I’ll start this by saying I don’t want my Mum slated, I’m looking for advice on how to approach this situation without making it worse.
My Mum is a diabetic, she’s in her 50’s and was diagnosed when she was in her teens. She’s always been insulin dependant and has (most of the time) been poorly controlled.
Up until I was 10 it was my dad that was pretty much her main carer (apart from the odd time) but then they split up and the responsibility fell to myself and my younger brother.
Over the years she’s had some pretty horrific hypoglycaemic “episodes” and I’ve had enough.
From the age of 3 I’ve known how to call for an ambulance and recite all of hers/our details and how to bring her round from a hypo.
Some pretty major life events have been overshadowed by an “episode” as well.
In my opinion, she doesn’t do as she’s meant to so she can keep her sugars under control. The doctors think this too as at one point she was reported to the DVLA and lost her licence.
She is on an insulin pump now rather than injections which has improved it slightly but not to level I think it has the potential to.
I now don’t live at home, I’m 30mins away in the car and live with my husband yet I still feel a level of responsibility towards her.
The most recent one was over the weekend whereby my brother got home and found her in a really bad way. He did as he should and we always do, asked her to check her sugars, get her to eat/drink something sugary and when she didn’t respond he called for an ambulance. The ambulance was approximately 2 hours away (it angers me the state that the nhs is in but that’s another thread!) so in panic he called me. I instructed him on how to remove the insulin pump (she still hasn’t shown him how to do this despite him asking on several occasions) and I tried asking her to sort herself out over the phone to little avail.
The paramedics turned up, decided she was too aggressive (she gets like that, it’s infuriating) and carted her off in the back of the ambulance to her local hospital. Again my brother rang and asked should he follow and we both decided not to in the hope that the shock of waking up in hospital alone with no phone or money would prompt her to look after herself.
It hasn’t. She doesn’t see what she is doing wrong. She goes by the motto “I don’t want it to rule my life so I’m not checking my sugars X amount of times a day, I’ll do them when I want” but by doing this it DOES rule her life!!
I can’t seem to make her see sense.
My brother is off travelling in September and at some point (soon I think) will move out and get on with his own life.
We’re both terrified that this “disease” is going to kill her before she has to go.
How can I make her see sense that she really needs to start looking after herself?! I’m at my wits ends.