'Rent Rant

[sarahbyrdd]

Got a voicemail from my father the other night saying that my stepmother had fallen, broken her collar bone, torn her rotator cuff, and was in the hospital.  Geeze o Pete, is it impossible for these people to stay in one piece for more than 3 months at a time?!?  When I finally got hold my father the only other information that I could get was that the fall occurred in the dining room while she was reaching to turn out a light.  A LIGHT?  One wonders as to the blood alcohol level required to make one so unsteady as to fall reaching for a light.  Evidently she's not making too much sense right now (pain meds?  whatever they're giving her to smooth out the alcohol withdrawal?) , so calling her at the hospital is pointless. 

I gently admonished my father to be more aggressive about getting information out of the hospital staff, and suggested that given my stepmother's BMI and (not) eating habits, even a small amount of booze might throw her system for a loop.  I confirmed that he had support systems for himself in place, and I'll be calling regularly to make sure he's eating etc., doing what I need to do to feel like I'm being a "good" daughter.

Of course I'm fuming that they're still living in a 2 story house when neither of them are all that stable on their feet, and cancelled the Life Alert system that I ordered for them last summer.  They're living 5 hours away, which makes it difficult for me to check up on them.  And of course, they're both still drinking (dad on the sly and now in combination with vicodin at last report), when they clearly have addiction problems.  

And now I start my daily mantras that nothing I do can change their behavior and that it's not my job to clean up after the addicts. 

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathies. Bleah.