We just got back from the Bahamas and when I called my mom she didn’t answer so we drove down to her house and I found her in the hospital!
She had her big toe amputated due to diabetic ulcers the day we left. She didn’t tell me they wanted her to go to the hospital, she wouldn’t go because she didn’t want me to cancel my vacation. I have been taking care of her 24/7 and we had this vacation planned for months and it was very expensive. I wouldn’t have canceled anyway and I would have felt better if she was in the hospital and my brother was there and I couldn’t have done anything anyway. I actually don’t feel guilty, is that bad? Now she is having a hickline placed Monday. We had to come home, but now she is refusing to go to rehabilitation therapy. She thinks I can do it all, yet when my father in law went she thought it was the best thing. Then she acts helpless with me, yet she acts completely different with everybody else. She talks about how all these people have offered to help her but she will never ask them. She thinks I can do it all. I am just at wits end. In her day she took care of her parents and my grandmother and grandpa so she will talk about that making me feel like it’s my responsibility, but I also have a brother a minute away. I am an hour and a half away. He actually had to take her to the hospital while we were gone and it’s like he saved the world. I don’t know if there is a question here but I needed to get this out I also have my own health problems.
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You have only just returned from a major trip away and have things like unpacking to do.
For now, for the time being, take deep breaths and take the time to think about your next steps.
Your mother can refuse rehab if she wants to, and if she's mentally competent; but what she cannot do, what is not her decision to make, is require you to provide the care she needs.
You are right not to feel guilty. This is not your doing and not your responsibility. But it is also not something that requires an immediate decision, now, today.
Give your brother a gold star and let him enjoy his fifteen minutes of hero-worship. Tomorrow is another day.
Did you have a great time? Is the dog speaking to you??
Back in 1965, my elderly gramma broke her hip. She announced to friends that she was going to be an invalid and that her daughters would wait on her.
My mom said "No, mom, I can't possibly do that. I can care for you better if you go to rehab and get strong, but not if you are an invalid". I think my mother knew that if gramma came home, there was no way she was going to follow instructions about exercise and the like.
Gramma never really forgave my mom, but my mother didn't much care. Her mother learned to walk again.
My mom DID take care of her mom in her later years. Mom was in good health and was a stay at home mom. By the time she herself was in need of care, we all lived too far and all worked full time. Mom went to an Independent Living facility and then to a Nursing Home. Times change.