Called her bluff, and it wasn't a bluff

[Sneezy]

I took mom out for lunch at an outside restaurant yesterday.  It was a beautiful day and I had my medium chill going.  Every time she started complaining, I changed the subject.  It was shaping up to be a good day.  And then mom had a pain in her back.  And she started in, like she always does, about how terrible the pain was, and why did I make her change chairs (so the pain was my fault, you see), and she couldn't breathe, and would I just take her home and stay with her for a while.  I thought she was making a mountain out of a mole hill to get attention.  But then she said the pain was spiking up into her chest.  And at that point, I thought of all of you and what you would say.  Because there were only two possibilities - either this was truly a medical emergency and I had to call an ambulance or she was bluffing and it was time to call her bluff.

Long story short - mom got a ride to the hospital in an ambulance.  It was not a heart attack (as I thought) or a ruptured appendix (as the paramedics thought).  Rather, it was a kidney stone, which was very painful and which she thankfully passed within a couple hours.

The moral of the story - all the coping strategies we discuss on this forum appear to work, even in a true emergency.  So thank you all for your advice through the years because all that advice was running through my head as this unfolded.

And today?  I called mom and it's like yesterday never happened.  She is not thankful for the care she received.  She is not grateful that her pain passed quickly and now she's just a little tired.  Nope, she is as miserable as ever, everyone is still mean to her, and she spent ten minutes telling me about all the awful food the senior living center serves.  Some things never change, do they?

Thank you to everyone who has ever given me advice - it paid off yesterday.  And today for me, it's back to medium chill and boundaries.  And counting my own blessings, too, because sitting in an emergency room for four hours on a Saturday, and watching all the truly sad and serious emergencies that arrive, have made me realize that I have it pretty darn good.   

[practical]

  Amazing how you mentioned to deal with the situation in real time! I hope you are padding yourself on your back!

This is one of the problems with "Poor me" of PDs, they cry woolf so often, one starts to ignore it. You did extremly well in cutting through the  poor me and looking at facts only.

As for her being grateful, unfortunately PDs don't seem to be prone to epiphanies, don't seem to ever travel on the road to Damascus. For those things you have to step away for a moment from what happened, reflect, and it very much seems your M is her normal self, meaning circling around herself, her needs, demands, and complaints.

Well done! Proud of you!

[SunnyMeadow]

I rolled my eyes when I read your mother is as miserable as ever. You're right, things never change.

Enough about her .... You handled the whole day very well! Good for you sticking with medium chill and changing the subject. 

[Thru the Rain]

Good for you!

Glad to hear your M is feeling better enough to go back to complaining. 

[Hepatica]

That's amazing Sneezy!! You did so well. Top marks for chill under pressure. And no, they don't seem to change or have epiphanies as practical says. But you're still growing and learning. I'm proud of you.

[Sneezy]

Haha, and four days later, Mom is back to her old self.  Mom - "I don't know what happened on Saturday."  Me - "You had a kidney stone." Mom - "Well, I don't know . . ."  I'm not sure if she wants to deny that anything was wrong because it interferes with her perception of herself as being in perfect health (although she is clearly not), or if she's upset that it wasn't something more serious so that she could get more attention out of it.

Mom seems to vacillate between believing she is in perfect, pristine health and thinking she is dying.  One minute she complains that she is living "with all these old people" even though she is pretty much right at the average age in her senior complex.  The next minute she is convinced that it's all over and she wants to talk about her funeral plans.  There is no in between. 

[lkdrymom]

Can someone explain to me why our parents seem to think we lie to them.  You tell her she had a kidney stone and she doubts you.  My father used to say the same thing.  His line was "well I don't know about that".  Yes you do!  I just told you! Why would you think I was lying to you???

[Andeza]

I think it's because it doesn't line up with the version of reality that they cling to. Therefore, they will not accept anything outside that version to be true. Even when it's their own children telling them.

[Sneezy]

You tell her she had a kidney stone and she doubts you. 

The doctor told her she had a kidney stone.  But now when I say it, she's not sure.    Because what do I know?

I think the problem is that, as Andeeza notes, Mom has a different version of reality.  When the doctor said "You had a kidney stone, and that's why you were in such pain, but it's passed and you will be sore for a bit, but you are fine," what Mom wanted to hear (and what she believes) is "You are the healthiest 80-year old I have ever treated in my life, but unfortunately, you have an amorphous, hazy, hard to pin down disease that could kill you at a moment's notice and will likely flare up whenever you are bored and/or your children are not paying enough attention to you."

[Andeza]

I vote we name it the Didi disease.... in honor of WI.

I spent my childhood going to all of M's nebulous doctor appointments. Neurologists, cardiologists, PHPs, etc. The story she told in the appointment was always a very watered down version of what got acted out at home. The realities are two different things. But which one is real? Is the story she paints while in the doctor's office that everything is going really well, but the meds need adjusted the real version? Or is the groaning and moaning in bed for three days straight while your teenage daughter brings you toast the real version? Hmmm, one of these things is not like the other!

Whichever was true, she stopped bringing me when I started correcting her statements and giving the doctor the REAL rundown. Fine by me. They were boring anyway, and the doctors always implied my reading material was too advanced.

The truth is the truth though, Sneezy. Don't let her gaslight you. Honestly kidney stones are typically unusual in women and likely a sign of what you described as her poor health.

[SparkStillLit]

Ha!!! PDMIL always has these "rare diseases" that "no doctor can diagnose" that she is ALWAYS dying from, or lucky not to have died, or some version thereof, that are forever conveniently flaring up. If she went to the eye doctor and he or she said MIL has dry eye, that becomes some rare disease nobody has ever heard of, and so on.
Alarmingly, updh is slowly slipping into some low level version of this. He's always done the nebulous medical complaint thing, but this is a new level.

[Sneezy]

I vote we name it the Didi disease.... in honor of WI.

I have almost slipped and called my mom "Didi" on more than one occasion 

[Boat Babe]

Yeah, my mum is French and suffers from what all French hypochondriacs have- a liver! 

Don't get me started.