Red Rage
I am venting, because I need to. This is about work, but not Marg. This is about Marg's mother and how she hates me for simply existing in Marg's life, being Marg's friend.
This may, or may not, make sense. I'm still infuriated with the whole thing.
"If [Anansay] weren't such a good worker, I'd have kicked her out of the house a long time ago."
That's what Marg's mother told her yesterday.
Marg's back is broken, at L1, middle of the back essentially. She also got her tailbone broken over a year ago, in December. Three years before that, it was three breaks, one just above the tailbone, and two on either side. Marg's bones are breaking with more ease as time goes by. When her back broke again last Monday (at L1), she was only hanging in her lift, not moving and suddenly SNAP! she felt it break. She's been in (more) pain since.
She's going to get her back x-rayed on Wednesday. Problem: she can't go on her side without being in EXTREME agony and distress. Distress, we're talking about cold fevers, shaking, spasms, white outs. And I won't be there. Besides Marg, I am the only one who knows about her and her needs, her body's needs. But her mother is threatened by my mere presence in Marg's life. (Marg lives with her mother.) She told Marg, "I know [Anansay] is coming this Wednesday, but she is NOT coming into the radiology room. If she goes in, I'm not."
The thing is: Marg would LIKE for her mother NOT to be there, because her mother knows nothing of what Marg needs (because her mother refuses to take the time to learn and thinks she 'just knows' what needs to be done. This is the woman who, when Marg was ten years old and the physical therapist TOLD her mother that Marg was not to do ANY exercises at home, as they would destroy her muscles, MADE Marg ride the stationary bike for two hours. Marg's mother thought she could "force" the disease out of Marg's body. But she only made it worse.)
So, on Wednesday, I am to watch as Marg does off with her mother, to be lifted out of her chair, placed on a gurney and rolled onto her side. Mother will do it with quick precision and will most likely break a few more bones in the process. I wouldn't be surprised if Marg passes out from the pain (even with massive pain killers AND Adavan in her system). I am to deal with Marg afterwards. I am to deal with the aftereffects of her mother's stupidity.
And if anything goes wrong, Mother will blame Marg for it. Saying that if only Marg had kept quiet, quit complaining, etc, it would have been fine.
This woman is a serious detriment to Marg's physical, emotional and psychological well-being.
On Friday evening, when I got back from work/Marg's, Billie asked if I was cold because my cheeks were red. She touched them and said, "They're hot Mom!" I said, "Ever hear that phrase: red with rage? This is it. This is me, furious." I was, literally, red with rage and fury at what happened Friday evening at Marg's. Her Mother was "teaching" us (me and the other worker) how to use a new hammock-like strap to life Marg from her chair to her bed. *I* could figure out with my eyes closed, but her mother insisted on showing us. Of course, she had the thing completely backwards and when I delicately informed her that, "This part needs to go down here, I think it's backwards," she ignored me and continued, yanking and pulling on Marg's body (WITH her broken back!) causing Marg to cry out and tell her mother to go more slowly please, it HURTS me, Mom and her Mom replied, getting all up in her face, I went slow Marg. You KNOW I went slow. That wasn't fast. Marg looked at me over her mother's shoulder and just rolled her eyes. I clenched my fists.
In the end, her Mother had to use ME to figure out how to use the straps. *I* had to go on the bed and SHE put the straps on ME and hoist me up. Of course, my back being NOT broken, I just let her fiddle with this and that until she got it.
After Marg (finally) got on her bed, then she proceeded to disengage the straps from her legs quickly, letting the legs fall to the bed, yanking on her fused hips, and causing pain. Marg tried to explain that it needs to be done slowly, with the leg held. Her mother informed her that her legs WERE down on the bed. Her mother doesn't want to realize that even if the machine that hoists her up were flat on her belly, the legs are still being held, and they STILL need to be handled gently. She refuses. She just doesn't want to know and in the process she causes her daughter unnecessary pain. It infuriates me.
And I can say NOTHING because her mother will simply wait until I'm gone, then go into Marg's room and yell at her about her workers' attitude. MINE in particular.
Marg was so stressed out Friday evening that I had to go back around midight because her body just let go. When she's stressed, nothing stays in. She can't eat, and whatever is in her system comes out the "other" end. And I have to deal with it, as her worker (and friend).
So, she'll come with me on tuesday when I begin the proceedings to have my ex's wages garnisheed, and I'll go with her on Wednesday to help her deal with the trauma of getting x-rayed AND dealing with her mother.
And the rage grows inside me... When we finally find a place and Marg can move out, I swear I will let everything come out and blast her mother with it. She will NOT be allowed intside OUR home to contaminate it with her filth. Marg is not in the right frame of mind to defend herself (having lived with it for 35 years now).
