On Friday I spent just about the entire day bursting into tears at various intervals. I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself and just could not stop crying. I am also in incredibly pain, with back spasms and am unable to reach my chiropractor because of course being a long weekend he's boogied off to his cottage. Also my better half is in Greece dealing with his ill mom, who weirdly enough is suffering from the same illness as my mom (congestive heart failure) and has had some falls as well. With the offspring in Alberta and unable to assist that pretty much makes me it.
Now the reality is that mom should be in hospital waiting for that elusive rehab bed, but being the stubborn German that she is, she told them she wanted to go home and, hospitals being what they are, obliged her. I didn't realize until it was too late that she was not in any condition to come home and promptly took her to her GP, who gently berated her. I must say that we lucked out with this particular doctor because he will actually make a house call to check up on her next week and made all sorts of request to the local Community Care office. Now East York Community Care is another problem, in my opinion, a huge problem.
On Friday morning I received a call from a woman at the Community Access Centre who was in a complete tizzy. My mother's regular worker was away and there were all sorts of faxes on her desk asking for outrageous things for my mother. What the doctor had requested by fax on my mother's behalf was some extra homecare, a blood technician every two days, and the hospital had requested in home physiotherapy. This all seemed to be to much for this nameless woman who berated me and told me that we were already getting the maximum homecare allowed. Now, I didn't get her name but be assured that Tuesday morning I will file an official complaint with the agency because truly, no one yells at me and certainly not when I first wake up and am in pain.
Now for friends, when I finally decided I need to ask for help, and I don't do that too well, my friends and neighbor's came through. One of them brought soup, my neighbor offered to bring groceries on her way home from work, my other friends came over yesterday and D took me shopping for food while P, her better half took Mom for a walk, cut the grass and pulled weeds. When we came home from shopping he graciously unloaded the car and put the groceries away. And my cousin, from whom I expect the least and never ask for anything, is coming over this week with some cooked meals. All this stuff makes taking care of my Mom a lot easier for me and I'm grateful. It was just tough asking for help and the truth was, I didn't have to ask, I just told them my problem and everyone just offered. That is friendship, worth more than anything in the world.