This meeting in four hours has been on my mind since she told me a couple days ago. I'm trying to figure out a way to get through this assessment without any undue incident -- in other words, without plans to put her away in motion.
As I've said before, my reasons are twofold. I have to admit that taking care of her as her Personal Care Assistant provides me income, money that I need to survive. As soon as she goes into assisted living, that's gone. But, and I truly mean this, we would both be lonely if she leaves. I don't think she would fare well in an environment different from the one she has lived in for the past, oh, 30 years. For the exact same reason, so would I, and it would be exacerbated without the person who helped raise me all these years.
It's balanced, however, by the fact that Grandmother can be absolutely fucking annoying at times. She did not help her case when she went out on Wednesday and bought so much food that it has filled up the bottom of the upstairs refrigerator. Again, this is food that none of us will eat and will thus have to be thrown away. Again, my parents have said to not buy so much food. But Grandmother does it anyway. Now, it might not be a sign of senility; the other nurse, the one that drops by bi-monthly, says that old people do this as a way of proving they're still vital and productive in the house. But she once again has pissed off my parents, and it's hard to defend her when she at the very least didn't listen to what they said.
Moreover, usually in these annual assessments, it's Mother who takes the lead. I never did like the way she orchestrated things, but now that she's going to ask the nurse to put her in a home, I really regret not ever asserting myself during past assessments. What could I do to stop this without looking like I have an agenda?
I guess I could tell the truth, or at least the way I see things. I could say that she has left the sink on in the past, but she hasn't flooded the house since the summer. She had left food in the toaster oven and the stove on, but Father put a stop to that by taking away the toaster oven plug and turning the stove off (somehow; how did he do that?). She has this thing where she buys food that goes to waste, but is that reason enough for her to be thrown into a nursing home with a bunch of strangers, a few of them crazy enough to do her harm? I don't think so.
Yes, she is annoying, and she is getting to be a little old. But maybe she has nothing to do. I should get her to the mall once in a while -- just to get her out of the house, get her something to do, make her exercise so that her mind's right and she's too exhausted to do anything around the house that does not need to be done. Maybe I could take her to the casino when her government money comes in on the 1st. That way she could have fun while using money in a way that won't anger my parents. And then she can stay!
I thought that negotiating the meeting -- which is now going to be in three hours -- is walking a fine line, but I don't think I have a line at all. A gameplan for me to save Grandmother involves contradicting Mother. Now, I have told the assessment nurse what is actually happening at home, that my parents basically want her to leave because she bugs the shit out of them. But that would mean contradicting Mother. Not only do I risk incurring the wrath of someone who, right now, is bringing home the bacon in the house I currently live in, I don't know what kind of tableau a warring family would make in the nurse's eyes. In any case, I can't see how it'd be a good thing.
And there are a bunch of other variables, too. What if the nurse reveals to Mother what I told her over the phone? The shit really hits the fan then. I lost the nursing home list the nurse gave me; what if the nurse or Mother start yelling at me over that? That means more calls to clean my room, and that is the last fucking chore I give a shit about, especially right now. And what if Grandmother says to the question of whether she wants to go to a nursing home with, "I don't care?" I could totally see that, her being so damn wishy-washy. If she says that, then what happens? And on top of all that, what happens if Grandmother really does need to be in a nursing home, not now but soon? What's the protocol for that??
(Complicating all this is the fact that in this meeting, the guardian, in this case Mother, acts not only as Grandmother's "advocate" but also her translator. She already doesn't exactly have Grandmother's best interests in mind, but now she is also able to twist her words to fit what she wants the nurse to hear. And I can't stop her, not only because I have to tread carefully when I cross her but I also probably won't understand what they're saying in the first place.)
The one way out of all this is Mother's insouciance and incompetence. If all she says is that she wishes Grandmother goes to a nursing home and then asks the nurse's help to do all the work, then I can see a case where the nurse will not do anything because she doesn't believe she should be handling the whole thing by herself and Mother being too busy to look for homes. That would mean I would have to help Mother out, but then I could just start dragging my feet. However, any proactivity from either of them means the dominos start falling, and another big change -- one that strikes the heart of the home I need to feel secure in -- comes crashing down on me.
No wonder I need to masturbate now.
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