Blogging ... it's cheaper than therapy

You know how my uncle was supposed to be taking my mother home today, after five whole months here? Yeah, that didn't happen.

My mother developed sepsis overnight and was taken to the ER.   Apparently I never turned the volume back on my phone after my hearing yesterday, so I didn't see the 9 missed calls until 9:00 this morning.

WTF?  She saw her surgeon on Friday and he said she was ok to go home.  I saw her Friday night, and she was perfectly fine.

Anyway, I called the ER doc to get the scoop (he left his personal cell number!).  She told him that her daughter was a lawyer and he clearly did not want to take responsibility for anything that happened to her and was peeved that he couldn't reach her surgeon.  She was at a small neighborhood hospital and he wanted her transferred to the big hospital where she had her surgeries.  I had no disagreement, as the big hospital is certainly a better facility that the tiny no-name hospital she was currently in.

So, I spent my Saturday at the hospital. I was supposed to interview nannies this morning, and I had to cancel the interviews at the last minute. And I almost cried when I had to tell my girls that I would not get to spend the day with them. I had had a very busy week and was definitely feeling like I was not getting enough girlie time. 

I know it's irrational, but I'm angry with her. I swear I feel like she somehow psychosomatically created this so that she didn't have to go home. (She doesn't want to go home--that's another long story.) I needed her to go home.  My time is full with my job and my kids and running my house.  I've had hardly any downtime since she's been here--because if I have any extra time, I have to stop in and see her, or rearrange my weekend to see her.  And usually there's not extra time anyway, and so it's taking away time from my kids or my job.  And right this minute, I am really, really busy at work and so she's taking away time with my kids.  And it just makes me angry.  Because she never made time for her kids.  She didn't rearrange her job or her life for us. And the thing I want the most in life is to not be like her.  And yet she's making me like her because I'm not spending time with my kids.  (I told you this post wasn't rational.)

So anyway, I stayed with her until they got her transferred to the big hospital. She is in ICU there, and probably won't be moved to a regular room for at least another day or two. The ICU nurse gave me a look of incredulity when I left this evening.  I guess people usually camp out when a relative is in ICU, from the looks of the chaotic ICU waiting room. But I didn't see what I could do there, and my kids needed me at home.

And so I brought home pizza and we had movie night.

And tomorrow I will have to go back to the hospital, and I rescheduled the nanny interviews, and I have some work that I need to do, and I need to send out the W-whatever to our old nanny, and my house is a wreck (but new housekeepers start Tuesday!) and I need to do laundry, and we can just forget about grocery shopping, but at least I did a big shopping trip last weekend.

I feel like I have absolutely no control over my life any more.