This Land is Your Land

How many times can a person die? I've asked myself this question so many times, it just sort of shoots into my head.  

I'm not even sure where to start in describing the last month.  A few days after I returned to work I had to begin giving a standardized test to my students.  I have forty-one kids right now and it is a four part test.  It is all I have done at work.

My mom was drinking again.  She stopped for about a week and then I started seeing liquor store delivery on her credit cards.  
"This is crazy, mom."  I texted.  
"Those bottles are arriving left and right, all the time."

She blew me off.

I went by her house one Friday after school, I don't remember why.  When I walked in, it was all dark in the living room.  The place was a disaster, there were dirty dishes everywhere, blankets all over the floor, it was indescribable.  My mom was laying on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket like a mummy.

"Hi!"  she said casually, as if the whole thing was completely normal.  

"What the fuck, mom?"  I responded.  Or something like that.  

She said that she "fell".  That she couldn't get up.  She only "falls" when she's been knee deep in a bucket of booze.

I felt a rage forming in me.

"Where is your phone?"

"In the bedroom."  she responded.

I climbed over all the shit in the path to her bedroom.  And, when I say shit, I mean that literally.  My mother wears diapers and never takes her trash out.  Her dog gets into the trash and strews shit filled diapers all over the house.  I got to her bedroom, grabbed her phone and climbed back to the living room.  I plugged her phone into the charger and handed it to her.

"Call 911."  I said and turned to leave.

"I'm sorry you're not feeling well..." she called out, her tone both clueless and condescending at the same time.

I left.  

I tracked her movements over the next few hours.  I saw her dot travelling toward Emory.  Interesting, I thought.  Afraid that Grady knows your story too well?  New hospital?

The next morning, I went back to her house to check on her dog.  I have a phobia about her house.  One, people keep trying to break in and I am afraid of walking in on a burglar.  Second, it smells terrible, a combination of piss and shit.  I closed the door to several rooms that were strewn with her shit.  There was a box of wine ripped open and several bottles were missing.  A huge handle of rum, nearly empty, sat on the counter.  I started dumping glasses and putting them in the dishwasher.  The smell of old liquor was so strong I nearly vomited.  I threw away everything that could be thrown away.  I filled her herbie with trash bags and the recycling with broken down boxes.  I had to make that place at least safe for her dog.  

"I saw you cleaning up the up the porch!  Thank you!"  my mom texted, all cheerful.  

She was watching me on her doorbell cam.  I felt that rage coming up again.  Feeling pretty cheerful, right mom?  I picked up a stick in her driveway and scraped the human shit out of the bottoms of my special post-surgery shoes, then got in the car and drove away.  

My mom kept sending me random messages all day, demanding that I tell her nurse to do things for her.  Crazy messages, claiming she was being held "against her will".  Telling me that she shit her pants and wanted me to help her.  Saying that she wanted to be home.  She even posted on Facebook, calling for her nurse.  I told her to click her fucking button.  That she was in a hospital.  That she clearly needed help.  That the only place I would take her was to rehab or assisted living.  That I couldn't keep doing this.  

A good friend almost intuitively came to my aid.  I knew I had to do something with my mom's dog.  Permanently.  My heart stung thinking of him living that way, in that house, with and without my mom.  My friend offered to let him sleep over at her house that Saturday night and help me introduce him to my Temple on Sunday.  I couldn't believe how kind that was.  Hunter is a little old and funky and she welcomed him right in to her house.  After the introductions, Hunter moved in with us that Sunday.  My heart rate was literally through the roof.  We kept the dogs seperate most of the time, trying to avoid any sort of fight.  Temple is only three and has a lot of energy.  She plays hard and is not too fond of other dogs, especially in her house.  

Alec was off the next three days in a row.  He and our dog walker walked the dogs together every afternoon, slowly acclimating them to each other.  I fielded my mom's crazy texts and worked.  Everyday, even before noon, I felt exhausted.  I was congested and my throat was sore, my eyes bloodshot.  My whole body ached.  I thought my foot recovery was causing the pain and I questioned if I would ever be physically normal again.  That Wednesday afternoon, we had a really long faculty meeting.  My school was back on the bad list, the list indicating that we are one of the worst schools in the state.  I felt enormous pressure, the principal kept talking about how many of my students count disproportionately toward our school's score - they are counted for being Title I, ESOL, Hispanic, some even Special Ed.  Four times.  Some of my kids' scores are counted four times.  It wasn't ESOL scores that put us back on the bad list, but they seemed to think my kids could get them off the bad list.  At the end of the meeting one of the instructional coaches snapped at me.  I looked down and realized I was about to cry.  I felt so tired, so much physical pain, I just stared at the ground trying not to cry in front of everyone.  

