Not-So-Funny Ah-Ha

I had been planning on writing today about some more ‘ah-ha’ moments I’ve had lately, and I probably will sometime in the near future. However, some new things came up recently with my dad’s health and I wanted to give an update.

First, the monitor that he wore for a month….showed nothing. He got the results back about that about a month ago. The diet he’s been working on….he quit. He says he doesn’t need it because he’d been losing weight before he had the heart trouble, anyway (he hadn’t).

Nothing new since then, though.

*sigh*

Had lunch with mom today. She took dad to the ER last night. They did not admit him, they got home around 3am. The story goes like this, according to mom (my thoughts in italics).

Dad thought he was having an anxiety attack. His fingers and legs/feet were tingly. That’s it. He called mom (who had gone to bed) down to sit with him. He had another ‘attack’ while she was there and he asked her to take him to the hospital.

But, I asked mom what his other symptoms were, and she said she didn’t notice *anything* different or strange. He had no visible symptoms before they left. She said he was cold on the 2 minute trip to the hospital (they live 4 blocks away). She said the doctors at the hospital said it didn’t sound like an anxiety attack. At one point she did say the doc thought he may have been hyperventilating. (based on what mom told me he’d had to eat, I think he was having a high blood sugar episode, not an anxiety attack. Since he usually has very LOW blood sugar episodes, it may be that he didn’t recognize the symptoms. Given that he’s been diagnosed with diabetes, it SHOCKS ME they didn’t do a blood test! Also, diabetic neuropathy comes to mind).

The ER was much more concerned with his ear. He’d been having a bit of an ear ache for a few days and, because he’s had some fairly serious ear infections in the past (the kind that killed kids before antibiotics, Mastoiditis), the ER docs were dealing with that. They wound up giving him antibiotics and sending him home on the promise that he would be calling the EarNoseNThroat specialist today.

Supposedly, he was doing that while mom and I were having lunch (Why didn’t he do this first thing in the morning???) Mom thinks that the specialist will get him right in because it is an ‘emergency.’ I told her I thought that if it was an emergency they wouldn’t have let him out of the hospital. Just my opinion. I also asked if they had called the cardiologist. No, of course not. (What? He has tingling in his hands and legs, a known heart problem, and no one thought to call the cardiologist?)

*is shaking her head*

So, past that we got into a very uncomfortable talk about Planning. You know. That talk. That kind of planning. For those things. Things like nursing homes and wills. Medical expenses and other uncomfortable things. Uncomfortable because they have made absolutely no plans, and have limited money set aside, and don’t have wills.

My father thinks he knows it all and is convinced that he’s got everything planned so everything will be fine. (Keep in mind that when mom had her heart attack 8 years ago, he freaked out because ‘he hadn’t planned on this.’ So, he hasn’t learned a thing). They have no wills because he doesn’t think they need them. He has no life insurance (my mother does), because he doesn’t see the need for it. He has money stashed aside and he thinks it will be enough. And my mother just goes along because she doesn’t want to rock the boat (as she said today)….and because she is scared to death of him when he’s mad (as she also said today).

So she nods and makes soothing sounds to me when I talk about this, but just goes and does whatever he tells her to do anyway, because he scares her and it’s easier to keep him happy than to deal with him when he’s mad. He is not physical, no. Never. But he is verbally and emotionally vicious when he’s angry and she just cowers.

(Right about now I need a valium, you know what I mean? Not seriously, no. I’ve never had a valium, but I think it might help temporarily right about now. Or several stiff drinks. Or maybe a valium AND several stiff drinks).

Mom cooed at me that they have enough money for living expenses (and I said no, you don’t. You have enough money for living expenses if nothing bad happens, maybe. If one of you comes down with cancer and decides to fight it, you can kiss that money and the house goodbye. And the money will be gone in months if you have to go into a nursing home).


She said they have the house to fall back on (and I said no, you don’t in this market. You would have if you’d sold at the height of the market, yes, but right now it would take months to sell the house for what it is worth and if you need the money NOW you won’t have it. Besides it won’t go far in a cancer/nursing home situation).

She said that she doesn’t feel old (and I said that isn’t the issue, the issue is making plans while you can. People die whether they’re old or not).

She said that he’s counting on getting a reverse mortgage (and I said that reverse mortgages are something that you get when you haven’t planned and have no other choice. It’s not something to hope for, it’s something to avoid. It’s something that is your last choice). (And in their case it may have to be an option because he screwed them sooo badly with his poor planning, dammit).

She said that our lawyer cousin told her regarding a will that as long as everything is in both names, she has right of survivorship when dad dies (and I told her that she’s assuming a lot. She’s counting on surviving my dad, after which point *she* would get a will and *I* would be covered. If she dies first and leaves dad, then survivorship means nothing).

And I feel like the bad guy. I went to have a nice lunch with my mom and now feel like I bullied her. I mean, we’ve talked about a lot of this before, yes. I didn’t mean to go into it again, and I wound up talking about these things a LOT more than I’d intended to, but when the situation presents itself I think it is good to take advantage of it. So I said a lot of things that had been mulling around for a while. And I feel like I bullied her and put her in a bad position. But…she was already in a bad position (relationship) partially of her own making.

Why do we keep going over this? It’s like a broken record, broken record, broken record. When she was talking about dad and how she ‘can’t’ do anything about what he decides, I told her that she created the situation by letting him bully her early on. She agreed, and said that she wished she’d put her foot down earlier. I told her that he probably wouldn’t have married her if she had. (Those words sound rougher in writing than it actually was at that point in our conversation, btw).

I told mom today, and this is truly how I feel, that I’ve pretty much given up on the whole will-thing. They are not going to get them, I have pretty much accepted this, and I’ve started preparing myself for the battle with the state that will, eventually, ensue. I told her I will try like hell to save the family heirlooms and furniture, etc, but everything else I’ve mentally written off. I’m not waiting for them to die so I can put my inheritance on our mortgage. I don’t think that way (I know some people who do, though). I have known people whose parents died without wills; I don’t want to go through what they went through. And I want family stuff to stay in the family. At least they don’t have gobs of debt that I’d have to worry about. (Yet?)

And I’m an only child and I have no one to be on my team in this situation. Not blood; Matt is there, of course. But it isn’t the same. I can’t help but think that if I had a sibling or two we could, with power of numbers, persuade my parents (father) that he needed to do something differently. I’ve been so estranged from any blood family by distance and intention that I 1) wouldn’t know who to ask for help and 2) wouldn’t know how to ask for help, oh, and 3) it wouldn’t matter if I did because they (dad) would discount the offers and suggestions because he hadn’t thought of them first.

Mostly I’ve liked being an only child, but in this situation it really sucks. Really.

And I’ll be very honest here: I’m so angry at both of them right now I can’t even communicate it. I’m angry at him for being so arrogant that he could in his mind control everything while in actuality run them into the proverbial ground, and so angry at her for just playing dead and letting him. He has left them with very few options if things get bad. Let's hope everything turns out like the fairytale they're hoping for.