Ayn's Multiple World

Another day at the hospital ...

Good afternoon. This is me. We’re back at the computer and it’s 1:15 pm. We’ve been here for almost a couple of hours, but Rich’s mom is still sleeping. Rich said that I should probably hang out here in the small waiting room and work with the computer, but Rich’s step-niece was in for a bit and we were talking about this and that. It was great fun. Maybe we’ll run into her again. She seems a lot like us in that she’s kind of a loner, is going to go out for volleyball, would like to play the piano and plays the clarinet very well for her age. She’s almost 13 and is in the 7th grade. Wow that says a lot in itself.

Rich is not with his mom – we just checked. I’m imagining he’s with Bud’s kids down at Bud’s room. Bud is going to be discharged tomorrow. He might have gone today, but he wanted to stay with his wife as long as possible and he was still having breathing problems from his pneumonia. I think we all met about the same time. One of Bud’s sons had said he was coming in for the football game. I think the Bears play around noon. So, I’m pretty sure that’s where Rich is too. I think he would have wanted me to …

Well, ok it’s me again. It’s about 4:12 pm and we’re still at the hospital. I figure it’s going to be about 7 or 8 before we leave.

As to the general course of the day … it’s been pretty nice. After the conversation with Katie, then her Mom and uncle came down and we all chatted for a bit, and then the visit included her husband, and then we went in to visit Rich’s mom and then I must have been in with Bud and then with his mom and then with Bud again, and now this time Rich’s mom is sleeping, so he’s in there and I’m back in the waiting room where it is more pleasant. It’s not as warm, it’s light and the chair is more comfortable to balance the computer. Also my drinks are close to me. I think sometimes too it’s nice to walk out of the rooms just for a change of pace. Likewise it’s nice to walk back into the rooms for THAT change of pace.

The walk into Bud’s room the last time was the toughest. Not because Bud is sick, more because he’s obvious getting better and he has quite a bit to say. I think it might have been a trap! First he said he was saving his carrot cake for me and then … well to make the longest argument short, he told me I had no gumption. To that I had to say … you’re right! I would much rather be lazy and do the fun stuff like writing, reading, and quilting than the harder stuff which would be to take more responsibility for my health. He named something that Vince has been on me for years. They both say I should just do stuff rather than think about it. Then he challenged me by saying what’s your excuse going to be tomorrow.

Yeeks. At some point because he had taken it to a level there was no way to comment back – I said something like why are you picking on me? He said well, when you came in you said how are you? And, now I’m doing the same. At which point I think I got a big silly grin and said ohhhh, I see. Invariably it was like remembering – hey that guy DOES care about me. That was one of the arguments. Too often I say to myself, I don’t care. It didn’t go well by saying it was part of my depression. Freddy injected a line something like … that’s not going to matter he’s old school. I knew the instant he said it … that it just be another Ann trap. Basically, Ann couldn’t use the “I’m sick card.” Sort of like saying next to bud, so did you wake up this morning and say it was going to be a bad Ann day? We tried to keep our sense of humor which is hard when you are on the hot seat. He explained he doesn’t get mad at anyone. So, trying to keep things as honest as we can, we stopped arguing and just fell back to our comfort level.

Basically, his neighbor walked back into the room and I took my earliest escape!

Well, I did stop to kiss Bud on the head and I said thanks for caring, I’ll be back. Hehehe I think I’m getting more out of this weekend than others. I’ve now been schooled by Bud.

In-between there was another nice conversation. Bud got a call from his brother out East, so I was talking with Freddy. He asked me a couple questions that were more personable. He had a pretty good opinion of stuff going around at the Prykop’s. He knew of the general situation with Rich and me and him being now divorced and the situation with the three kids. So, he looked into some more questions. He asked about how old the boys were, so I told him and gave him a little idea of what they were doing, and then he asked a great question for figuring things out … He asked how Rich and Us had met.

I told him that I’d been a client at a place he had worked and that he was a manager and he had hired me because of computer typing skills and that I’d rose through his ranks and then somewhere in there we’d started a relationship. We explained the part of having told my boys 12 years ago about us, but we’d just met Rich’s kids. We also explained the part of Rich letting me raise my family as I might and I tried to stay out of the way his family operated, but that I listened to the outside of conversations and talked about his family as he would allow it along the years.

There was probably much more to it, but that was the gist of it. I think that Freddy was curious, but I think that part of it is just interested and I’m hoping he’s interested because truth be told, I am like a part of this family now. That would make me incredibly lucky, but somewhat shy and vulnerable. I’m getting to know a lot of them, and they can compare notes in getting to know me.