I cried all of the way home.  I cried while I dragged my mom's herbies to the curb.  I cried while walking from the car and into my house.  I couldn't stop.  Hunter was in Lola's old crate in the middle of the living room so that Temple wouldn't attack him.  Randomly, I decided to do a COVID test.  I was shocked when the thing lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.  

I texted my sister.

"Happy birthday, to me."  I said, sending her a picture with the positive test.  

"Shit, I'm going to take one too."  she responded.  We had been together a lot of the weekend, dealing with the dog situation. Twenty minutes later, she texted that she was positive, too.  I thought of my friend that took care of Hunter.  She was leaving on a really awesome trip in a matter of days.  What if I gave it to her, too?

I laid on the floor in our front room on a roll out futon.  Alec had tested negative and he and the dogs were sleeping in the bedroom, Hunter in the crate and Temple on the bed with him.  He tried to get me to let him sleep on the floor but I insisted that I would do it.  I wasn't going to work so it didn't matter if I didn't sleep well.  I texted my assistant principal.

"Hey, I wanted to let you know that I have COVID.  We have been together in your really small office dealing with the testing stuff and I just really hope that I didn't give it to you."  

"Thank you for letting me know."  she responded.

"Please get some rest.  Drink a lot of fluids.  Take care of yourself."

"Thank you."  I responded.  And I really meant it.  Thank you for just being nice, for caring.  

*Title, Woody

The Snowy Day

I watched the guy that got half his leg chopped off with an axe hop around effortlessly with a stick for a crutch on Yellowjackets.  
"Asshole."  I muttered.  

I went to my doctor.

"Okay!"  he announced.

"Time to walk in the boot!"

After six weeks of no weight bearing, I tried to walk on my left foot in the walking boot.  It was weird, it just didn't work.  By the time I was able to shuffle even a few inches the pain was shocking.  The whole arch of my foot felt like all of the bones were crumbling.  I imagined the metal plate and the screws that were holding my bone in place popping out and moving, free under the skin in my foot.  It swelled from my foot all the way up my calf to my knee.  

"I have to do this."  I thought to myself.

"I am returning to work in-person in a week."

There was more unexpected horrors awaiting.  Last Saturday I dodged Jimmy Carter's funeral motorcade as it drove from the Capitol to the Carter Center.  I was trying to go to the Emergency room. I can't explain my fear.  It wasn't for me.  I returned to work Monday morning, feeling shell-shocked.  My co-workers looked at me with shock.  I felt like a leper, shuffling around.  People asked me if I should really be there, if it was a good idea.  They didn't know that it was the least of my concerns.

Every day I rushed out of work and went to visit the hospital.  I would leave when it was dark.  I felt like some weird ghost in the machine.  People would look at me, assuming I guess that I was at the hospital because of my leg.  I would shuffle along to the parking deck at the end of the visit, feeling broken.  Absolutely broken.  I would get home and feed Temple and begin the long process of bathing, making my lunch for the next day and figuring out what to wear.  What was normally a quick process took most of the night.  And I was scared.  And tired.  And sad.  

The kids came back to school last Tuesday.  My students were very sweet and I was genuinely happy to see them and hear about their Thanksgiving, their Christmas, their New Year's, their break in general.  I showed them my foot, unwrapping it from the layers of walking cast that encase it.  They stared at it.  One of my more difficult students insisted on helping me re-wrap it, carefully placing the large plastic plate on the top of my foot where the stitches used to be while I strapped it down.  

A little boy walked up to me one day at school.  He's an amputee.  He looked down at my leg.

"Now we are the same."  he said, smiling.  

I tried to smile but could only move my mouth a little.

Friday it snowed in Atlanta.  They called off school.  Alec went to work for a few hours in the morning until his idiot establishment decided that maybe opening was a bad idea.  He came home and I watched from the doorway as he and Temple played in the snow, her galloping and hopping while he threw snowballs for her to chase.  

It was a huge relief, a tremendous gift after a long and difficult week.  

We Could Be Heroes

Temple is not fond of other dogs.  She might be okay with it in the right situation, but the right situation hasn't presented itself.
"Hey, papi.  I'm coming home.  We have Hunter, too.  Lock Temple in the bedroom and prepare Lola's old crate."  I texted.  

We hearded Hunter through our house and into the front room.  And then, we just sort of sat there.  Alec sat in the back half of the house with Temple.  Coming home wasn't even really coming home.  

I thought about some of the things that led to the blow up.  My sister found a box of old pictures in one of the boxes at my mom's house.  I saw a Christmas ornament with my elementary school picture cut-out face on it, lying on the floor.  It was on a figure of an angel and the glitter was falling off.  A picture of my brother, bleaching in the sun through the window.  While we were watching T.V. one night, my mom acted innocuous when someone made a reference to a Caesarean section.  She was there when we saw my sister give birth to my niece, via c-section.  She didn't remember it.  

