Mom will be 89 in a few days. She's diabetic with heart issues and stage 4 kidney failure. Recently she's been getting these weird skin infections and bladder infections that just keep popping up. It's like playing whack a mole because the damn things just keep popping up. This most recent one went from a visit to a nurse practitioner associated with her family practice doc on Thursday afternoon to a full blown medical emergency by Saturday morning. It turned into a massive foot ulcer that left bone exposed and threatened an amputation.
Brother dear rolls into town the second day she was in the hospital and proceeds to sit for 90 minutes in her room bitching at her because I asked him to show up to hear what her doctors had to say after they'd reviewed the tests and formulated a treatment plan. He's retired. It's not like he's got to hold down a job like I do. His wife is retired. They both have ALL kinds of time to go shooting (they are bigtime gun humpers.) He told his own mom he was too busy to be coming to the hospital. He told her and her doctor that there was no reason she couldn't be at home with that wound if only his sister wasn't too lazy to go dress that wound twice a day.
I was absolutely gobsmacked that he put on that kind of show. I've been taking her groceries, taking her to all her Dr appointments, and doing all manner of things trying to fight to keep her healthy and safe for the last couple years. Asshat says I'm some kind of derelict because I lack the medical knowledge to care for an open hole in a diabetic foot? You bet I resent it. That's shitty behavior to sit there with our mother telling her she's inconvenient. She's never once told us we were inconvenient. Far from it.
Every family has its own dynamic, and social workers know it. I've been absolutely open about mom's stated desire to age in place, my desire to do everything we can to provide her with the assistance she needs to stay safe and healthy, and the lack of support from my sibling. This will be his weight to carry someday when it's too late to help her, and I only have room to care for her and her needs right now.
I resent him for making her feel worse. Someday he and I will settle our own issues, but it will have to wait.
Laura
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