A grateful heart..

[Sotto]

Hi all, I'm struggling a little today and hoping someone may have some advice or wisdom to offer - nothing to do with marriages or MLC, but just a genuine struggle for me right now.

We've had a real rollercoaster time over the festive season with health challenges for my Mum who is very frail and has advanced dementia. This was compounded this week when Mum took a full body tumble during a care session with me and my Dad. She hit her head and we had to call an ambulance. Then we spent 10 hours with her in a busy emergency room where she was strapped to a trolley with a neck brace and not understanding what was happening. Luckily she just had a nasty flesh wound to her head and a CT scan ruled out anything worse. She came home that day, but not until the wee small hours.

Since this incident, which was of course traumatic, I'm struggling with mental replays of what happened and an awful feeling that we were meant to be caring for her and we caused her injury. We invest a lot of time and care into looking after Mum at home and we did make a mistake in the session which led her to fall and I'm struggling to get past that. I feel so distressed about it as she is so frail and vulnerable and unable to look after herself at all. I just can't quite seem to get past that, but maybe I'm just struggling because it happened so recently.

I just wondered if anyone had experienced anything similar, maybe with children or someone you care for and what helped you move past it. Logically I know that I do a huge amount to support my parents, but emotionally I'm struggling with what happened. I also feel some resentment towards my sister who doesn't really offer much in the way of practical support and just makes 'social calls' with my parents - not even showing up in times of great need - and of course not feeling any of this pain and trauma I feel - ugh...

Happy New Year to you all by the way xxxx