Hunter started whimpering when we tried to go to bed, even though he had a plush bed in the open crate.  Alec rolled out our futon and slept next to him on the floor so that he wouldn't cry.  He walked him in and out of the front door of our house.  I stayed in the back with Temple.  

I checked my mom's accounts during my first morning home.  She ordered booze the minute we left.  The hearing aid place called and confirmed an appointment for Wednesday, even though they had said Thursday.  I didn't correct them.  My sister and I drove over and got her.  We instructed her not to speak and dropped her off at the door.  We waited as she walked in on her own, using her walker.  I felt horrible.  

I sat on the couch with Alec.  
"You are going to feel like shit if you wash your hands of your mom or if you take care of her.  You just have to figure out which will make you feel less shitty."  he told me.
"Do you want to go for the evaluation in the morning?"  I texted my mom.
"Yes."  she responded.  

"We'll be there at 7:00."

"So, I didn't want to tell you last week while you had so much going on but...."  Alec began.  
Alec had a major illness.  I am trying to respect his privacy here but it is serious.  And I was unavailable, taking care of everything that wasn't mine.  And it scares the shit out of me.  I can't live without him.  I can't live without Temple.  I can't neglect everything that makes my life worth living.  

Alec slept on the futon with Hunter for a second night.  Hunter still wandered, huffing and puffing at my bedroom door while Temple looked at me with complete curiosity.  We were up and in the car before seven am to pick my mom up for the state run rehab evaluation.  We got there and I rolled up on my knee scooter with my mom next to me on her walker.  We waited.  After a while, we figured out that we were at the wrong door and went inside.  It was nice.  They had a little Christmas tree and it was clean.  A young guy sat with his friends, his bags packed.  I heard the word fentanyl and shuddered.  They gave him a group hug and left.  A young woman came in with her grandfather.  They had heavy accents and I assumed they had driven for miles to get to Atlanta.  Grandpa had a Confederate insignia on his hat and a car tag that indicated that he was a vet.  But you know what, as much as I hate that Confederate shit I was glad that he took his granddaughter to Atlanta to get her straightened out.  Every time they called my mom back, she stared at me as if she didn't belong there.  That place was exactly where she belonged.

Finally, the admins asked me to come into the back for a private conversation.  
"So, we need to see her meds."

"Okay, I can be back and forth with her meds in probably forty-five minutes.  Are you taking her?" 
"We are concerned about her mobility.  There is a hill that she would have to walk up, a few times a day."
"Well, where is this hill?  Can we see it?"
We went outside.  My mom pushed herself up a small incline and asked if she was done.
"That wasn't the hill." the admin replied.
We went in the back again.  
"We don't think we can accommodate her."  the admin told me.
"She is a fall down drunk.  I don't know what to do.  I understand I UNDERSTAND but why won't she STOP DRINKING."  I responded.
"She's an addict.  Let me give you some resources."  they responded.
"Thank you.  I know it's not you, it's us."  I responded and we rolled back out to the car.  

"I was praying the whole time we sat there...."  my mom said.

"Praying that they wouldn't take you?"  I asked.

"Yes."  she responded. 

When we brought back my mom back to her house, there was a half gone bottle of coconut rum on the counter.

"Just pour it out!"  my mom demanded.

"Pour it out yourself, I'm not your maid."  I responded.  

I handed her the pages of resources the place had provided.  

"You are ruining my life."  I told her.

"Ruining my relationships, ruining everything."

Alec and I brought Hunter back to my mom's.  It was heartbreaking.  I kept his medication so that I could bring it back to my mom's house every morning.  Both to keep an eye on him, and on her.  But, I haven't been able to walk or drive.  So my sister has had to come and get me every morning so that I could bring him his pill.  

My niece and my sister came over.  They helped me buy a Christmas tree and we decorated it.  While we worked on it, the rehab three hours south of Atlanta called and asked why we hadn't brought my mom in.  I put my phone face down.  Any clear communication with those people would have been helpful.  Any clear communication at all.  

On Christmas Eve, I cleaned up my house and wrapped presents.  I set up food.  I bathed.  I finally sat on the couch and felt relieved that I had Christmas in hand.  Everyone came over and as the night went on, I just felt exhausted and sad.  I worked really hard, but couldn't get into it.  

I didn't want to keep asking my sister to drive to my mom's.  It's not good for anyone.  On the last day, I climbed on my hands and knees up to the car.  I got inside and drove to my mom's and texted her to come outside.  I handed her Hunter's meds.  

I text her every morning when he needs them.  

