My mother-in-law has been in the hospital after having surgery to remove a growth from her stomach. She’s been recovering well, and is due to come home soon.
The thing is, once she’s home, she’s under doctors orders to not be alone at any time for an undetermined amount of time. She has both a son and daughter living with her, but they both work, and so, the only person left is me (I live in the same block of flats), from 7 am (when everyone goes to work) until 4pm (when they come home).
Of course, I care about my mother-in-law, and will do it, but… I’m feeling really shitty right now because I absolutely don’t want to do it. Never in my life have I had a nursing instinct; it’s always been something I’ve been unable to handle. Even with my kids, my ex-husband has always been the one who handled the sicknesses, cleaned up after the puking, etc. I can deal with small stuff - giving medicine, a stuffy kid, etc., but the big stuff that requires the kind of personality that can handle it… That’s just where I fall apart. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s just the way I am. I just have a mental block that keeps me from being able to nurture people through sickness. I get short tempered, irritable, impatient… Not the kind of person one wants around when they’re sick.
But I have no choice, and I’ll do it. and I’ll do my best to do it with a believable smile. I’m really mostly pissed at myself for feeling this way about it. I don’t have a job, but I do “work” - I work on my photography, write my columns for the show I’m blogging, have appointments to visit sets and do interviews, etc. But of course, I don’t make any money at it, so for me to give it up for a while shouldn’t be a sacrifice. But to me it is. The things that I do are important to me. But I can’t expect that anyone else take time off from their paying jobs to do this. it would be unreasonable, and completely selfish.
I don’t know. I’m rambling. I do know that after a week of having quit smoking, I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen completely off the wagon since finding out about this. I wish there were some way to describe how uncomfortable the whole idea makes me. My husband has suggested that we look into getting her a nurse, but I even feel shitty about that because I know my mother-in-law will take it as a sign that I don’t care enough about her and would rather have a complete stranger looking after her.
Anyway, just venting a little. I really just feel like a terrible person right now.