Today is Marg's birthday, we're supposed to go out for supper tonight WITH HER MOTHER! I told Marg I'm going to douse myself with Patchouli, which her mother hates, and order the most expensive steak on the menu, seeing as how her mother is paying for Marg's meal (and her attendant's) *evil gleeful laughter*
Marg has:
Muscular Dystrophy, specifically Spinal Muscular Atrophy. - She can only move her right hand and can't lift her arm at all. She can still hold her head up when sitting but her body will go all over the place if she hits a bump, or when she's in the Handi-Transit bus.
She's gone through four back surgeries, the first one at sixteen, to have a rod placed against her spine so she wouldn't suffocate from the lack of muscle holding her body up. The rod broke and she had another surgery nine months later. Her uncle inadvertently broke her spine by shoving his knee into her back while trying to hoist her wheelchair up the stairs. And she broke her lower spine in a white-water rafting accident: she was sitting in the MIDDLE of the raft and it bottomed during a rather rough dip and her bottom hit the bottom of the river. Two months later she was curious as to these boils that appeared on her back and when she went to her doctor, he bust one and found bits of bone in it. The shattered bones were coming out through these boils. She delayed surgery for six weeks so she could finish her grade twelve school semester and celebrate xmas with her family and finally went into surgery in January.
She also has arthritis.
Depression since she was six years of age and her father tried to kill her through passive means, like not buckling her seat belt in the car, sending up on a ladder to the roof of the house when he KNEW her legs weren't strong, etc. Her mother left her father when Marg was nine years old, but it really wasn't any better without him.
She has cellulitis which flares up here and there and is burningly painful.
She is overweight (due to steroids in her teens to try and keep her muscles strong) and the doorways aren't big enough to comfortably accomodate her girth when she passes through it, so her left side has been torn open a few times.
She's also anorexic and fights with it everyday, forcing herself to eat.
She has next to NO immune system, gets fevers all the time, sores in her mouth and on her body, her kidneys are slowly failing.
For two years (2003-2005) she suffered through extremely painful nerve spasms in her legs as they were slowly dying. She would take Baclofen and Cyclobenzabrine for them but they did nothing. One time she took so much Oxycocet she was hallucinating, but still feeling the pain. Her leg muscles would harden like wood and I'd have to lift her legs and bend them at the knee and the ankle. And she'd cry, hit her leg with the remote control, anything to ease the agony. Finally, a separate doctor diagnosed the spasms as NERVE spasms and not muscle spasms and gave her Amitriptalyne and FINALLY they went away. Sometimes those spasms would last for two days and she wouldn't sleep. But now she's getting real muscle spasms.
She suffers from migraines and constant headaches.
Constant body itching from the medication.
She really is in a right state. But through it all, she still smiles and she still goes out in public and you wouldn't know that inside she's crying in agony. She hasn't given up.
This may, or may not, make sense. I'm still infuriated with the whole thing.
"If [Anansay] weren't such a good worker, I'd have kicked her out of the house a long time ago."
That's what Marg's mother told her yesterday.
Marg's back is broken, at L1, middle of the back essentially. She also got her tailbone broken over a year ago, in December. Three years before that, it was three breaks, one just above the tailbone, and two on either side. Marg's bones are breaking with more ease as time goes by. When her back broke again last Monday (at L1), she was only hanging in her lift, not moving and suddenly SNAP! she felt it break. She's been in (more) pain since.
She's going to get her back x-rayed on Wednesday. Problem: she can't go on her side without being in EXTREME agony and distress. Distress, we're talking about cold fevers, shaking, spasms, white outs. And I won't be there. Besides Marg, I am the only one who knows about her and her needs, her body's needs. But her mother is threatened by my mere presence in Marg's life. (Marg lives with her mother.) She told Marg, "I know [Anansay] is coming this Wednesday, but she is NOT coming into the radiology room. If she goes in, I'm not."
The thing is: Marg would LIKE for her mother NOT to be there, because her mother knows nothing of what Marg needs (because her mother refuses to take the time to learn and thinks she 'just knows' what needs to be done. This is the woman who, when Marg was ten years old and the physical therapist TOLD her mother that Marg was not to do ANY exercises at home, as they would destroy her muscles, MADE Marg ride the stationary bike for two hours. Marg's mother thought she could "force" the disease out of Marg's body. But she only made it worse.)
So, on Wednesday, I am to watch as Marg does off with her mother, to be lifted out of her chair, placed on a gurney and rolled onto her side. Mother will do it with quick precision and will most likely break a few more bones in the process. I wouldn't be surprised if Marg passes out from the pain (even with massive pain killers AND Adavan in her system). I am to deal with Marg afterwards. I am to deal with the aftereffects of her mother's stupidity.
And if anything goes wrong, Mother will blame Marg for it. Saying that if only Marg had kept quiet, quit complaining, etc, it would have been fine.
This woman is a serious detriment to Marg's physical, emotional and psychological well-being.