One Thousand Pound Sisters

I sat on my mom's couch the Sunday after we found her bottle.  We brought her dog back from the vet with us.  The day wore on.  I watched my sister start puffing up the air mattress and realized I was in a really bad mood.  My sister emptied Hunter's drain throughout the day and walked him outside on a leash so that he could pee.  We put a soccer jersey on him, the same one Lola wore when she had stitches, so that he wouldn't scratch at himself.  When we tried to eat, Hunter tried to bite my sister.  More than once.  

The following Monday was Temple's birthday, the birthday Alec and I chose for her.  My sister took me to the dog bakery to pick up her cake.  I went by my house and got a few things.  And then, we went back to my mom's.  We worried about leaving her alone for any period of time, even in the morning.  Alec facetimed me that night while he gave Temple her steak dinner and a piece of cake.  I watched her get her presents.  My mom asked a couple of times what was going on.  
"It's Temple's birthday!"  my sister and I shouted.
She didn't really seem to care.  

I spent the days trying to get into my mom's accounts.  It was nightmarish.  She had a hodgepodge of methods for accessing her stuff, mainly from her phone.  She didn't know any passwords or usernames.  When I would try to take care of things on her phone, the face recognition thing would lock me out.  It was infuriating.  My mom was giving money away left and right and I was trying to get it to stop.  She had monthly and sometimes weekly subscriptions that were costing hundreds of dollars at a pop.  I downloaded a financial power of attorney.  I paid off her car with some money I had gotten her to transfer into her checking account.  I wanted to be able to sell it and put that money toward other bills.  

My sister puffed up the air mattress again.  I laid there in the living room, in front of the front door.  It felt like the Twilight Zone.  My sister laid next to me.  Some nights we would laugh and make jokes, I guess gallows' humor.  Other times we laid there in silence.  Hunter would rumble around, his cone bumping everything.  One night he shit on the floor and my sister stepped in it.  She was rightfully screaming and I just sat there, trying not to cry.  

I emailed an alcohol rehab.  They called and did a phone evaluation.  My mom told them that she only had two drinks a day.  My sister and I started screaming.  I talked back and forth repeatedly with these people.  Some representative recommended a place three hours south of Atlanta.  They said that would be the best place for my mom.  They said they would call back after they tried to get the request approved by Medicare.  They said they would know within two hours.  They called back a few days later.

"Medicare isn't going to cover her if she says she only drinks two drinks a day."  they informed me.

We put my mom on speaker.

"She is going through a gallon of rum every couple of days.   TELL THEM MOM."  we yelled.

They said Medicare would cover it.  

My mom needed new hearing aids and apparently had some benefit through Medicare that would cover two-thirds of the cost.  I went to the website they told me to go to and did the online hearing evaluation.  I kept getting error codes when trying to order the actual hearing aids.  I called the number and one of the smarter representatives said that the evaluation had to be done on an iPhone.

"Look, that seems a little odd.  I am using a MacBook.  How would these old people get hearing aids if they didn't have an iPhone?"  I asked.

The representative got short with me and before I knew it, I was screaming at her.

My mom started laughing, making fun of me for losing my temper.  I was ready to shove my foot up her ass, too.  

I called back and got a different person who said that my mom had to go to a certain clinic and get the evaluation there and that they would order the hearing aids.

"That's funny."  I responded.

"Are you sure it isn't because you have to use an iPhone?"  I asked sarcastically.

I called all the numbers and got my mom an appointment the following week.  We decided to put off the rehab until she had her hearing aids.  The guy said they could have them on her the following Monday and we decided we'd bring her to the rehab that Tuesday.  We didn't think therapy would work if she couldn't hear anything.  I called the rehab to tell them and they told me to call back the weekend before she was arriving so that they could arrange a bed.  

After multiple attempts, I got some Bangladeshi guy on the phone that helped me get my mom's Medicare open enrollment done.  I was praying it was being done correctly, and just kept saying yes I'll wait, thank you, yes I appreciate your time.  

The days wore on.  I missed my house.  My dog.  Alec.  Clean clothes.  My mood was already bad because of my foot surgery lack of mobility and it was only getting lower and lower.  At my house, I was rarely able to go outside.  No exercise, either.  This was even worse.  I kept contesting charges, cancelling subscriptions, trying to break into my mom's online accounts.  Then, I would put on Good Times in the late afternoon.  And Love Boat.  When five thirty hit each day and it finally got dark I was sort of relieved.  At my mom's suggestion, my sister and I started watching "1000 -lb Sisters" on one of her TV apps.  I am usually in bed by 10:30, but as the days grew I started staying up until two in the morning, unable to sleep.  I'd lay there next to my sister on the air mattress in the Bermuda Triangle, watching these horribly fat people act horrible.  

