Bring on the Guilt

Today, I found out my mom has congestive heart failure and is borderline diabetic.

The diabetic thing I could have guessed. She has all the symptoms.

She has poor health to begin with. She’s had several surgeries over the years. The one I remember most vividly is the hysterectomy she had on my 10th birthday. Yes, that’s right on my birthday. I remember sitting in class, looking at the balloons and flowers she had sent me wondering if how she was doing. If they were done yet. When would she be able to come home? Did she remember to get the right kind of ice cream for my birthday party? Chocolate cake, right? What did you expect me to think? I was 10 and in the 4th grade. Birthday parties were very important back then.

She had surgery a few years a go to remove her gallbladder and since then she’s had several intestinal/digestion problems. She can’t eat a lot of greasy or spicy foods and she used to live on them.

She has liver problems and a lump in one of her breasts the size of a golf ball. It’s nothing serious though. A Cyst caused by caffeine. No cancer there. Thankfully.

She’s had surgery on her shoulder and her wrists from complications of her job. She works in a factory and does a lot of repetitious work.

In 9 days she is going in to have a net put in to hold her uterus up. It’s wreaking havoc on her bladder and threatening to make a very unwanted appearance.

On my birthday, September 4th, She will be going in to have an ECHO test done. This will help determine the reason the fluid built up so much around her heart and causing her legs to swell up so that she can barely walk. Also it will let us know if the medication she’s on is helping at all

I am hoping to make it back to Missouri to be with her either during the surgery or before or after. I’m not sure. I just want to be there for something. She needs me. She may not say it, but I know it. She’s a strong woman and has been through a lot in her lifetime. She’s an awesome mom and an even better Grandma. I hate seeing her in this condition.

I guess this is where the guilt comes in. I feel like it’s somehow my fault. Like if I was there I could help her more and maybe she wouldn’t be so sick, so stressed out, so worried. I know it probably wouldn’t make a big difference. But I still want to be there.

It’s a mom/daughter thing.