Of cartel boss and day care centre boss

Recently I got hooked on a slightly trashy and highly addictive Netflix series on drug cartels, it is so so full of drama it feels like a soap-opera.  Never a dull moment of peace and quiet, something bad is always happening, and then the 'good guys' trouble-'shoot' (yes there's shooting every 10-minutes) their way out of bad shitty situations...then you breathe a little, for about 3 minutes, before another wave of drama kicks in.   

These past weeks till now, I feel like I'm the badass leading lady in this drama series, wading through a series of drama and riding them out like a nasty lady boss.   A lady boss running a 'day care centre' with two tenants (my parents), with no sidekicks for now.  

I find that I am at loss with words when I try to write down what has been happening.  I don't know how and where to start.  The fact is, things have not really changed drastically in the past few months.  Only now that my sister has not been able to come over to this 'day care centre' much to relief my duties, things feel heavier here now.  Mom and pop are old and going through a natural progression of a terminal, horrible disease called ageing, which you and I, and everyone, are also going through. 

Mom's next appointment with her geriatrician is long overdue, thanks to the lockdown and Covid.  Her condition (vascular dementia) seems to have worsened much in the past week.  She is like a very old computer with an outdated processor, constantly hanging in the middle of an operation.  Today I got a text message from dad, "Mom asks you what you want her to do about as she can't remember what you want to do or to bring please let me know about this thanks."   

Many things about dementia patients that I have read, are now unfolding in front of me, on daily basis.  Mom asking me if she has showered or not, three times in one minute; mom standing at my doorway looking at her feet, struggling to get out of her slippers so she can walk inside; mom starting a sentence and getting stuck and not getting anywhere with what she wants to say, the list is endless.  The consolation is that she seems less depressed lately.  She is constantly stressed and anxious about a million little things, but she is also ever ready to laugh and be amused by all the stupid jokes I tell her.  

The case with dad is quite totally different, despite his high level of mental lucidity and trouble-shooting game-strong, and his independence; his needs for medical attention has been incessant since he moved to KL.  Small procedures after procedures, little problems skin regularly, chronic cough and weakened breathing, right shoulder-muscle dystrophy, I have lost count of many of his medical issues....I make sure that we file all their medical reports, X-rays, appointment cards properly.  The other thing that I know is eating him up badly is his poor management of his emotions, and his ego.

The way I cope here is, I deal with everything only as they come.  I do my best, with lots of self-reminders, to not carry the problems with me to bed once I have managed it for the day.  I know that overloading my mind with their problems will only kill me faster than the problems kill them.  

When and if I don't see my parents for a day, I will get a full load of them talking at me, and to me the next day.  Like a chairperson at a board meeting where all her committees talk at the same time at full volume, before the chairman even sit down at the meeting table.  

When a committee member raises a issue at his department, the other committee member immediately sounds out that her departments is facing the same problem.  "I also have pain here, everyday I am in pain, I've told you all this so many times."  I know they are not consciously competing with each other in the pain department, and I believe them when they say they have pains.  

So the chairperson speaks from the head of the table  (I do sit at the head of the dining table here at home, it's just my usual seat, nothing intended to show power), she speaks slowly and calmly, "The thing is, once we all accept that from here on, both of you will continue to age and your health WILL deteriorate; we will all cope better and feel less stressed out.  Accept that what's coming our way is a natural way of life, and we should not be afraid to see each other get sicker.  Take better care of each other, have more patience with each other, then we WILL be fine."  My parents listened, both of them calm and not agitated at all with my profound declaration of the hard truth. 

When things are ugly, which is often these days - dad showing his annoyance with mom at every chance he gets, his inability to control his emotions, mom's helplessness on full display and her stubbornness in accepting advice - I do lose my cool.  In fact, I lose it a lot.  Most of it I keep it well covered and deflected, I have two methods, or tactics.  One, I ignore them (mom and/or dad) for a short while, until I find my cool back and I deal with them calmly.  Two, I defuse the situation with humour and light-hearted antics and amusement.  Laughter is a medicine, really.

And there are the things that mom and dad cannot control - their bodies breaking down.  Being in such proximity and witnessing the destructive power of ageing has really opened my eyes and forced me to change the way I react and respond to this thing called life.   There is nothing like living so close to your blood relations who are living and struggling with sickness, to mature you in a short time.  

Yet, ironically, these times more than ever, the urge to do irresponsible things arises frequently.  And I do indulge, eating crisps in bed at 2am, finishing a tub of ice cream on my own while watching Netflix, going hungry while I obsess over a piece of video-editing work. 

I suppose it is the act of balancing that I need.  Being silly and being serious, being lazy and being diligent, cry a little and laugh a lot, between being patient and ranting it to someone, between clean healthy meals and decadent trashy food, etc.

My sister and I chat often, but I feel not often enough.  Each of us fully absorbed in our own demons and the much-to-handle on our plates.  We each have our own ways of coping with parents' ageing and our own shit.  I know we each cannot imagine if we were to shoulder all of this on our own, with our brother being far away in Singapore.  

All that aside, despite my frustrations with my parents, I look at them now and I cannot imagine what it is like to be them.  They are annoying yes, but I salute them for trying their best to cope with all that's going on in their minds, and their ailing bodies.  For all that I do for them now, cooking the kind of food they can eat, cleaning up after our meals, pulling out the chairs for them (my chairs are too heavy),  dishing food onto their bowls, delivering food to them when they don't come over, buying the stuff they need at home, tending to their queries about everything and anything - they always say "Thank you" to me, everyday.  

I know shits are going to get worse and I am afraid too, despite my advice to my parents.  I am afraid of what's coming myself.  But I accept that too, I will embrace all the emotions that wash up my shore everyday.  I pull out a chair for all my emotions at the table and let them have a go in speaking up.  Then we discuss terms and we negotiate, like a good and calm drug cartel boss, I will hear them out before I take the next course of action.  

I will take on life, one day at a time.  One breathe at a time.

#parentingmyparents
#janetwrites 
#lockdowndiary