My mom would go between being clueless, to snippy to occasionally being her former self.  One late afternoon, she randomly threw up on herself and turned yellow.  She shuddered from drafts we couldn't feel.  

Almost a week after Hunter's December 6th surgery, my sister and I took him back to Blue Pearl to get his drain removed.  That felt like a big step, but we were afraid to leave my mom alone for even an hour or so, even early in the morning.   I wanted to get Hunter boarded while we figured out how to get my mom to rehab but it was very difficult with his drain, stitches, medication and Christmas coming.  People were basically like, hell no.  We noticed that he turned evil pretty fast and would bite when the urge struck him.  My sister and I joked about how his eyes would narrow and go dark and he became a different dog.  A dog that bites.  I sat out front at the specialist and saw a door swing open.  Hunter stood in the back, his green soccer jersey tied tightly on him and his cone protruding out.  He was glaring right at me.  

I tried to find a mobile notary for the power of attorney.  Some guy I found on Yelp wanted a hundred dollars to come to us so we decided to drive to him.  In Rex, Georgia.  The three of us going anywhere was a circus.  My mom on a walker, me on a knee scooter and my sister opening doors and lifting our equipment into the car.  Fuck, even the dog had stitches and a cone.  We sat in my mom's car in Rex, Georgia in front of the notary's house, signing like crazy.   He was wearing paint covered sweat pants because he was remodeling.  I sat in the same clothes I had been wearing for days.  

My sister took my mom to get her initial evaluation for hearing aids at the clinic.  We were running so late that I sat in the car because it takes me about two hours to move an inch.  We went to the bank to get my name put on my mother's accounts.  We tried to do it online, but they said we had to make an appointment with a branch.  When I made the appointment, they asked if we wanted to do it on the phone.  When they called for the phone appointment, they said we had to come in to the branch.  The Monday the hearing aids arrived, we had been told that they could be fitted the same day.  When I called, an incredibly pleasant woman said that they could not be fitted until Thursday.  Getting my mom to that rehab kept getting farther and farther away.  When I called to schedule her intake, the guy on the phone wanted to start the whole process all over again.  

"We've been through this."  I told him.

"They even got approval from Medicare."

"Okay, I'll call you back in ten minutes."  he stated.

No one called for days.  That was probably the fourth time I had heard call you in ten minutes or in two hours, only to hear nothing.  

My sister and threw away all the food in my mom's fridge.  It was rotten.  My sister took her bathroom trash out.  We had to space it out over two weekly trash days so that we wouldn't overflow the herbie.  The house was starting to smell a little better, or maybe I was simply dying inside there.  I had little fantasies.  While my mom was in rehab, I would get her house cleaned and unbox all of the shit that had been sitting in boxes for seven years.  All the stuff she never unpacked when she moved in.  We'd get rid of the filthy chair she sat in all of the time and buy a new one.  I'd get the door replaced that was damaged from the break-in, put some blinds up.  Maybe get bars on the window that someone had climbed through.  That notary had volunteered his home repair services.  Maybe she would be better if her house was better.   I started a to-do list for while she was away.

My sister and I took Hunter to get his stitches out.  He was given a steroid prescription that would last weeks and required daily hot compresses to help him get rid of some excess fluid near the surgery site.  I spoke to the rehab again and they started expressing reservations about my mom coming.  
"Is she a fall risk?"  
"Well yeah, when she's shit faced."  I responded.
"Because, you know we don't know..." they continued and asked me why I was referred to them in the first place.  I thought my head might explode. 

"If she's been sober for a week, we aren't sure if she needs us....."

"My sister and I have been sleeping on her living room floor this whole time.  We aren't working, we aren't doing anything.  This was not some act of will on her part, we have literally barred the door so that alcohol can't get in."  

"Okay, we'll call you back...."  they responded.  

"I'm incontinent."  my mom whispered, a dramatic look on her face.

I looked back at her.

"Are you going to sabotage this?"  I asked.  

She tried to look innocent.

"Are you telling me that you can't throw your diaper in the trash and put a new one on?"

I was furious.  I realized that she was really in no rush to go there.  And that rehabs aren't really dying to take on an eighty year-old.  She had kind of found a sweet spot where no one wanted to treat her.  And, she really just wanted me and my sister to leave.  No acknowledgement of how awful all of this was for us.  No acknowledgement that she had a real problem.  I called the original hospital and asked about their services.  They offered a five day medical detox.  We needed residential treatment, for a minimum of thirty days, I was guessing.  But who the fuck knows?  This whole thing hasn't exactly been my skill-set.  I texted back and forth with a private rehab that said they could keep her for thirty days for $15,000-$18,000 for the month.   I asked if they knew of anything else and they gave me the phone number for a crisis hotline.  I called it.  They lady emailed a list of five state-run rehabilitation centers.  One was in Atlanta.  I called. 