On Friday evening, when I got back from work/Marg's, Billie asked if I was cold because my cheeks were red. She touched them and said, "They're hot Mom!" I said, "Ever hear that phrase: red with rage? This is it. This is me, furious." I was, literally, red with rage and fury at what happened Friday evening at Marg's. Her Mother was "teaching" us (me and the other worker) how to use a new hammock-like strap to life Marg from her chair to her bed. *I* could figure out with my eyes closed, but her mother insisted on showing us. Of course, she had the thing completely backwards and when I delicately informed her that, "This part needs to go down here, I think it's backwards," she ignored me and continued, yanking and pulling on Marg's body (WITH her broken back!) causing Marg to cry out and tell her mother to go more slowly please, it HURTS me, Mom and her Mom replied, getting all up in her face, I went slow Marg. You KNOW I went slow. That wasn't fast. Marg looked at me over her mother's shoulder and just rolled her eyes. I clenched my fists.
In the end, her Mother had to use ME to figure out how to use the straps. *I* had to go on the bed and SHE put the straps on ME and hoist me up. Of course, my back being NOT broken, I just let her fiddle with this and that until she got it.
After Marg (finally) got on her bed, then she proceeded to disengage the straps from her legs quickly, letting the legs fall to the bed, yanking on her fused hips, and causing pain. Marg tried to explain that it needs to be done slowly, with the leg held. Her mother informed her that her legs WERE down on the bed. Her mother doesn't want to realize that even if the machine that hoists her up were flat on her belly, the legs are still being held, and they STILL need to be handled gently. She refuses. She just doesn't want to know and in the process she causes her daughter unnecessary pain. It infuriates me.
And I can say NOTHING because her mother will simply wait until I'm gone, then go into Marg's room and yell at her about her workers' attitude. MINE in particular.
Marg was so stressed out Friday evening that I had to go back around midight because her body just let go. When she's stressed, nothing stays in. She can't eat, and whatever is in her system comes out the "other" end. And I have to deal with it, as her worker (and friend).
So, she'll come with me on tuesday when I begin the proceedings to have my ex's wages garnisheed, and I'll go with her on Wednesday to help her deal with the trauma of getting x-rayed AND dealing with her mother.
And the rage grows inside me... When we finally find a place and Marg can move out, I swear I will let everything come out and blast her mother with it. She will NOT be allowed intside OUR home to contaminate it with her filth. Marg is not in the right frame of mind to defend herself (having lived with it for 35 years now).
Today is Marg's birthday, we're supposed to go out for supper tonight WITH HER MOTHER! I told Marg I'm going to douse myself with Patchouli, which her mother hates, and order the most expensive steak on the menu, seeing as how her mother is paying for Marg's meal (and her attendant's) *evil gleeful laughter*
Marg has:
Muscular Dystrophy, specifically Spinal Muscular Atrophy. - She can only move her right hand and can't lift her arm at all. She can still hold her head up when sitting but her body will go all over the place if she hits a bump, or when she's in the Handi-Transit bus.
She's gone through four back surgeries, the first one at sixteen, to have a rod placed against her spine so she wouldn't suffocate from the lack of muscle holding her body up. The rod broke and she had another surgery nine months later. Her uncle inadvertently broke her spine by shoving his knee into her back while trying to hoist her wheelchair up the stairs. And she broke her lower spine in a white-water rafting accident: she was sitting in the MIDDLE of the raft and it bottomed during a rather rough dip and her bottom hit the bottom of the river. Two months later she was curious as to these boils that appeared on her back and when she went to her doctor, he bust one and found bits of bone in it. The shattered bones were coming out through these boils. She delayed surgery for six weeks so she could finish her grade twelve school semester and celebrate xmas with her family and finally went into surgery in January.
She also has arthritis.
Depression since she was six years of age and her father tried to kill her through passive means, like not buckling her seat belt in the car, sending up on a ladder to the roof of the house when he KNEW her legs weren't strong, etc. Her mother left her father when Marg was nine years old, but it really wasn't any better without him.
She has cellulitis which flares up here and there and is burningly painful.
She is overweight (due to steroids in her teens to try and keep her muscles strong) and the doorways aren't big enough to comfortably accomodate her girth when she passes through it, so her left side has been torn open a few times.
She's also anorexic and fights with it everyday, forcing herself to eat.
She has next to NO immune system, gets fevers all the time, sores in her mouth and on her body, her kidneys are slowly failing.
For two years (2003-2005) she suffered through extremely painful nerve spasms in her legs as they were slowly dying. She would take Baclofen and Cyclobenzabrine for them but they did nothing. One time she took so much Oxycocet she was hallucinating, but still feeling the pain. Her leg muscles would harden like wood and I'd have to lift her legs and bend them at the knee and the ankle. And she'd cry, hit her leg with the remote control, anything to ease the agony. Finally, a separate doctor diagnosed the spasms as NERVE spasms and not muscle spasms and gave her Amitriptalyne and FINALLY they went away. Sometimes those spasms would last for two days and she wouldn't sleep. But now she's getting real muscle spasms.
She suffers from migraines and constant headaches.
Constant body itching from the medication.
She really is in a right state. But through it all, she still smiles and she still goes out in public and you wouldn't know that inside she's crying in agony. She hasn't given up.