How to deal with emergencies
Until about four days ago, I was doing rather well, relatively speaking. I was better than I'd been in months, I'm on a vitamin and mineral regime plus seeing a herbalist and I think it's gradually helping. Then my parents came to visit. The visit itself was pretty exhausting and stressful as ever, with a nice little lecture on how I'm an awful daughter for not visiting them, but not as bad as usual. The night before they were meant to leave, my mother managed to develop septicaemia. This was the night before last, and she'll be in hospital a good few days more (improving nicely, thankfully). My stepfather, C, is 73 with a heart condition and is running around far more than he should, not to mention stressed to pieces over it all and not being very rational. I went to the hospital twice yesterday, the first time being woken by the panicked phone call from C at 7 am, and her ward is a pretty long walk from the entrance, not to mention having to trek back and forth to get her stuff from the hospital shops, and did all this on adrenaline, I think, including helping cook for C in the evening. Today I made her a very easy soup which C took in in a thermos, and had to go out to get her more stuff that C was meant to get and didn't. I was meant to visit her this evening with a take-away (the hospital food is inedible), but C had already brought her lots of stuff from M&S (after making snooty remarks about my local Tesco - he seems to think the perfectly nice student district I inhabit is actually a species of slum) which meant I didn't have to worry about her getting food, so I stayed at home feeling like I'm starting the relapse of the decade.
How am I going to handle this? I'm thinking of using a wheelchair in the hospital (generally I use them very rarely but always use a walking stick), but I think they'll freak out. They always refuse to accept how ill I actually am, and when I try to tell them it never goes well. Plus my partner is stressed to bits right now, his father's been in and out of hospital lately and that's just the start. Any advice on handling this the best way possible, in a way that still supports my mother (and in case you weren't aware, septicaemia is no joke, it's life-threatening), stops my stepfather from running himself into a heart attack, stops me from making myself so ill I can't move, and doesn't offend anyone? Thankfully I'd recently stocked up on ready-made meals and such, which will do for myself and my partner at least (not for my parents for various reasons).
How am I going to handle this? I'm thinking of using a wheelchair in the hospital (generally I use them very rarely but always use a walking stick), but I think they'll freak out. They always refuse to accept how ill I actually am, and when I try to tell them it never goes well. Plus my partner is stressed to bits right now, his father's been in and out of hospital lately and that's just the start. Any advice on handling this the best way possible, in a way that still supports my mother (and in case you weren't aware, septicaemia is no joke, it's life-threatening), stops my stepfather from running himself into a heart attack, stops me from making myself so ill I can't move, and doesn't offend anyone? Thankfully I'd recently stocked up on ready-made meals and such, which will do for myself and my partner at least (not for my parents for various reasons).