"We do evaluations every morning, but our last morning for evaluations is Monday because of....."  she trailed off.

"Because of Christmas."  I finished for her.

"I understand."

I understand that people get Christmas.  

Shortly after, my sister and my mom got in a huge argument.  My mom was being really rude, dismissive, snarling at my sister in her mean alcoholic voice.  I snapped.

"ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS YOURSELF!!!"  I screamed.  

Her face filled with fake shock.

"OH YES!  OH POOR YOU!  DISMAY!"  I screamed.

"I HATE YOU!  DIE DIE DIE!"

I grabbed my stuff and starting throwing it in my bag.  

"We're taking the dog too!"  my sister yelled.

We sat on the front porch with our stuff in piles.  Hunter was out there, too.  My sister's husband pulled up in their van and we piled in.  The air mattress.  Her dog.  Our piles of clothes.  On what would have been the tenth night at my mom's house, we went home.  

I looked out of the window at the Christmas lights in people's yards.  I thought of something my sister said a few days earlier, when we sat on my mom's front porch.  

"People can smell the white trash on us.  You know that we will never get away from it."  

All the Lonely People

I didn't return to work on December 2nd.  

The third was a hellish day.  Alec and I were up and on the road by 5:30am.  We had to drive south to the dog boarder's house and pick Hunter up by six.  Then, we had to drive him to the Blue Pearl by Georgia Tech for drop off between seven and eight.  We stared straight ahead, bleary eyed, driving down unfamiliar roads.  A couple of hours after drop off, the vet called and said the CT scan machine was broken.  Could we bring him back Wednesday or Thursday morning?
"Look."  I answered.
"The dog is being boarded a half an hour south of the city.  I have a broken foot.  I know, I know that YOU didn't break the scanner, but it is really difficult to reschedule this.  Are there any options?"

The vet said a repair guy was coming in the afternoon, that if they could fix it, Hunter could probably stay overnight and get his scan Wednesday morning.

"Okay.  Please call me after the repairman comes.  I would like to delay decision making until that point."

Grady started calling.  They decided to release my mother.  I argued with a doctor and a social worker when they said physical therapy had said that she didn't need to return to the physical therapy rehab.

"Look, she is constantly on the floor.  I know I need to find some alternative for her because of the way she's been living.  I was counting on this, I guess, counting on the P.T. rehab to buy some time...."

"I know this isn't what you wanted to hear."  the doctor responded.

"But she doesn't need physical therapy."

The same morning, Tuesday, Alec drove me to my follow-up appointment with the foot surgeon.  He said it was healing well and offered me more documentation for my FMLA requests.  He looked shocked when I randomly started crying.  I turned my face toward the wall.

"I'm glad it's doing well and thanks for the documentation.  There is just a lot going on right now...."  I said, staring at the wall.

The vet called.  The machine was fixed and Hunter would be getting his CT scan that day.  He would be available for pick up around four, right in time for rush hour traffic.

I submitted more FMLA paperwork, though work had gone radio silent in regard to my documentation.  I started getting worried.  Was I going to get paid?  Was I going to have a job?

The dog boarder called.  She wanted Hunter dropped back off by 4:30 in Riverdale because she had other appointments that afternoon.  I knew it would be impossible if he couldn't even leave the vet until four o'clock.  Alec and I picked him up and started driving to Riverdale.  We arrived nearly two and a half hours later.  

My mom was released.  My sister and her husband went by her house and intercepted a bottle of booze being delivered.  My sister begged her not to drink, to text us is she had urges, that we would support her.  

I laid on my bed that Tuesday night, texting my mom and sister on a text chain.   We really wanted my mom to stay sober.  The dog boarder started texting, saying Hunter was acting weird.  She wasn't sure if she was equipped to keep boarding him after he got his surgery.  I asked if she could at least keep him until Friday morning, the day of his surgery.  She agreed. 

My sister and I spent Wednesday and Thursday at my mom's, sitting there all day, talking to her about sobriety.  I started looking at her mail and realized there were a lot of things overdue.  The county put a lien on her house because of overdue property taxes.  Medicare open enrollment was about to end and she had to pick a new provider for her part D.  Some of her utilities were overdue.  She let me look into her bank accounts and she was paying hundreds of dollars a month into weird subscriptions she didn't use, as well as an exorbitant amount for a car note and insurance though she didn't drive.  I convinced her to transfer money into her checking account so that I could pay off some of this stuff on her behalf.  She agreed.  