I found Freddy to be nice the other times talking too, but with our memory we don’t remember much. We remembered when we first saw him yesterday of the story he had told as being a policeman and on Christmas there had been an accident and someone was cut in two. That story has stayed with me. I think I can be on the hot spot with Freddy, but being on the hot spot with Bud is tougher. Freddy is more mellow and a little smoother around the edges. Pswhoo. I need some slightly fluffier stuff! There’s nothing fluffy about Freddy, but it still feels softer. With Bud sometimes it’s like being interrogated … you know what I’m saying. And, then I think yes I know what you’re saying, but I think I’m going to hide under the rock over here hehehe. Well sorta like that.

Rich is being very patient with us. We told him yesterday about the conversation we’d had with Karen while Bud was playing with Katie in a game of cards. I’m not sure if we told you that part in writing, but briefly it was another situation where Karen I were talking and then later we were told by Bud that we were being pushy. This was after he’d stopped the situation between Karen and me by saying that I was asking too many questions. I wasn’t sure which questions had bothered him because Karen and I’d talked quite a bit without Bud saying anything. The next thing Bud said was that he considered that I was insulting.

Wow … that one took me back. Each time I’ve been this weekend in a situation with Bud one of his kids were there and in this one situation so was his granddaughter Katie who is almost 13. I’m not so sure of that situation, but in general I’d like to think there is safety in numbers. I don’t feel as if people are necessarily going to think less in knowing me, but internally we always have those doubts. It’s probably better for the group of them to talk and I’ll hope in general to be on their better sides and they won’t come to a joint conclusion not to like me. There’s nothing to say they are or are not like this, but I think in any set of relationships there is a bit of testing and you and they are trying to ascertain is this person trustworthy, is he or she someone I would like to get to know.

I consider in general relationships to be tricky and maybe even a bit suspicious. I think that in general people are meeting their own needs, taking care of their family, and then after that maybe there’s space to take in and understand leftover people. I know I’m feeling serious in my desire to know the family, though I have mixed feelings to know if everyone is working in everyone’s best interest. I think in general males are most stable than females. I think females generally have to carry the burdens of self-esteem troubles so we question our loyalties more.

Like when I talk to Karen I think that she loves Mom and had always tried to be fair, but in the same mindset, she’s already got a Mom and she has only one dad. It would seem natural then for her to protect his interests more so than hers if anything came to push and shove. Today she told me more about situations that she seemed not to tell Rich where his mother – Rich’s pushed Bud in the chest and was so verbally abusive, they had to call the police. I think there was a situation where Rich went with them … maybe to calm down. The daughter also stated that Bud has on occasion slept at her house instead of with Mom, and then later he’s called to see if things were calmed down and has then returned to home.

I don’t think Karen understands why Mom and Bud love each other, but she trusts that they do. I think though because of Mom’s drinking and angry personality believe their dad to be in a victim relationship. I don’t think it’s to Mom’s benefit that when Bud gets in trouble he calls Karen or other of his kids, but that Rich’s mom doesn’t necessarily have anyone to back up her interests. It’ a tough deciding point though in that if she is an alcoholic and isn’t being responsible, then is Bud being responsible, or perhaps he shouldn’t be in that he’s the one that will get her booze for her. Maybe the best that could be said is that they are in a dependency relationship and its complicated by the booze.

Now its going to be a new situation in that she is going through detox and will walk out of here to the nursing home and between the two won’t be enabled with alcohol. Given that she becomes very angry when not pacified by it, then it’s a question of what to do. Financially it would be very difficult for them to be in a relationship where she’s staying at the nursing home. Both Bud and his daughter and Rich think that if she were to stay, the state or home would deplete the money they have in savings to survive. I’m thinking that room in the family could be made for Bud, but that they wouldn’t take in Mom, especially when they are still helping their Mom – Bud’s ex-wife. She’s near death and they are doing their best to see that situation through.

Mark is out of state with his work, so if his Mom were not living with Bud, or able to be afforded at the nursing home, that Rich and I would have to move into another apartment with a first floor, but then we would have to change our work situation to handle the extra costs. I don’t think we can afford that, but would naturally do it if it were the only alternative for his mother. Rich has stated in the past that her best care comes with Bud and that would be naturally the best situation for both of them, but neither want to give up enough of their independence to get the help they really need to help with the alcohol, or care needs. Bud, wants to think he can do it all and he’s worked heroically to that end, but the thing is that that kind of helping relationship puts burdens on each of them – and some of them don’t appear safe. I didn’t like or haven’t liked that I’ve seen Bud be mean to her or hit her or snap at her, and I don’t like that she’s complained of being hurt by him and that he is abusive.

It would seem optimal to have someone caring at the middle stages so they wouldn’t lose their home or personal relationship which might happen if she were more than temporarily in a nursing home.

I’m the last person in this entire situation that has anything to do with anything.

But, in the range of my social-psycho analyzing, I think about this all because I see it and wonder

posted by Ann Marie @ 1/04/2010 05:24:00 AM Comments: 0