While at the hospital...

My mom was hospitalized (for medical reasons) for 3 weeks. Her potassium levels were critically low from being so malnourished, which put her at risk for a heart attack. I don't know how she had been living like that. Not eating, only drinking beer, shitting herself every few minutes (oh, fecal incontinence), being so weak and depressed that she couldn't get off of the couch.

It's interesting how the mental illness plays into all of this. Do normal alcoholics get like this? Or was it the depressive side of her Bipolar disorder that allowed her to reach this level? It's so hard to know.

Anyway, once she was "medically stable," she was taken to the psych ward. Psych wards are awful. The first couple of times my mom was on the psych floor (in 2002 and 2003), it was a result of her arrests and it was a relief that she was there. This time she was just transferred there from her other [nicer] hospital room on the cardiac floor. It's a locked unit and the staff there are mean and demeaning. It's depressing and it smells like pee.

I will say though, you do have to find to humor in situations. For example, after my mom had to have her stomach "tapped" -- which is a surgery that removes some of the fluid in the belly from her ascites (click here to read about it) -- and my mom jumped out of her wheel chair (imagine how good you'd feel if you got 13 pounds of fluid drained from your belly) and walked over to the scale with a spring in her step. The entire backside of her gown was open (so cliche, I know) and her legs are so skinny (from the malnourishment, so it should've been sad, but it wasn't) and I don't know. She just looked so funny. My brother, sister and I just all burst out laughing.

Another funny thing had to do with another patient. Usually it's sad seeing people in the halls and around the unit, but there was this one old man named Stuart and he just YELLED all the time. Again, it should be sad since he was in this hospital with no family and he was obviously very ill (delusions, etc), but he would yell "HELLO? NURSE?" all day, and then when someone would go in his room, he would scream "GET OUT OF HERE!" He told his counselor to "Fuck off! You're a womanizer and a crook!" (best insults ever). And then after lunch one day, my brother offered to wheel him back to his room and when he was all settled in, Stuart turned to my brother, gave him the finger and said, "Get out of my room, faggot". It sounds so awful as I'm typing it, but it was the funniest thing hearing Stuart yell this at my brother. Sigh.

"When things are at their worst, Scarlett, the only thing to do is find something to laugh about. It keeps you sane".
-Rhett in Scarlett

The Next Day...

My mom agreed to go to a regular doctor, but definitely not the hospital (I think because she was so traumatized by her two hospitalizations). When we walked in the door of the doctor's office, the woman at the counter did not believe my mom was only 55. She looked 100 years old.

The doctor could not do much for us. My mom lies lies lies about anything and everything. Her weight (she said: oh, 115; actual weight: 88 pounds...20 of which was fluid in her stomach). How much do you drink? (she said: oh, not much; actual answer: all day every day). How do you feel? (she said: fine; what anyone else would have said: HELP ME!).

My mom refused to stop drinking and there was nothing we could do. The doctor said involuntary treatment wasn't an option because even though my mom is bipolar and had stopped taking her medications, she was "of sound mind". She is allowed to kill herself like this if she chooses in the great state of New York.

She told us my mom had alcoholic liver disease (click here to read about it) and that she will die from it. It will be a slow and painful death.

To give an idea what she of what she looks like:

1. She has ascites:

2. And she has cachexia from not eating/being unable to digest food:

I couldn't believe the doctor let us walk out of there for my mom to die, but she did. And so we went.