Hello everyone, first – I am grateful to have found this site early on. Here is a semi quick back story:
I am 29, my father passed away in April of this year. My mom went into ER the next day and my fiancé and I planned the funeral, and since then my mom’s health has progressively gotten a bit worse. She has a wide series of health problems including stage 3 kidney failure, lung disease, congestive heart failure, fibromyalgia, pulmonary heart disease. Much of this she has had since I was a child but has gotten much worse over the years. She almost passed away several weeks ago and had to have an emergency colon resection surgery. Thankfully the surgery went very well, but the recovery for her will be long. It is my greatest hope of course that she recovers completely. I am concerned as she can already only drive 20 miles at a time alone, she cannot walk for extended periods of time, be without oxygen. She eats badly and has so much stuff in her house it literally scares me, much of which was my fathers and we are still trying to figure out how to get rid of it all. It is basically organized hoarding. She is usually mentally ‘there’ but does have moments of what is similar to dementia, generally when her blood pressure drops (it drops very low – coma low - randomly due to myriad of health problems). She is in rehab right now and has days when she will walk and do what is asked of her, and days where she will not eat or get out of bed. I plan to help her for a week once she is out of the hospital, but she lives 45 minutes away, the rehab center is an hour away, and I feel guilty saying this – but I already feel myself getting burned out (I have been visiting her 3x /week, missing work, calling daily, cleaning the house/taking care of the bills, etc. on top of dealing with my own personal matters). I don’t mind doing these things, but I fear that as things get worse I will be expected to take care of her an increasing amount, as that expectation has already been proclaimed in semi subtle ways by other family members.
I am getting married next year and we would like to buy a house, possibly move eventually, travel more. I want to eventually have a child. I have a brother who lives in another state, he plans to fly down to help for a week as well, but he has no intention of moving to Florida, and I would not expect him to. I am requesting advice to those who have already been down this road, are there any tips or resources I should look into? Does anyone have advice as to what I need to do and be cautious of? How do I prevent losing my life over this while ensuring hers is comfortable? How can I get rid of all this crap (there is SO much)!? I want nothing other than what is best for my mother, but want to be careful that I do not sacrifice my life. My goal is to find a healthy balance so that I have neither resentment nor guilt; although perhaps that is naïve?
Thanks so much!
