Funny this topic should come up today.
My father died from a massive heart attack in 2001, but it was due to decades of living with diabetes. Enlarged heart, you know. Otherwise, aside from diabetic issues - cataracts, failing sight - he was up and able to work around the house. In fact, he'd gone outside to work in the yard when it happened.
My mother is in extremely poor health. She came out of remission last spring with her breast cancer. She is in such poor health she cannot undergo any surgery, so her cancer is inoperable, she is too weak now from her bad health for the chemotherapy that's always worked before, most of the anti-cancer drugs have made her extremely ill, and her cancer is too close to her heart for radiation.
The doctors finally found a drug she could take and it's kept her cancer at bay for over a year now.
Her diaphragm is elevated on her left side and is pushing against one lung, halving its capacity to function, but she cannot exercise to strenghten her other lung and increase the efficiency of her circulatory system because after half a lifetime of going in and out of chemotherapy treatment, one of her heart atria is ballooning and she cannot stress herself too much or it might blow. She has a goiter in her neck that's pushing against her esophogus and making it difficult for her to swallow and recently her breathing capacity has worsened and an hour or so ago, my mother called to tell me her latest CAT scan showed a "mass" in her chest behind her trachea. It's almost impossible to get to for a biopsy without putting her under - which they can't do anyway - and that's probably what is causing her increasing difficulty in breathing. It could be a new goiter or it could be cancer, no one knows right now.
I hold out some hope as her oncologist has yet to see the CAT results. I hope it's just another goiter as her cancer as of last month was still under control but the goiter in her neck is enlarging and so is this 'mass'.
In the meantime, the doctors asked her today if she's made all her 'arrangments'...
These are all extremely serious conditions and I take them extremely seriously. But my mother has not helped my attitude about them.
For the last few years, she's done things - just for attention - calling us the middle of the night - 'having severe chest pain' but refusing to call 911, waiting for us to get there after a mad dash across town, just to have her refuse to leave home, she just wanted someone there. This is in the middle of a work week, mind you - which pisses me off to no end. Asking us to hold her hand for very minor procedures - it may not sound like much, but invariably she has her appointment at 8 am, which means she has to be there 2-3 hours earlier to check in, which means we have to get up at 5 am to drive across town just to hold her hand for something stupidly non-invasive and not dangerous.
Her doctors and hospitals are - I kid you not - less than 1/2 mile from her home, but prefers that 'family' take off from work, drive 20 miles one way to her house and take her to the doctor even though she's perfectly capable of driving herself and refuses to call a cab or any of the social services to take her to her appointments.
She's hard of hearing, but won't wear a hearing aid and then wants us to attend every meeting with her doctors because they 'mumble' and she 'misses' things.
She has on average 4-6 appointments per month. Every month. I and my sister have used up all our sick time ferrying her back and forth and I was comp'd one day at work because I got sick and didn't have enough sick days to stay home and recover. Taking off so much time can put our jobs in jeopardy - neither me nor my sister have a boyfrend or husband to help with bills/running a household - but my mother doesn't care much about that.
I love and care for my mother and what happens to her, but she needs to help herself more while she can because soon she'll be bed-ridden and she'll be regretting the times she made herself helpless when she truly, finally is.
