A Painful Picture (an update of sorts)

Tweet

My grandmother (80) is now in an assisted living facility, and won't be staying in a nursing home. If you're unaware of what I'm talking about you can always go back and read my post, "It Finally Blew Up". I doubt you'd want to because it's long. Anyway, so instead of just telling my uncle to take care of himself she is selling her house and car and moving into an assisted living facility (she was in the hospital for pneumonia when her sisters finally insisted she go to the ER), & never went back to her house after being discharged. I hate that she has to do it, but if that's the only way she can get him to quit calling her 25 times a day to turn his heat down or up, or lift him when he falls (because he takes too much pain meds) then I'm glad. (She's selling the car so she has no way of getting to him.) My grandmother is 5'3, and she always uses a cane (although she does occasionally use her walker). She walks hunched over because of her back surgeries, which didn't fully take because he had her waiting on him hand and foot (they live in side by side houses she paid for). Because of the surgery fails she also messed up her hip, which messed up her knee. So when you see her, she takes one step, and the second step always looks like it's going to make her fall. You want to hold your arms out, afraid she'll fall, kind of like little kids learning to walk. So a bent over, limping, woman with a cane was tasked with doing everything for her 60 year old son. I can't believe it came to this. He has always been a sociopath, but I actually pitied him for a long time. My grandmother told me I'm the only one who ever sends him a Christmas card, and that when he was in the hospital I was the only one who sent him a get well card. Even when he stole my pain medication years ago, anger, for some reason, was not my primary emotion. I guess it was seeing it in January when I went to stay with her for a week (I live 2 1/2 hrs. away). Her being called to his home at 3am. After she fell (on her way over to his house), I started walking her over every single time. However, when he'd call in the middle of the night she'd never wake me up to go with her. I tried to do everything he asked her to do, but I was not going to do the "personal" things he needed help with. Once when he fell he asked me to pick him up. I can't pick up a grown man. He was trying to get my grandmother to do it before I finally convinced him to call the fire department. (One of the firemen who came told me this was not the first time they'd been called over, and the last time he was sitting on the floor by his front door, incoherent.) The anger isn't going to help. And my grandmother could say no to him. I get that she won't, that she doesn't feel she can because she's his mom. What I'm saying is that she has a choice. And I have to respect her choice. Even if I have no respect for the person at the center of her pain.