3:59

because I wish she would

4:02

just, just stop and be

4:04

better. I hate seeing

4:06

my mother suffer. I wish I

4:08

could take her pain and I could feel it

4:10

instead. I would do anything

4:13

in the world for me to just

4:16

take her pain as my own. I'm

4:19

so angry because I'm scared

4:22

of losing her. My mother has

4:24

the kind of soul. She's so

4:27

pure and she's filled with so much

4:29

love. she is the strongest

4:31

person I know. I don't know anyone

4:33

else like her. There are very

4:35

few people in this world that I love, like true,

4:38

unconditional love, and she is

4:40

one of them. She has my heart and

4:43

she is my whole world and I don't know what I would

4:45

do without her. I would be so lost.

4:48

I would feel like I have no purpose because she's

4:50

the reason I've stayed away from making

4:53

too many bad decisions.

4:55

She's the reason I work hard.

4:57

She's the reason I take good care of myself and my

5:00

mental health so I wouldn't worry her. She's

5:03

always on my mind when I'm making

5:05

decisions to make sure that I can make her proud.

5:08

If I could describe my parents with just

5:11

one word, it would be that my dad

5:13

is darkness and my mom is light.

5:15

They balance each other out, but most

5:17

of all, my mother is the glue to our family.

5:20

She's the mediator, the

5:22

voice of reason. She's the reason

5:24

my dad has calmed down so much

5:27

over the years. She's basically

5:29

if a

5:30

hundred puppies were a person, or

5:33

if a hug was a person. That's

5:35

my mother. Not to mention, she's

5:38

the wisest woman I've ever known.

5:41

I've always been so envious of people

5:43

with large families. That is

5:45

one of the main reasons

5:47

what I loved about all three of my exes,

5:50

because they all had huge

5:52

families and I love that.

5:54

I don't really have much family because

5:57

of the Holocaust and then communism

5:59

in Russia. has really just separated so

6:02

many of us. So all I have

6:04

in this world, all I have left

6:06

is my mom, my dad, and my sister.

6:09

And since we've also lived in three different countries,

6:12

and I'm sure many immigrants currently

6:15

listening or anyone who has moved a lot

6:17

to relate to this is that

6:19

when you keep moving so much, eventually you never

6:21

quite feel like

6:23

you belong or that

6:25

you can really call any place your

6:27

home,

6:28

which is why for me, my family,

6:31

those three have always been my home.

6:35

Currently we are

6:37

just waiting for test results. For

6:39

my mom, we think

6:42

she has kidney infection or

6:46

something worse.

6:47

But my mother has been sick, like I said, my whole

6:49

life. One of the things, one of the many things she

6:52

has is that she has chronic

6:54

migraines. And I'm not talking about

6:56

the simple migraines you have a headache and you think it's

6:58

a migraine. I'm talking about chronic migraines

7:00

that can last up to two weeks

7:04

where you need to be rushed to the emergency room because

7:06

it can mess up with something in your brain

7:08

up to the point that you need steroids and injections

7:11

for them. But aside from that she also has

7:13

ulcerative colitis. I'm not

7:16

sure if I'm pronouncing that word properly,

7:19

but it's basically something that's very similar

7:21

to Crohn's disease but much

7:23

worse than it is. It's worse

7:25

than Crohn's disease, but it's in the

7:27

same kind of family of diseases.

7:30

So normally, I call it Crohn's disease

7:33

since it's just more of the familiar disease.

7:35

She was diagnosed with, quote-unquote,

7:38

Crohn's disease around when I was 20.

7:41

I remember this because on my 20th

7:44

birthday,

7:45

she was rushed to the hospital

7:47

and they placed her in the cancer

7:49

department

7:51

because they thought she had colon cancer. cancer.

7:54

She ended up staying in

7:56

the hospital for around two weeks and I remember

7:59

I went to see her at the hospital and

8:01

it

8:02

was very hard because I also

8:05

didn't understand what was going on.

