my mother is 67 years old, and found out she was diabetes in her mid-late 40's.
she had me at 41, and i'm almost 26 years old.
i would say she never really took great care of herself after finding out she was diabetic. wouldn't eat enough, would often eat the wrong thing, and often made the most irresponsible excuses not to do what she was supposed to, like being too busy with the chores to have breakfast or take her medication on time.
well, eventually her attitude towards her condition started taking a toll. about a year ago, my dad took her to a neurologist, and she confirmed my mom had some brain damage, related to her diabetes, her age and her lack of mentally challenging activities. she was in treatment for three months, but after completing, my father never took her again. i would often ask him about it, and he'd say he'll take her one of these days.
i moved in with my boyfriend 4 years ago and ever since, i would see my parents around once a week or once every two weeks, and call them around every other day.
well, the thing is, about a month ago, my mother bumped her toe, and my dad was treating it and took it to a clinic specialized in Diabetic patients (we live in Dominican Republic, where people are not known for taking care of their chronic health conditions), and the doctors advised to amputate the toe if it didn't get better in a week. it did get better, but also she would often remove the gauze when my dad treated her at home, so it got awfully infected, which caused a major amputation (last thurstday they amputated 3cm above the knee).
right now i am having a lot of feelings, mostly anger. towards her, for not taking better care of herself; towards my father, for not continuing the treatment and for not allowing the toe to be amputated, and towards myself, because i keep thinking if i were still living with them, or at least somehow forced my dad to do what was necessary, this could have been avoided.
but the worse thing is looking at her in the hospital bed, staring at her leg without realizing what happened. she often says "look what happened to me, did the doctors see it?" she is touching the stump and she apparently hasn't made the connections about what happened yet, . Dr's from surgery dep. say she is out of danger and she can go home, and so do the psychiatrists, but she doesn't seem sane to me right now, and she is also very aggressive and sometimes won't allow us to give her her medicine.
i feel like i am going crazy and i can't stop crying, and i know there's nothing we can do now other than to do whatever it takes to improve her health and her lifestyle, but i'm feeling devastated, angry and guilty, and i would really appreciate some advise from those that are or were in a similar situation
If you can't manage to get past the anger on your own, try to set up a few sessions with a counselor to help you deal with your feelings.
Diabetes is a disease. It is like cancer. Your mother did not ask for it, and did not deserve it. It was Not Her Fault. It was Not Your Father's Fault. And it most certainly was Not Your Fault. Once someone has diabetes there are many way they can manage their behaviors (mainly eating and exercising and taking medications) to REDUCE the risk of complications. There is no absolute guarantee that someone won't get complications even if they are compliant with their treatment plan. I know you wish your mother had been more compliant and had at least reduced her risks. But she wasn't. And now she faces the complications we all fear.
What you can do now is to continue to love her unconditionally. Stop blaming her. Help her with the new things she will have to learn. Support your father ... this will be quite a challenge for him, too.
I don't know how things work in Dominican Republic. Can she go from the hospital to a rehabilitation center, where she can regain some strength and calm down before coming home? If so, visit her there.
Allow yourself time to mourn and accept this loss. But try not to let your anger and blame and guilt spill over into your relationship with your parents.
Now it is time for your parents to work on learning to live with the *new normal* of this phase of their life. First your Mom will need to mourn the lost of her leg, which is quite common for one to do when they lose an external body part.
Will your Mom change her view of having diabetes? She might at first, then resort back to her old ways. Again, if she does that that is her choice and you will need to honor whatever choices she makes even if you know they could do her harm.
Just step back and let your parents live however they want.... once their memories start to slip, then you can step in to help.
She will need lots of encouragement to bounce back. She will need therapy. Pam has a great idea, can you hire someone local to be drop in on her, make sure she is working out for strength and not just sitting around.......she is too young to give up.
One last note is to advise you to be regularily checked for diabetes yourself and do all the healthy things Mom has neglected. You are still younge and probably want a family of your own so your health is very important so you can have healthy babies
Blaming yourself is counter-productive. Your brain knows you did what a reasonable person would do . . . encouraged her to take better care of herself and encouraged dad to make sure she did. You aren't to blame here.
The important thing to do going forward is to educate your mom and dad on her proper care and proper precautions. But even if you are successful doing that, it's no insurance policy.
And listen to Veronica. Diabetes runs in families. Get checked regularly.
We currently have positive but realistic expectations. And she is healing well. We took her to my aunt's house while my dad makes some preparations to take her home.
Something that really bothers me is that my parents took great care of me and my brother, we never needed to be hospitalized, and she would always say to us "I wouldn't want you to inherit this disease, so please start taking care of yourself". So she knew what to do and didn't do it, even if I begged her not to skip a meal, or to take a walk around the neighborhood every once in a while.
Also, healthcare is good here if you have a job.
Most of the time she realized her leg was amputated but sometimes she kinda forgets. And she is way less aggressive now.
We're getting a lot lf support from our family, and we are looking for a fulltime nurse, and once the stump heals we're gonna take her to a rehabilitation center.
I'm also getting annual checks, everything good so far, although I'm overweight.
Again, thank you all very much for your support!
It is hard to realize that NOTHING tastes so good it's worth losing your health over. There is almost always something that tastes as good or better that is actually good for you. Don't trade your heart, your brain, your vision or anything else for overindulgence in momentary pleasures! The whole world seems to be telling you the opposite, that it's practically inhuman not to mindlessly go for yummy tasty NOM NOM NOM crap that kills us...but the plain truth is eating wrong and not moving enough gravely diminishes quality and quantity of life, and the battle is totally worth fighting to win.
My mom was the same way - she told herself that diabetes could not be controlled or managed, you just lived with it, and she did exactly the wrong things and died with everything all clogged up, couldn't see, couldn't think, hurt a lot despite best efforts (helped a little...not enough) and just about immobile to boot.
Eat blueberries. Get a bike or get out there on your own two legs. Do TaeKwonDo or at least TaiChi. Don't stop doing stuff because you are any certain age. Fresh green beans are yummier than junk food once you re-sensitize and cultivate your taste buds a little. Be countercultural - it could save your life.
Put your anger into helping other people do what our moms couldn't or didn't...whatever the reasons...