Friday morning, my sister and I left for Riverdale around 5:30am.  We picked Hunter up and dropped him off at the vet by 7am for his surgery.  We spent another day at my mom's sorting through her things.  I figured out how to sign-in to her county account online and paid her property taxes.  I started calling people, trying to figure out how to do Medicare open enrollment.  My mom couldn't remember her sign-in on the .gov account and I got locked out.  I couldn't use her laptop to do any of this because she couldn't remember the password to that, either.  The vet called when Hunter was out of surgery.  He had lost a lot of blood.  They wanted to keep him overnight until his blood counts improved.  I sat on my mom's couch, filthy because bathing was so difficult, rubbing my face and trying not to cry.  

My sister and I came back Saturday morning to my mom's house.  Everytime I move, I have to use a knee scooter.  My sister walks to my house and helps me crawl up the stairs into my backyard and drags the knee scooter up there.  I hop on one foot into Alec's car and she loads the knee scooter into the back seat.  And then, she drives us.  And does it again and again, day after day.

We sat at my mom's house, trying to figure out her shit and talking to her about the benefits of not drinking.  We threw stuff away, her house was filthy and smelled horrible.

"Janet Key."  my sister said suddenly, late in the day.  She had a half empty bottle of rum in her hand.  It was hidden in a cupboard in the kitchen.  It was like a horror movie.  I hoped that there was dust on it, that maybe it was a forgotten bottle.  But no.  My mom had been drinking the whole time.  She had been drinking every night, after we left.  For days.  She had ordered two, the night she got out of Grady.  My sister intercepted one and missed the second.  I was shocked.  She sat there, talking to us for four solid days, knowing full and well that she was drinking the whole time.  She was lying to our faces.  We got up and left, me rolling on the scooter and my sister lifting it into the car and driving us back to our houses. 

Sunday morning, we picked up my mom's dog from the vet.  He had a drain releasing fluid from the area where the mass had been cut off.  It had to be emptied multiple a day.  He also had numerous stitches.  He couldn't go outside without being on a leash, to stop him from running or climbing stairs.  

We drove Hunter back to my mom's house.  My sister's husband brought an air mattress over.  I didn't have clothes or a toothbrush.  My sister and I sat on the couch trying to organize my mom's accounts and cared for her dog.  In the night, we set up the air mattress and slept on the floor in her living room so that we would know if she ordered booze.  I'd roll around, kicking my sister with my air cast.  

This went on for almost two weeks.  

*Title, Neil Young, depressing Pulblix commerical  

 

Peg Leg

I sat on the couch.  My doctor texted me a few hours after my surgery to make sure I had gotten the opiods filled.  I hadn't.
"Hilary, please get them filled.  It is going to really start hurting tonight.  You have to get ahead of it."  he texted.
Alec went back to the pharmacy and got them filled. 

Moving around was incredibly difficult, even with crutches and a knee scooter.   I watched Martha Raddatz stroll by on the news.  

"Look at you!"  I thought.

"So spry, really moving along on TWO legs!"  

It already seemed novel and kind of athletic.  

Two days after the surgery my mom's dog had an appointment for his shots.  I had really overestimated what I was going to be able to do post-surgery and Alec ended up picking him up from the boarder's house and taking him to the vet by himself.  Hunter, my mom's dog, got scared at the vet and bit Alec.  The vet recommended that I take Hunter to a specialist the following week to discuss having a mass removed from his neck.  She said it could be malignant.  That it might spread.  I felt terrible for him. I also hate the specialist-vet.  The last time I was there they told me there was no hope for Lola.  

My mom started texting that she was being released from the physical therapy rehab.  I was shocked.  They were supposed to keep her two weeks but it had only been maybe a week.  She had spent two weeks in Grady before that.  I layed on my bed, filing a Medicare appeal.  Around the 25th, she announced that she was home.  I wanted to keep her dog at the boarder because my mom had been so unstable, but she had another dog coming for Thanksgiving week.  

My sister and I picked Hunter up a week to the day after my surgery, on the 26th.  The boarder had bathed him and washed his bed.  It made me really happy.  We took him to the specialist about the mass on his neck.  The specialist recommended a CT scan the following Tuesday and surgery that Friday.  Later that day, my sister and I returned to my mom's house with her dog.  My sister texted me from inside the house.  

"She bought booze.  She's on the floor again."

I heard yelling inside the house.

I clawed my way out of the car and hopped around on one leg, dragging the knee scooter out of the backseat while clinging to the side of the car.  When I walked in, my mom was laying on the floor again,  half dressed and drunk.  She couldn't stand.  She had literally ordered booze to be delivered while coming home from the hospital on the 25th.  I called 911.  I stood on the porch, one leg on the knee scooter, waiting for the paramedics.

I noticed them looking at my cast propped up on the scooter when they pulled up.

