From the land of the howler monkeys

Mom is NOT happy at the hospital. She is going to be so more not happy at the nursing home she is going to today, because it is EVERYTHING she has feared.
The assisted living place she has been living in (her own SPACIOUS bed sitting room with her own things and two closets)---the one she calls a prison cell? THAT will be a welcome relief after this place, which is very nice but is still a rehab nursing home.

She will be sharing a room with three other women and has a nightstand, a bed and a curtain delineating her space. She is not going to like that.
At all.
I went over last night and got some pictures and her night gowns, but she is not going to be a happy girl.

She was not happy last night. I've been going over at 0500 before work and then again after work until about 11. She is in a lot of pain and has a DNR, so I have made it ABUNDANTLY clear that she is supposed to be kept comfortable. So we (a nurse, a CNA , Ben and me) are changing her, her bed and trying to pack her with pillows so she is comfortable. This takes a good hour.

Then she decides she wants to be on her other side, which is impossible because of bedsores. She's been on her other side all day. She starts to cry, which is pitiful. Ben is having none of it, because he can see what she is doing. As soon as he takes on that "No Shit Sherlock" tone with her, she gets that rotten kid look on her face.
"I'll throw the pillows off the bed!" This from a woman who can no longer feed herself.
"I'll hold my breath until I die!" Good luck with that.
"When I get out of this bed, I'll kick your ass!" Good luck with that.
"That's it, you two are out of the will!" That was last week.

She starts to whine and sounds exactly like her sister Jewel, which is the oddest thing. Jewel always had this particularly Oklahoma whine to her voice, which Mom never did. I guess it was just her inner two year old, waiting to pop out.

Then she starts to cry about the terrible pain. I go to find out about when she can get another morphine shot and ask if I can get one too. 30 minutes. Well, she wants on RIGHT NOW. She cannot live in this terrible pain they want her to exist in. Call the manager. She wants to talk to the manager because she is not happy with the service she is getting, not one bit. Then she decided she was going to start screaming.

That is when Ben took my elbow, told her "I have to get Mom out of this" and off we went.
He bought me dinner and made me go home.

I'm not as heartless as I sound. I'm going over in a few minutes to feed her breakfast. As soon as the ambulance comes, the hospital is calling Ben, who will call me and I'll leave work to settle her in. Ben will be with her all weekend

I want to pretend that this is going to be just for a little while and it is. But I think she will probably be going home soon. And when I was signing all the DNR papers at the nursing home---and there are a LOT---I was telling the head nurse that she wants to go home and I want her to be comfortable. Cath her, feed her candy, make sure she sleeps well NO MATTER WHAT. at this point in her life, addiction is not an issue. Plus there are a gazillion drugs to give her that aren't addictive--just make sure she gets them.