One step forward, 99 steps backward.

Every time I think I have more control of my own life, like I have more me time,  like I can focus on myself and be me, there feels like there is some sort of setback. Like I'm back at putting the focus back on my mom and off me. It's like I'm becoming a peripheral character in my own story.

So as you know it was another trip to the emergency room via ambulance. Thank God I had the good sense to call for medics. It was her second UTI since she's been with me. I seriously remain clueless when it comes to urinary track infections. I can't believe how biologically devastating they are and even mentally debilitating they are. It was her mental state that made me call for medics. She could answer the beginning of a question and then finished all statements by singing Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. I'm embarrassed to say that initially I thought it was normal, then a cute proclamation of her faith, and I even thought it was kind of funny. But it began to shift into something odd, or probably better yet I began to recognize it as odd. When the medics arrived she continued the Thank You, Jesus song. And as we arrived to the emergency room, she again entertained every one who spoke to her with the same song. Turns out she had a temperature of 101.2. I really don't understand how a urinary track infection messes with the brain so; how it makes someone behave so out of character, so confused, so odd. It actually confuses me.


You know what's crazy and depressing as hell?

I'm in a scene study class and currently working on a scene from the play The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan, and it's depressing the hell out of me. I see me and my mom throughout much of it. While my mom went to a neurologist since she's been here and had multiple MRIs we never received an affirmative in any sort of mental decline or mental disease. But she has continued her daily regimen of Memantine twice a day and Donepezil (Aricept) once a day. But this encounter with this past UTI was creepy. She was confused. She was odd. She was way way out of character. Then strangely after a few bags of antibiotics she was more coherent. Why the heck is that? While on her antibiotic regimen, oddities popped up every now and then, but as she continued with the antibiotics, she became more clear headed.

So as I read this play, the impatience, the lying just to end the confusion, the having to speak loudly, the confusion as to if the confusion is connected to mental decline or hearing loss, the having to take in this parent into my home, the having to figure out whether to keep the parent at home or put her in a nursing home, the guilt for thinking that, the sleepless nights, even the humming she has started doing or I have recently recognized. I experience so much of this. I guess I am just still in shock as to how many of us are having these same or similar experiences, and how equally clueless or shocked many of us are collectively.

But through all of this, I am struggling to take care of me. Under my eyes is nearly purple. My weight is through the roof. I am struggling to motivate myself to do anything for me. These emergencies so often come up when I have plans for me. My time to go out and have fun is regularly obliterated. I have to toss it out the window. I wanted to put more time into just exercising and being healthier but then I have to do something for her. It makes the whole Seasonal Affective Disorder feel bigger than life, but the thought of spring coming and me being stuck inside with caring for my mom, or afraid to do anything on a Saturday or Sunday morning because I have to entertain my mom, or just feeling guilty as shit for thinking any of this, ugh.....

How does this make me feel?

Exhausted to such a depth as I have never visited before. I am just plain tired. I mean I am deeply tired. But I did re-join New York Road Runners. I hope to get out and do some weekend races again. I dread some crisis will pop up before I can just have fun or before I can just leave the house. I still sneak out. Turning off the alarm and walking miles. It's the only way I can figure out how to have a life. Other than sneaking out or omiting my plans or even my auditions in our conversations, I can't figure out how to reclaim my life, my time, my space. I can't figure out how to have a life while taking care of my mom's life. Like Lonergan's play, I fear I'll be like his characters. That I will be in this shrinking bubble of absurdity for a while and losing myself the entire time. The character that I am becoming shifts constantly displaying traits I'm not used to owning. It's like I don't recognize myself, but I am growing used to seeing this middle aged woman who keeps popping up in my mirror with her ever appearing new grey stands and soft muscles who seldom, if ever, sees her own old friends. This shit is hard. And I now swear a lot. Damn.

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