pegzateach
Caring for my mom Member since December 28, 2010I am the youngest daughter of three to a mother who raised us in an alcoholic environment. My mom drank when it turned 5 pm after she came home from teaching school until she passed out and smoked until she passed out. She divorced my dad when I was 12 and it was the best thing for us to stop the fighting. She found AA when I was a senior in high school and I found Al-Anon. I was the only daughter to admit there was a family disease and therefore I got help early in my young adulthood. My mom continued to have issues with drinking and men for 40 years, going through two more husbands and now being single for nearly 10 years, she lives alone after having Hurricane Katrina destroy her Biloxi beach home. Currently she is in stage four of COPD and being hospitalized. I don't know if she will ever come home to her independent living. She has told us that she will not ever use a ventilator--this is the last thing in her mind that would give her quality of life.
bold I am angry with my mom because for years she has pretended that she is a non-smoker and yet she is caught smoking in her bathroom while using oxygen! Her AA program gives her strength to resist alcohol and yet she cannot get cigarettes beat. She is over 80 years old and her time of living is coming to an end. I am sad but yet I believe we all make our choices in life. Pretending to be something and having another way of life when no one is looking is the way to be alone at your death bed. I really don't want to go watch her die. It will not be a tragic death. She has been in torment with her asthma, allergies, emphysema, and now COPD. This has been a long-time coming. We make choices that kill us each and every day. She taught me much and now it is my time to be a teacher. I hope those who read my profile will find time to share with their situation.