I have an odd affinity to hospitals and doctors offices. While I don't really care for them, there is, at the same time, a rather calm home-like feeling to waiting rooms. It may just be due to the amount of time I have spent in them over the years.
Most of that time has been spent sitting next to my mother. That just the way the family broke down. Mom dealt with the medical side: the driving, the doctors, the waiting rooms, drugs, braces, and the crutches. But now I find that the tables he turned.
On the February 8 my mother will have both of her knees replaced. It marks a switch, its usually me that has the legs worked on with the long recovery after. In some ways I'm not sure of my place in all of this. But I'm at my mother's side - or at least I'm trying to be, just has she has been at mine for 24 years.
I know she is scared, but rarely lets it show. My mother has a stoic streak that can, at times, catch me way off guard. When she lest sadness show my reaction is thrown off. I'm more stunned than anything before I can react to comfort. Maybe its just me and I'm somehow stunted with my reactions to others, but its there. And that bothers me. I feel as if I should be there right away with out hesitation, be better than that - but I still remain still and almost calculating for a moment before I react.
My socio-emotional retardation aside; I'm scared too. It not right nor is it fair. No one should ever have to deal with such medical issues. Let alone ones own and those of a crippled kid. It seems as though she can't catch a break. It kills me to look back as see all that she has dealt with, and part of me would give anything to change that. To the point where if giving my own legs, although not in the best condition for the purpose of trading in, would give her both a happy and healthy life, I doubt I would think twice about it.
And I will admit I have been less than a help. I don't really care for the pills I have to pop, and have a bad habit of letting it slide, against my better judgment and that of my mother. All stress that is more than unneeded at this point. It seems there is little I can do anymore other than keep my own mental issues in check and just keep the waves calm as best as I can. It is just the nature of the mother child relationship. The child never really concerns themselves with the well being of the parent because they see it as the the parent's job to be concerned with the child's needs.
Now I find myself holding her hand at a pre-op visit to the hospital, just as she has held mine. The waiting room is no longer familiar. It is cold and stale. She has has gotten me through so much and I don't know if I can do the same. How did she do it? The scared, caring and comforting the scared?
I hope I can, but she deserves so much more.