Not okay right now

 I’m so effing scared right now. I just talked to my mom. She admitted to me that she has been having some leg swelling from the knee to the ankle that started “a while ago” and she didn’t think anything of it. It started with one leg and then the other leg caught up.

Tonight when I called her she admitted that to me and then told me that her upper legs were now completely swollen too and she didn’t know what to do.

She lives in an assisted living facility that is on lockdown. If she goes to the hospital, she may not be allowed back into the facility that has been her home for the last ten years and she might have to go to a nursing home. Most of the nursing homes where she lives have been infected by COVID19.

She is very scared to tell them, but she is also worried enough to tell me and my brother who she called earlier tonight. If she’s worried enough to tell us, she is really scared.

She said my brother told her to go to the hospital. Don’t even get me started on my brother right now. I don’t disagree that she should go to the hospital but I totally get her fear that she might not be allowed back into her own home and that she will start a downward spiral because of the virus. She has a lung disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease….ALL the risk factors for this stupid thing.
She said that the staff was giving her some tough love and making her go downstairs tonight to go help gather the fan that I sent her after she told me hers had broken. They are doing this because she never leaves her apartment. Like at all, before the virus, but now especially. I think that might be part of her leg swelling, but I don’t know. They said they were going to have her accompany them down to get the box and then back upstairs and she could take as many breaks as she wanted to along the way.

She is hoping that the activity will help her with the leg swelling. From what I read it is true that the inactivity she has been going through can cause the swelling…

I just don’t know what to do or think….I can’t. I literally cannot. We were supposed to go see her next month but had to cancel our trip. She lives 3000 miles away and there is NOTHING I CAN DO RIGHT NOW and it is freaking me out so bad.

She was thinking of telling the caregiver on call tonight that was going to walk her down about her legs because she trusts her but she didn’t know. She is afraid that the person might have to report it because of her job.

At the end of the call I told her to please have someone call me if she ended up going to the hospital tonight and that if not I would call her tomorrow for an update.

I’m so fucking scared right now.

My mother is kind of my everything and there is nothing I can do about this….it’s too much.