Growing Old

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After spending the day with my mother yesterday, including sitting in the dining room at dinner with all the other residents, I texted my daughter and said that if she could help it, don't ever put me in one of those places. My mother has suffered 3 falls over the last year and is totally reliant on assistance to get out of bed, get dressed, get washed, get into the wheelchair, go to the bathroom. She also has dementia so she can be in pain one minute and then deny being in pain the next. She is hard of hearing and keeps losing her hearing aids so has done without. We have to shout to be heard. Another resident at a table next to us told her table mate that "those people are talking too loud". So I shut up. Tears welled up as my mother's leg cramped and she insisted on standing up. She cannot stand, but she knows how to unlock the wheelchair brakes and pushed away from the table to stand. She also refuses to eat pretty much anything other than ice cream. Not just witnessing my mother's speedy aging over the last 5 years, but seeing the other residents just breaks my heart. My mother can be ornery and even asked me at dinner if she was being difficult. She is not as difficult with me as she is with my sisters because my sisters are pretty bossy to her. But my sister did say to me once, "I hope I'm not like this to my children when I get old." She told me last night the fact is we are all going to grow to be this old. We applied my mother into assisted living facility about a year ago. They assessed her and confirmed that she is incapable of making any decisions and was put on the list. After her first fall when she cracked a rib she was moved up the list. This week my sister got her put on the crisis list. As soon as a bed opens she is in. In the meantime we have to pay a company to have someone stay with her over night from 6pm to 8am. It costs $30 AN HOUR! I don't want to live like this, nor do I want to put my children through this. It is a blessing my father died of a massive stroke because we all know it would have been so hard watching him try to recover from the stroke had he lived. It's still painful that it had to happen 13 years ago leaving my mother without him (and the rest of us). As I pray and worry about my mother, and exhaust myself, I fear the life I have ahead of me. This picture is of me and my mom on her 90th birthday... she will be 95 later this year.