"It's not for me, she's inside!"  I called.

"We were the ones that picked her up last time...."  one of them mentioned.

The last time, on November 2nd.

They got my mom packed up and took her away.  

Later that night, she texted.

"Pick me up."  she demanded.

Grady was releasing her.

"Mom, I can't.  I just had surgery, I can't walk, I can't drive."  I responded.

A nurse texted me from my mom's phone, again demanding that I pick her up.

My mom told me to call her an Uber.  I did.  She didn't go out to meet it and he drove away.

Finally, Alec and I went to go get her.

We drove through the tunnel by Grady where the homeless people sleep.  It was freezing.  Any one of them could have been my mom at this point.

Alec went inside and found my mom while I waited in the car because I can't walk.  We left the knee scooter in our backyard so that there would be room for my mom in the backseat.  As the nurse loaded my mom into the car, my mom snarled at her in a sharp, mean tone because the nurse told her to put her seatbelt on.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO."  she hissed.

"MOM."  I warned, staring forward.  

We drove to her house.  I didn't want to send Alec in there to get her inside, but I couldn't do it myself.  

"Don't let her boss you around."  I texted.

Alec finally came out of the house.

"She made me lock Hunter in her room.  He was whimpering."

I texted my mom over and over again while Alec drove us home, begging her to let Hunter out of the room.  She wouldn't answer my texts.  She could blow up my phone when she needed a ride, but couldn't be bothered otherwise.  

By my second follow up with the surgeon, I knew there was no way I could return to work less than two weeks after my surgery.  I was not allowed to carry ANY weight on my left foot.  My knee scooter was a rickety mess and even an uneven surface would send me flying to the floor.  I got some doctor's notes and began the process of asking for more time off.  

Alec flew to Connecticut on the 27th.  I binge-watched Yellowjackets, creeping myself out and worrying about Hunter and my mom.  My mom's phone had been going dead during this whole ordeal and I couldn't track where she was.  I sent four chargers to her house.  Thanksgiving morning, my sister broke down and went over there.  She found my mom lying naked on the floor, sloshing around in Creme de Menthe, the only booze left in her house.  They had a horrible fight.  My mom kept instructing my sister to call Grady again.  My sister told her to do it herself and left.

We wanted to have a decent Thanksgiving, but everyone was sad and stressed.  I made three dishes and it completely exhausted me.  My sister was cold and shaking.  My mom started texting late afternoon, saying she was back at Grady.  I just wanted her to leave us alone.  Hadn't she ruined enough?  My niece slept over and the two of us stayed up half the night, watching Yellowjackets in the dark of my living room.  

The following Friday, my sister and her husband visited Hunter multiple times.  By Saturday morning, I had a new dog boarder and my sister and I drove to Riverdale, an area about thirty minutes south from where we live to bring Hunter to her home.  

My mom remained at Grady for an undetermined period of time.  

November 19

I didn't know when I left that I wasn't returning.

I woke up on the operating room table with my good foot halfway on the floor, trying to jump off while I tried to adjust my glasses that weren't there.  I heard people yelling and I threw the sheet back over my crotch that I feared was exposed.  And then, I tried again.

Suddenly, my doctor put his face in front of mine.  
"I'm sorry."  I said.
"I was disoriented.  I didn't know where I was."

"You are making record recovery time!"  a nurse in the recovery room commented.

"Yes.  Yes, I am fine."  I responded, staring off into space.

They let me leave.  I hopped from the wheel chair to the car.

"I really didn't know..."  Alec said.

"I really didn't know how serious this surgery was.  I was shocked when they took me back there and all those people were around you and all those tubes...."

"It's okay."  I responded.

"I didn't know how to explain it."

Alec drove us home and I kept wanting to cry.  The nurse that rigged me up for surgery kind of gave me a heads up.  

"Wow, they are really moving you through this."  she told me.

"Yeah, my insurance wasn't going to cover it so I refused to come back here until I knew what the bills would be."  I responded.

She ran an IV in my arm.

"It's better this way."  she said.

"They would have just made you sit back here for hours instead of out there where it's better."

"Yeah."  I said.  Yeah. 

"How do you respond to anesthesia?"  she asked.

"I don't know.  I've only been under twice in my life.  No one told me.  I could have gone crazy town.  I don't know."  

She laughed.

"Yeah.  Some people really tear it up.  Others, they cry."

We made it to our house and into the backyard where we parked the car.  I tried to get out on the stupid one hundred dollar knee scooter I bought and nearly fell.  Alec was trying to help me.  It had rained.  By the end, we were both lying in the driveway, soaking wet from the rain, rolling around, trying to get down the stairs and into our house.  

Oh Kitty.  You have no idea the rest.  It only gets worse.