My Mom

My Mom is sick again. She has some flu or cold or something. She's sneezing, and her blood sugar has stayed high all day. I always worry when stuff like this happens. She's had a lot of health problems in the past five years, and it's not good for her blood sugar to get and stay so high--it's been over 300--and ha, ha, this is god getting me back for being so wrapped up in my own stuff for the past week. I should have not gone out last night, and should have gone over to check on her, so it's partly my fault. Who knows what her blood sugar was all yesterday, because she won't take it unless someone makes her. It's like this whole weird role-reversal, and I feel like I'm the parent playing "bad cop" after a divorce, and she's the parent playing "good cop". Oh, and she gets to be the kid, too. And of course she likes her rules better than she likes mine. This is the heart patient with diabetes who will argue with you--with a straight face, she's serious--that chocolate-covered raisins count as fruit. It would be one thing if I thought she were making an informed decision; you know, one of those people who know what's coming and goes and eats fried lard and Ring-Dings and whatever else they want because they want to fully enjoy what time they have left. Now the fact that they're _that_ into deadly food to me should maybe be cause for a second thought or two in my book, but regardless, if they're an adult, and they've made an informed decision, that's ok. But the thing is, my Mom hasn't. She just doesn't seem to get this whole cause-and-effect thing. She doesn't take good care of herself; at her age, with her health, she will still fast to lose weight if she thinks she's getting heavy (she's not fat at all), and thinks that losing six pesky pounds that way is better for her heart than the uproar she throws her blood sugar into and the fact that when her blood sugar is that high/low, all the bad foods you eat just clog up your heart all that much more. She came from a different generation (my parents had me very late), and ok, true, to her not eating is a good diet, and healthy = skinny and all that, but... My point is that she isn't understanding the implications of what she is doing. When she does have that heart attack or stroke, or slips into that diabetic coma, she's not going to want to be there. So I'm trying to save her from herself.

I'm whining again, I know. But I'm overtired and crampy. And worried. She will probably be ok this time, but what scares me is that someday, she won't be ok. It's that inevitability that has me so upset. I'd rather it be me, because I worry that when it's her, she won't understand it.