Nada Can't Keep Going Like This or Can She?

[Guest guest]

The holidays are always extremely horrific for me to deal with and I do sigh a

sigh of relief when they're over. This year it is worse of course. It can't be

long now, which is great for both of our sakes. She is suffering terribly and

won't do a thing about it for fear they will put her in a nursing home, which

neither of us want and she won't accept help coming in because she says that

they will rob her blind just like she sees on TV. Thank God for neighbors who

are her two angels and help her with no thought to themselves. It would be

impossible for me to care for her and she has told me she would like me to be

her 'slave' and be there to wait on her hand and foot but I'd have to have one

of my cats 'done away with' in order to live there. I can't do it and I won't.

Her house is VERY small and she would be the death of me. She also demanded a

while ago that I agree to live there in that house of hers which houses very bad

memories for me or she would leave it to one of the neighbors who help her as

well as the rest of her $. I have a life here several states away. I love it

here, have great/very supportive friends who are better than any family to me

(I consider them family) and I hate it there so I have no intention of ever

living there. The memories are also bad ones for me to begin with there so why

would I. So of course I lied and said I would live there, which I have no

intentions of doing but it is MY life and of course it's about control, but this

can't keep going forever.

I called her on Thanksgiving morning to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving and she

said she almost died the night before. The neighbors have called me to confirm

that her body had swelled up like a balloon and her ankles were three times

their size - that her eyes are badly inflammed, red and oozing puss and those

are the things they can SEE. This isn't the first time her body swelled up.

This is the third time. The first was around her birthday in the spring of this

year; the second was this summer and now. She said that she had gone to bed and

woke up not even an hour later with pains in her head like someone was shooting

her continually with a gun; her heart was beating out of her chest; she was

totally paralyzed and unable to move her body just her head slightly; shortness

of breathe; coughing and that her lips were blue so she just laid there. I'm

not heartless. Even though nada has done a lot of very bad things to me over

the years especially growing up and verbally up until a week and a half ago, I

still feel badly for how badly she is doing. She won't seek any medical

intervention and told me that her doctor gave her a flu shot that wasn't a flu

shot at all but something to kill her because she wants her put in a nursing

home and she won't go. Of course this is NOT the flu which she says the doctor

gave her on purpose trying to kill her, but a more serious TIA and they are

getting more frequent and more severe with the paralysis lasting a bit longer

each time she has one. Nada has been very nice to me on the phone lately also

which is unlike her. She said she sent me $100 to take a group of my closest

friends up here out to dinner as our pre-Christmas party so I am not alone yet

in the past called me a 'party girl' and has told me numerous times I have no

friends here - not REAL friends and my only friend is my friend Pip in New

Jersey a half hour from her who she adores. Pip, I believe, has BPD herself and

can be vile to me one day and loving, supportive and nice the next although she

apologizes for her bad behaviors because she doesn't obviously want to lose our

friendship as weak as it often is. Nada knows that all the friends I HAD in NJ

moved away these last nine years since I've lived there and the only one

remaining IS Pip. Her way I'm sure of trying to create a " you have no one there

anyway so you're not losing anything by moving here when I die' scenario. Sorry

nada your house is being sold upon your death and I am buying a home here.

I called her on Saturday (I call every other day) and asked how she was doing.

She said not much better and she had been vomiting everything up for three days.

She is 33 lbs. underweight as she proudly announced to her one angel friend

Kathy who took her to the doctor the Thursday before Thanksgiving because the

doctor wouldn't renew her prescriptions if she didn't see her (she cancelled

her last appointment because the day before she had one of her 'flu episodes'

she calls it and couldn't walk. She always rebounds and it is a roller coaster

for us both. Nada told me Saturday that she has stopped taking all the

medications the doctor gave her because she is trying to kill her and the only

thing that helps her is three aspirins a day and Coricidin which 'helps her

legs' and her pain killer from the doctor. Coricidin has serious side effects

if abused and it is for the cold and flu - nothing to do with swelling or pain

in her legs! She still claims she is able to wash her kitchen floor sitting

down on one of her kitchen chairs throwing floor cleaner on the floor in front

of her with a mop in one hand washing her floor and can stand long enough to

throw some chicken wings or legs in the oven but that's it. Otherwise she eats

TV dinners she says. But she was able to hold food down again.

I called her this morning and her eyes have stopped oozing puss she said but

very, very dry, itchy and 'horrible'. She is still in pain she says and not

walking well but 'better'. (The neighbors have told me separately that she is

not walking well AT all even on her good days and they don't see her every day).

She lies to them too about her 'flu' as she calls it because she doesn't want to

worry them.

Nada told me not to call her doctor's nurse for any reason because the nurse

told her supposedly that I am a 'pain in the ass' and it's pretty fruitless for

me to do so because she lies to them anyway about her conditions. Apparently

they have given up on her as she won't listen to them and for the last year or

so all they do once every two months when they see her is check her blood

pressure, weigh her and ask her how she's doing and that's it. Kathy who takes

her told me she is out of the doctor's office in fifteen minutes. This time

nada complained bitterly to me that they made her wait ninety minutes with

everyone around her coughing, hacking etc. I explained to nada I only called

them once in the last several months because I was concerned about her.

I know no one can do a thing and no one can force help on her. Even if they

did, her physical and mental health have deteriorated so badly that I know she

doesn't even want to go on and one of these days the strokes she is having will

be so severe she just won't wake up. Her wish is to die at home in the bed she

shared with her deceased husband - my stepfather, where he died and not in some

nursing home. She has said over and over if anyone tries to put her in one she

will take an overdose of her painkiller and kill herself before they can put her

in there.

I have a tinge of guilt for not giving up my life here and trying to go down

there and take care of nada but that would be hell on earth and there is no way

I will choose one of my two healthy cats be put down to satisfy nada (not that

anything would).

Pip (the friend in NJ) tells me how she bit the bullet and took care of her

mother AND mother-in-law in her big six bedroom house when they got sick and I

should do the same regardless of how nada is because she IS my mother and

consider her a 'job'. Give up the life I have here until she goes and eat her

'shit' as she calls it and pretend it's filet mignon.

Everyone here tells me to let it go and leave things as they are because I am

powerless and damned if I do and damned if I don't anyway because nothing I

would do would suit even if I were there and I know that's true. My one friend

up here is a mental health therapist who has met nada a year ago, diagnosed her

for me and she even says stay put. She understands most of all as she deals

with BPDs and she would never suggest I go down there to take care of her. Nada

hasn't been asking me to come down and take care of her of late so leave it be.

I know they're right. Aren't they?

Please no one suggest I get a lawyer and have her found mentally incompetent

because I can't afford a lawyer for #1 and for #2 it would take too long plus

the only thing that would be accomplished is she would commit suicide before

they got her in a nursing home and that's if they found her mentally

incompetent. The rules for that are so stringent I was told by my friend who is

a mental health therapist that nada is still so cunning she wouldn't be found

incompetent anyway.

It can't be long now since she is in such horrible condition and having these

increasingly severe strokes. I can't stand hearing about them and I just want

this over for both our sakes. I have for a long while now, but her roller

coaster is dire now.