Green Jean Granny

Another explosive day…

Steve has this way of going over the same thing over and over – You should have just done this – (it used to be focused on my kids which would bring this same reaction from me)Well I couldn’t hear it picked apart and gone over again and I cut him off and said I wasn’t going to listen to it again. He turns it around and says how he just needs to talk it out – but it’s not talking anything out. It hurts me so much to go back to the week of his stroke. I can’t change things. I thought the house was in the final throes of being foreclosed on and I took what I could, and walked away. It was raining so terribly the day we tried to pack that truck and the kids were working through mud and goop in the cold and cat shit was everywhere. I told the people who came to help that they could have things – a crock pot, a pressure washer, the computer, an electric guitar. I never expected to go back, EVER and I turned and walked away. My friends know how I agonized over leaving the cats. The hospital was not caring for Steve correctly and I could barely stand to leave him. I had had no sleep and was in intense pain myself – to the point I had my chest pains checked out in emergency. Steve’s brother had frightened me to death telling me to get back to Atlanta because decisions had to be made and as next of kin, I had to make them. Doctors really didn’t talk to me clearly and I was told his prognosis wasn’t good and I was a mess. Steve keeps saying how I can’t understand unless the stroke happens to me – but he also can’t understand what me and G went through. It was/is the most horrible time of all our lives. He feels betrayed and victimized to have had his things stolen and picked over and given away. I understand – Kayla did it to me and my stuff wasn’t thrift store finds and speakers. He’s right, His brother doesn’t value his stuff and I didn’t value his stuff. I felt it was a hoarder’s junk and ran from it. Really, I’m not trying to downplay anything. I did a terrible job of managing that first week. I was told he’d be tube fed and he was on a catheter and couldn’t move or talk or answer me or open his eyes most of the time. I want to be here for him to work through his loss, but I can’t do it from a healed place yet. It’s an open wound for me still. I see pictures of him whole and before the stroke and sometimes I just cry. I miss him so much. Today, I wouldn’t let him talk about this again. I need him to know the other side and stop going back there to the house and the things that are so very neglected. He almost died there. Our kitties suffered there. I can’t hear how we shouldn’t have had so many or how I shouldn’t have told him to work for Sam. He thought we had thousands of dollars when we were down to 1 thousand dollars and he wouldn’t hear me that the money was gone. He was suffering and he was sick and hungry and we were so alone. I try to tell him things and he won’t hear me because he’s busy looking back and laying guilt – and although he says he’s not laying it on me, he’s angry and hurt and does it over and over and this time, I couldn’t be silent and take it. And he cried and was hurt again – because even though BETTER is becoming a word we can use, he’s not always better and I am incredibly tired. Today I am so hot and he is so hot and we just fought and I hurt him AGAIN. I had to leave and I went grocery shopping, and he’s in bed, not talking to me. And my God I wish he seemed older than 10 in his interactions because I could really use a good fuck. He says he doesn’t feel like a man. Maybe I am causing that, but He doesn’t seem like a grown up dealing with a bad situation. He seems like a little boy and I feel like a hover mom trying to anticipate his next need. I wish we knew how close to healing he is and if this is our norm, then we can deal with that. I feel like he’s getting better – he sounds more like his own self. But there are some things we just need to not do to each other. Today’s round of words was one of them.

Yesterday as hard as I tried, I felt smooshed. Stroke on top, Asperger’s on the bottom. When I push my son, he stems. People don’t understand how hard it is to watch over a person with Asperger’s. G did pull himself together and help me finish the job I asked him to do but the strain of knowing how precise my words have to be is so wearing. When I asked him if he thought a boss would be as specific as ME he got really angry. An hour later, he came in and hugged me and we did it. With G, even at 20, he either works completely alone or hands on WITH.

I stubbed my little toe and it’s freaking PURPLE.

Now the stroke… I may try some poetry imagery. It’s just such a huge thing and as much as I want to help him, if he doesn’t help himself, it’s gonna sit on us forever. I’m worried too because strokes reoccur and while I don’t want to live afraid, it weighs on me. Steve will sneak snacks. I want his A1c to stay low and his B/P to stay controlled. Right now they are very good. I ask him to stop going BACK to bed in the am’s. He’ll stay there till 11:00. I set alarms, he ignores them. I say EXERCISE, do bridges, he ignores me. I go out and come back and he’s lifting his arm. It’s the only one he’ll do unless he’s in therapy. His face has lost all the tone it had. It simply droops on the right. Sometimes he drools. Most days there are 3 clothing changes as he dribbles pee before he gets to the pot and after he pees. I’ve had to change to a highly scented laundry soap to cut the pee smell from his clothes. If I leave a urinal close to him, he cries. So I don’t. He moans and groans the whole walk through the house. I want to give him his time to heal and not pressure him, but therapy says DO IT LIKE A JOB. That’s exercises for the full body, not just his right arm. He brightens up during therapy. He acts like nothing is wrong, like he’s perfectly capable and he shines while on that NuStep bike. He’s a show off…a boaster…a storyteller…an exaggerator. I think he’s a closet actor but that makes him mad and he thinks I’m being mean. I have to know these things in silence which is usually OK. Today is his eval for more therapy. He will say he can do everything they ask him about. ABSOLUTELY NOT. He can carry the remote. I had him steady shelve posts this week and let go of his walker. He can dress himself if I have half an hour for him to do it in. He’s managed his socks twice (his ankle swells and hurts). Aside from that, I do everything. We talked about how every day he refuses to exercise is another day he has to live like this and at some point, his added on days will fall outside his “window” and he’ll have to work even harder if he wants to get the full use of his body back. I can’t even suggest he may not get that use back. What if this is IT? What if he’s already hit his wall? I wonder sometimes. I think it would be easier than all the pushing and the therapy and the trips to the rehab. I need a foot stool/ottoman for his foot and the man needs clothes. Money – I’m $300 short of monthly needs. Will be until October. Groceries are precious.. One thought always leads to another.

And as soon as I speak it – Medicaid cancels his therapies. BANG.