My mother became, what appeared to be, suddenly very ill. She was completely independent, self employed, etc.... Then we noticed she wasn't acting right. Got her to the hospital and she was critically hypertensive, going into renal failure and within four days was on a ventilator in respiratory failure. That was last November. Now on her third hospital stay since January 14th and third hospital, Johns Hopkins, no one knows "exactly" what her diagnosis is and she's now on dialysis, suffered a severe delirium of which she's still confused. We ride the roller coaster of good days and bad days where it seems like she's improving only to get worse and so much time has been spent looking for rare diseases and cancer that she doesn't have. She has diastolic dysfunction, extensive arterial stenosis, had an aortic bypass several years ago, pleural effusions and now her kidneys don't work. I had to quit my job and take over her business to take care of her, my kids and myself. It's a boarding kennel so I'm taking care of live animals daily. I have been to the hospital almost every day, sometimes twice, since this all started and I'm burning out. She gives me guilt trips when I say I can't come see her because my kids need me or I've got a job to do taking care of 18 dogs. Am I wrong for not going every day? It takes 4-5 hours out of my day to go see her. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I just want to crawl into a hole and cry lately. When the delirium kicks in she gets mean. I'm an only child so the full burden falls on me. I can't take the guilty feelings. I feel like I'm not enough to handle everything and fear I'll lose my sanity if I keep going like this. She wants to come home but the two times she did she drove me nuts, was noncompliant with her meds, diet and oxygen and ended up right back in the hospital. The doctors act like it's no big deal for her to go home in her condition. Um, it's a huge deal! She can't even walk anymore right now. I don't know what to do or how to feel anymore. Sorry for the long post.