Lee

My name is Lee. In April, 2001 my mother Jean, who was 91 years old then broke her hip. Although my mom was a retired registered nurse, she refused to go to the hospital to get the hip repaired. She insisted that it would heal. Her doctor was reluctant to force the issue and I felt that with such a mind-set, she might not survive the operation. Over the next months, I began to realize that my mother had many mental health issues also, and had probably had them all her life. She fought rehabilitation and refused to learn to transfer into a wheelchair or use the bedside potty. I empty bedpans all day long because she had already been incontinent before she broke the hip. She never lets me sleep for more than a couple of hours before she calls me for trivial things. She used to constantly talk against me to her friend on the phone, telling her that I wasn't giving her enough food and companionship. Then she had a fight with the friend and they don't talk any more. Mom won't get a hearing aid or an amplified phone. Now she refuses to sit up by herself, uses a whining tone of voice all the time and is going blind from cataracts but refuses to go to the eye doctor. I fall asleep in chairs. I can't go anywhere. I pay a lady to come in three days a week for a few hours to give Mom a bed bath and change the linens while I go do the grocery shopping and buy cat food for our multiple cat family. I also work on line in a private chat room giving advice on relationships. It brings in some much needed money but Mom constantly interupts me. She has no respect for what I do or who I am even though I am trying to help her have some quality life and live to be 100 if possible.