Okay first things first. Before I put it off again I want to make it official that and I are once again mates. It's pretty much silly to even pretend otherwise since she's freaking living with me and that pushes it well past the threshold of mate status as I understand it. Anyway I'll update my profile to reflect that soon enough.

Now the reason why my joy at the announcement of the first paragraph is subdued. The situation with my mother remains a total roller coaster. When I arrived home late Thursday afternoon half-panicked and only imagining what i might find, I arrived to my mother calmly making supper. Almost entirely back to 100% physically, which is pretty remarkable given that she'd been released from the hospital hours earlier. I have to confess to mixed emotions, part relief that mom seemed okay, but partly steamed that I'd been driven into a panic over seemingly nothing.

The next day (Friday) was very busy as we had hastily arranged some meetings with lawyers that established me as trustee of mom's estate, among other things. It's more of that icky responsibility stuff but no one else is going to do it if I don't. So here I am. Also we went to the doctor and she increased the dosage of one medicine mom was taking and introduced another... (ominous tones)...

Time passed quietly Saturday, but around midnight Sunday was when the trouble began. The neighbor's house was having some sort of bachelorette party and mom was kept up by it. Then she started getting paranoid for her safety and losing her sense of time of day, starting to demand that my sister get up and get dressed.

My sister reacted, well, let's just say poorly to this, and the two of them went into a feedback loop of panic and upset that even kept me up downstairs for a while.

Come Sunday morning, and mom's mostly forgotten about it all, but sister has not, and she refuses to let the subject go for even a minute. It's still more or less going on even as they drive me to the airport and I get away with what's left of my own sanity.

I call back when I get home and things seem to have finally calmed down, and I even feel optimistic that my mother's awareness seems to be heightened and she might be on her way to consistent mental health as well.

Then just as I'm settling in to report the good news to everyone, a neighbor and friend of mom's calls me. Apparently in the wee hours of this morning mom showed up at said neighbor's house, freaked out that sister was trying to sabotage her efforts to get into a good retirement community, refusing to go back home, and eventually neighbor calls the police to defuse the situation.

I call back home for their side of the story. Sister knows about the walk and the police but nothing of what happened at the neighbor's. Mom remembers the walk but not much else. To me, on the phone, they're both representing that nothing's wrong. Yet I'm pretty sure I know better.

I'm fairly certain the new medication is at fault here but now I seem to be right back to worrying about mom again. They're still working towards getting mom the help she needs on a permanent basis but the process seems agonizingly slow. I guess the consolation is that I've done all anyone could ask of me under the circumstances.

Oh, and meanwhile, I'm on overnight on-call duty at work. Phone call at 1 am is all but certain. I hate to use the "FML" button but right now there are certain aspects of my life that really do suck.

Sigh ... at least I'm not facing this alone.