Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Striking Fear Into The Hearts Of Daughters Everywhere.

It's 2:12PM. At 1:24PM, I got back from my staff's good-bye luncheon for me to find this email from my mom, sent at 12:15PM:

Please call me this afternoon or this evening.
Love you,
Mom


Now, if you knew my mom, you'd know the absolute PANIC the tone of this email is creating at this moment. THIS is the same tone that all four "I've got cancer" calls, or the "Your grandma died this morning" calls came with. My mom is not one to speak with few words (wonder where I get it from, eh?), so when a call comes with hardly any verbage, it's NOT good. An hour later now, I've called her house three times, sent three emails, called her work and still no dice. What the is going on? And if it's that important, could she just pick up the freakin' phone and call rather than sending an email which I may or may not have gotten for HOURS still? I'm about two hours away from calling the Texas City police and having them go over to check on her, just to force a resolution to the issue.

UPDATE


She's not dead. And no one is, as a matter of fact. Actually, it's quite the opposite. My mom applied for Social Security a few years back, and was denied, but her lawyer appealed because the only reason she was denied was blah, blah, blah... Anyway... long story short (too late!), she found out today that the judge approved her appeal. I don't exactly know how to feel. This IS good news technically, but it technically means that the government agrees that my mom is disabled because of the easy reoccurance of her cancers, her EXTREMELY high blood pressure and how the doctor's feel that she is prone to stroke, and the disagnosis of MS (even though one doctor of three disagreed). Ugh. I hate it...even though it will be good for her in the long run...I just hate that this is what has become of her health. BUT! In the meantime, happy day for her! She'll be getting a pretty large lump settlement that will allow her to dig out of some debt she's gotten into over the past two years...and then be back on her feet financially (and medically). GOOD NEWS INDEED!

3 comments:

Aimee said...

Glad to hear everything is ok with your mom and family.

FWIW, retirement/disability can be a good thing in that it helps our parents to slow down. I understand how you feel... my dad retired on/with disability within the last year.

In a way, it looks bad because we see our parents as invincible--even with the health scares our parents have had. But, if she can retire, it might help her health because she won't have to keep up the pace she is now.

How is it that we're not even 30 but we're getting to a point where our parents' health is a major concern... it shouldn't be happening this soon.

Angie said...

Girlfriend! (she says in her best southern-sweet-tea-sippin'-voice) I understand - I was shaving my mom's head during chemo and changing her boob bandage when I was barely 20 years old, let alone thinking about this at 27. I felt like a 60 Minutes special on "caring for aging parents" before I was even aging! This feels like old hat to me at this point, but it's good to have resolution to this part of it. Maybe it will actually HELP her get better, rather than always having to worry about where and how to get by. hahaha...

Aimee said...

I hope her transition goes smoothly. It probably will. Dad is still working with our Worker's Compensation Div. about his disability. It's nuts... he was a diabetic and lost part of his foot because of a work-related accident. Would seem like a no-brainer, huh?

I understand what you're talking about in RE: dealing with parents' illnesses at a young age. We went thru similar stuff, too.

Haha.. southern accent. Cute. I posted a message on my blog about how you're the only person who can call me Rose Nylund. ;-)