seemed to help. At 10:20, she was so wide-awake that she wanted me to read to her again. I finally had to stop because I couldn’t keep my own eyes open any longer. She seemed to be drifting off, too. A while later she was crying out again. I gave her another Darviset. It didn’t seem to help her, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’d already had one fit earlier this evening when she had to go to the potty and I couldn’t get her pants up. I’d put the wheelchair as close to the toilet as possible but it was still almost impossible for her to get over to it. I lost it. I hate it when I do that—but I often don’t know when it’s going to happen and it’s just like when I’m binging—I can’t seem to stop myself; I lose control. I said I’d had enough and couldn’t take it anymore, that I was at my wit’s end. I went and got a nightie (one like a dress) and went back into the bathroom to change her. She was close to tears (although I often wonder if they are more like crocodile tears because I never actually see any, not that I’d want to) and saying how she knew she was a burden to me, etc, etc. I told her it wasn’t her, it was all my problem and that I was frustrated with the situation, not her. That the situation made me angry, not her. That seemed to calm her down. I got her changed into the nightie, which really helped with using the potty.

Well, she kept moaning and complaining and I’d go into her room and tell her that I didn’t know what to do and the only thing I could do is call an ambulance because I couldn’t even get her down the steps into the car and that if we went to the emergency room it would be at least two hours before they even did anything with her and then they’d probably give her some extremely strong pain medicine which wasn’t good for her, which they’ve done before in the hospital—made her have hallucinations. I knew that neither she nor I wanted to go to the emergency room, but the whole time I wondered if it weren’t really me who didn’t want to go. To be honest, I could barely keep my eyes open. I’d sit down next to her bed and begin to fall asleep. She moaned about waking me up and what a burden she was. That only makes me annoyed, you know? I was really at my wits end. I gave her another Darviset. At around 2 AM when I went back to bed, I just couldn’t even see straight anymore. I begged her to please quite her Jesus-Jesusing because it woke me up and couldn’t she just try to ignore the pain and try to sleep, that she’d fall asleep from exhaustion eventually anyway. She promised to be quiet. I woke up half an hour later because she was saying things like, “Dear God, why do I have to suffer such pain? Bridget, can’t you do anything for me? I just can’t take it anymore. Oh, it hurts!” So I got up, as frustrated as ever at not knowing what to do. I looked at the ankle she was rubbing, mentally preparing myself to take her to the ER. She’d lost the clasp for the ace bandage somewhere. I decided to take it off to see what it looked like. There was something that sort of looked like a vain that might be swollen but otherwise there wasn’t even any bruising. I put some more capsazin cream on it, which I’d done several times already this evening, and put the ice pack on it again. Suddenly, it didn’t hurt anymore. Suddenly, everything was alright. Had it been the ace bandage all along that was causing the trouble?! She said she’d go on to sleep now. I made some sort of nasty remark about not me, that I was wide awake now, which I was, and that I’d be in the living room if she needed me. That really wasn’t necessary. Why did I say that? It’s not as if she’s been trying to keep me awake. Well, she’s been sleeping like a log ever since. I don’t know whether to be annoyed at it all or just relieved. I guess the later is the healthiest.

I’ve been eating sweets like a pig for most of the day. Stress? Can I really call all of this stress? It seems silly to do so, especially when I think about the stress that I was under during my graduate studies these past two years, but it does seem very stressful to me. I wish someone would come give me a break. But who? Why doesn’t anyone think of me? Is Mary really just my responsibility? Are we anybody’s responsibility? Or are we all really just here for and by ourselves in the end? I guess so unless someone decides to take responsibility for us—or else the law dictates that we have responsibility, like for a small child. One of my sister-in-laws is planning a birthday party for my sister who has cancer. I just feel like, that’s nice but how am I supposed to come? I feel like, go ahead and have the party without me; it doesn’t matter if I come or not. And I really mean that. I’m really not that interested in going anywhere. Just like how I’d have preferred to stay home at Christmas. It really wouldn’t have bothered me. I just want some rest; I don’t feel like going to parties.

I slept late yesterday morning because I was so very exhausted from having to get up so much the night before (toes and potty). Then I felt like crap all day. Didn’t’ do the dishes, didn’t do my housecleaning task for the day, didn’t do much of anything. Ate a lot. Was frustrated with how dinner turned out. Am I depressed? I’ve been exercising more and have only gained weight. I think while I was losing weight I at least felt that something, one small thin, was going well in my life. But I’m too tired to exercise anymore. And it used to be so easy to do my diet. For the first time in my life it was easy. I didn’t feel hungry; I felt in control. Then Christmas came. I only gain a pound or so but since then, I can’t get over wanting to pig out, especially on sweets.

I think I hear Mary.

She had to use the potty. I put the chair right next to the bed, but just the standing up and pivoting is painful for her. I’ve been through so much with her where she couldn’t put her weight on one of her legs, etc, but this seems harder. Am I getting weaker? Is she heavier? Will there come a time when I can’t handle her? And she doesn’t always help. She wants to stand up to wipe herself. I asked if she couldn’t just open her legs and do that. Yes, she can. She just doesn’t think. My brain is dead. I can’t think anymore. Will I go back to sleep tonight? I’ll probably be ready to sleep when she’s ready to get up.