Tragedy at the Doctor's

Officially, I am now matching my mother-in-law bag for bag in the chipits/ sugar competition.  Stress brings out the need for chocolate--although they are the small bags of chipits as opposed to the 4 kilo sizes of sugar the matriarch favours.

The Doctor's did not go well.  First off, the man had no sympathy; he checked my mother-in-law's eye, saw no infection and made an appointment for 6 months.  No idle chitchat, no compassion for an almost hundred year old woman, just checked the eye and sent her on her way.  And, my mother-in-law was lost in the process.  I don't know what she thought he would do but she was expecting something.  Another appointment is not enough for her.  The matriarch has been articulating the truth doctors can do nothing for her but she has only realized the truth as immediate fact.  She is 98.  They cannot take the eye out for fear of killing her; the pain can be managed with Advil; there is nothing else.  I don't know what she was expecting but it was obviously something.  My poor husband has tried to get to her to think about something else; usually, she can figure something out and return to her normal, selfishly kind self in a few days.  But it is very hard to watch her struggle with the realization that when the Doctors told her she would go blind, they meant it.  I know she doesn't like living in a grey shadowy kind of world; she will hate the almost black one.

Then to make matters worse, today, the matriarch had an accident and didn't realize it.  When I told her I needed to change the sheets, she wanted to know why.  The matriarch has always been responsible for her own laundry--deciding when to give it to me and when she wants it back;  call it her form of autonomy.  I didn't tell her my reasons for laundry but I think my request mortified her.  It mortified me and I have cleaned up after accidents before;  she always been aware of the event and blamed it on illness.  But to not know is not a place I think she wants to go...I think I should start one upping the matriarch on those chipits.