Of All the Things I Miss...

Today I finally had the chance to call the Alzheimer's Association.  I had been waiting to make the call, waiting for an opportunity when my mom wasn't in ear shot.

Lately, she's always near and can always hear what I say.  I am in such desperate need for respite that I threw caution to the wind and started making calls in order to find the help that I need... Ma, she was in the room.

Big Mistake!

My mom heard me talking to one of the folks that I had called.  She thought I was calling a nursing home to have her committed.  Of course I wasn't... I feel like committing her to a home, especially after mornings like the one that we had this morning.  All that I want and desperately need is regular respite for myself so that mom can continue to live here with us.

"My family will take me in."  My mom said to me this morning after she heard me talking to Comfort Keepers, an organization that helps Care Givers with respite from caring.

"My family... it does not mean you, you are not my family!"  She screamed at me.  "My family will come.  I'll call Donna.  I want to talk to Donna."  My mom insisted.

Donna hasn't called or come by in 4 weeks.  My last sibling who was offering a little time for me to have a break, stopped coming.  My mom was hallucinating a lot and it freaked her out.

It's my own fault that she doesn't call or come over anymore.  I was tired of her telling me to put Ma in a nursing home and asking me when I was going to take my life back.  She told me that my brother and her can't help me, that Ma needs to be in a home.  She's closed her mind and heart, listening only to my estranged sister who kicked me to the curb several months ago when I asked her for help.

Everyone has an excuse or some reason that makes sense to them as to why they stay away; it hurts both Ma and me.  I feel that I have allowed myself to be my siblings excuse for staying away.  Being the scapegoat of a family sucks, I do not deserve to be discredited by people that I always believed loved me.  Even my mom takes her anger out on me, blaming me for her other children not coming or calling.  It sucks.  Care Giving sucks today.  I am stressed which makes it even more difficult to take the abuse that my mom is flinging at me.

I did make calls today.  Now I will wait for return calls.  It's the holiday weekend, I was told that no one would call until mid-week next week.

Now I wait.

In the meantime, I stopped my mom from walking out the backyard gate.  She was on her way to find her cousins so that she could live with them.  Cousins who have been dead for years.

My mom has no where to go; this is her home.  She believes that her other kids will come through for her.  She believes that my sister will call and take her out so that she can ask her if she can live with her.

She believes that she sees my brother in the backyard, but it's my husband.  She still thinks it's Marty even when I tell her it's not.  She tells me that she wants to see her Great Grandson, she misses seeing him.  He makes her laugh, she loves seeing her "genes" in a cute and young bundle of joy.

Alzheimer's is a horrible disease.  It destroys lives, not just the life of the person suffering with the disease, but the lives of families.  I hate Alzheimer's because it took my family away when I need them the most.  Of all the things I miss in life, I miss my family the most.