memoirs from a daughter of a drug addict - 2/1/09

for all those that don't know my past history, or shall i say the history of my mother...here's a quick update...i am 44 years old and i have been the youngest daughter of a prescription drug addict for the past 34+ years of my life...almost the only life i can remember! my mom has been in rehabs, AA, NA, etc. too many times to count and i'm not sure any of it has helped her or us. i am writing this today and posting writings about her, that i wrote to her during some horrible "episodes" because tomorrow is her birthday. about two years ago my sisters and i decided that she was going to rehab, like it or not. we were drawing the line in the sand and we would give her and my dad the choice of her going or they were forever on their own. forever is a long time. we were finally making the choice to stop our daughter's from having to be a part of these same memories. to make a long story short i drove to their house in granbury, knocked on the door, loaded her up (she took one small bag filled with no more than her necessities which included bags of M&M's for God's sake). we didn't let her change her clothes so she went in her t-shirt that had too many cigarette burns in it to count. (another side note...days before she had been smoking while using her oxygen and had fallen asleep and the flame burned down the oxygen cord catching her shirt, leg and the carpet on fire alarming my dad in time to stomp out the carpet prior to the oxygen container exploding) she had a nice size bandage on her leg covering another wound to her body and our hearts. when we arrived at rehab they made her strip naked while examing her body to identify bruises, wounds, etc. that she came in with to distinguish those from the ones she would leave rehab with. mother was in a pattern of sleeping most days, all day. she slept during very important events...eating, chewing (causing choking episodes), smoking. she even fell asleep at my house, while eating taylor's birthday cake. yes, her head just dropped right into the piece of cake on her plate in front of all of our friends. i might mention that this happened just shortly after she had placed half of a hot dog in her mouth and fell asleep while swallowing causing an enormous choking episode. this was indeed a birthday to remember for all the wrong reasons. i can't recall how long mother stayed in rehab that time (so many things you just pray get erased in your memories), weeks, a month or something. mother said all the right things, cried, apologized, all the things we had heard so many times before! when mother was released she was released to attend NA (narcotics anonymous) which she tried to attend one meeting in the past two years i can recall. she was truly "back in the saddle" in a matter of time which led to her next episode which we thought would indeed take her life. i had recently "called to divorce my mother" a few days before this event, finally i was done! my dad called, i answered and he said, "it's your mother, but will you please come for me". he was crying and i could tell he was scared to death. i got in the truck and drove to granbury arriving moments prior to them loading her into careflite to go to fort worth. when i arrived her temperature was 105, she had labored breathing, they had intebated her, they were doing a brain scan, her white count was over 19,000, her blood sugar was over 500, they put her on a ventilator and told us she was septic. my dad and i walked her to the helicopter and it was truly ironic her being lifted into the sky, the heavens...she was indeed in God's hands at this point. i drove my dad to fort worth not knowing what we would encounter once we arrived. my sister had just had my mother in fort worth that afternoon for a doctor's appointment and mother had seemed "fine" when my sister left her. when my dad arrived home my mother was having violent seizures and was barely breathing. she had bumps, bruises, blood, etc. where she had been slamming her body against everything that was close in sight. she had never had seizures before. mother would spend the next month pretty much on a wing and a prayer in the neuro-icu. my dad never left her side, he prayed and prayed and prayed. my sisters and i prayed as well, we just prayed differently than dadi. to me, this was almost the end, the last chapter so to speak. the saddest thing to me would be that as long as my mother was alive i always thought i could change her, there was still a chance...if she were gone i would never have that chance to have a normal relationship like other girls did with their mom. taylor would never have a grandmother. we had been on this roller coaster so many times, we were exhausted to say the least, mentally and physically and it was almost a welcomed relief to think the end was almost here. we stayed at the hospital for the entire month she did, meeting many, many families...seeing many, many lives lost. why would God take these innocent people, sometimes babies and leave my mother. i was so confused, no i still am confused. they decided to put mother in a phenabarbatol coma for several days, basically they shut her brain off and restarted her like we restart or reboot our computers. she came back to us, having to learn how to breath, eat, walk, remember, etc...and parts of her just went away. there are many things good and bad that mother just doesn't remember (some simple and some difficult). you could say "her elevator just doesn't go up to the top any longer". she is simple, so simple that it is like speaking to a small child, she thinks like a small child, acts like one, etc...it is sad, so sad, so sad. well, this all brings me back to tomorrow. having never thought that my mother would survive last march, i never thought she would make it to another birthday. well, considering she makes it through tonight, she will celebrate her birthday tomorrow. i have decided that she is 1. just one. she can start over. we will let the past be the past and look to the future. like i said before, i will be posting some writings that i wrote during the last two "episodes", "events", "chapters", etc...as i do with taylor's dyslexia, i will gladly share what i know, share what i have been through in hopes of helping someone else. drug dependency is a horrible thing that will definitely change your life and i will gladly do what i can to prevent another daughter from having to have these same memories...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER!! xoxoxo