8:06

My mom insisted that I

8:08

go to my birthday dinner after seeing her,

8:12

which was a joke because I

8:14

was just sitting at that table doing my best not

8:16

to cry pretending that I was okay because at that

8:18

point I was still too afraid to ever express

8:21

my emotions with anyone including my boyfriend or

8:23

my friends. So no one around me had

8:25

an idea of how

8:27

terrible my day and my night was. And

8:30

then I would just go home and cry myself to sleep

8:32

for those two weeks when

8:34

I kept it to myself. I also thought

8:36

I was being strong when I didn't express

8:40

any emotion to my mother. I thought the

8:42

last thing she needs for me

8:44

is to show that

8:45

I'm crying or that I'm worried. She

8:47

needs me to be strong. So I was just ice cold.

8:50

And then when I couldn't be strong, I just stopped showing

8:53

up to the hospital to visit her.

8:55

Which to this day, I've

8:56

always felt so much shame for

8:58

doing that by 20.

9:00

Based on how I was raised in such a cold

9:03

family, I didn't know any better. Of

9:05

course, my mom was forgiving me a million times.

9:07

She never even held it against me because she is just

9:09

an angel who can do no wrong. By

9:12

anyone out there who's listening, I will

9:15

say learn from my lesson

9:17

when I was 20.

9:18

Don't hold back from sharing

9:20

with your friends when you're struggling because

9:23

no one can help you unless you

9:25

tell them what you're going through.

9:27

No one can be there for you and you can't

9:29

hold it against other people if they don't know what's going

9:31

on if you don't tell them. And also,

9:33

if someone you love is going through something, be

9:36

there for them.

9:37

Show them that you care.

9:39

They'd much rather see you cry or

9:41

have a little breakdown

9:43

than not see you at all or

9:46

not hear from you or to just look at

9:48

your cold ice face. No

9:50

one wants that. And then

9:53

a couple of years ago

9:55

was really bad as well

9:57

throughout the years when she's been through emergency

10:00

on 2018, a month before my birthday. Yeah,

10:06

I don't know why it's always so close to my birthday. Maybe I'm

10:08

bad luck. Maybe two weeks, two weeks, a

10:10

month before my birthday. She

10:12

was rushed to the hospital because this time,

10:15

her Crohn's disease and

10:17

her migraine condition collided.

10:21

And something happened where her blood

10:23

levels dropped because she was losing a lot of blood

10:25

since that's part of the Crohn's disease. The

10:27

blood was leaving her veins

10:30

and getting into her urine.

10:32

And then with the immune system

10:34

being so low,

10:36

during her sleep, something

10:38

tapped in her brain because she was also

10:41

having a migraine during that sleep.

10:44

And she woke up with

10:46

memory loss.

10:47

And the memory loss

10:49

was short-term memory loss that was happening every 90

10:52

seconds.

10:54

So that day was very hard, especially

10:57

for my father who is obsessed with

10:59

my mother and that is his life

11:01

partner. And if my mother was ever gone, my

11:04

biggest worry is that my dad would not survive.

11:06

Forget even me or my sister, my dad

11:09

would die from a broken heart.

11:11

And that is a real thing to die from

11:13

and that would happen to my dad.

11:16

Because he cannot live without her. That is

11:18

his best friend, his only friend. My dad hates everyone

11:20

except my mother. Well, I guess except me

11:23

and my sister as well, but he has no friends

11:25

except my mother. In 2018,

11:28

when my mother was rushed to the hospital and

11:30

of course, as usual, my dad didn't want to tell me

11:33

because my parents love to shield me from everything,

11:35

which is so silly at this point. But my sister

11:37

called me and told me and I went to the hospital and

11:39

it was

11:40

so heartbreaking to see my mother and

11:43

to watch her forget

11:44

what was happening every 90 seconds. So

11:48

every 90 seconds, my mother, when she was

11:50

laying on the

11:52

bed in the hospital, she

11:55

would just keep repeating the same words

11:57

over and over again.

11:58

Where am I? Oh! What

12:00

are you doing? What time is it? And

12:03

then a few other questions and I kid you not.

12:06

Then it's like blank. Then I'll be like, mom, eat

12:08

the apple or something like that. She starts eating the apple.

12:10

Then suddenly you see her stop

12:12

and she starts to blink around. And then again,

12:14

where am I?

12:16

Oh, what are you doing here? What time is it?

12:18

Oh, and then again, and I every 90

12:22

fucking seconds. So

12:25

of course, first we were all

12:27

doing our best not to cry. I thought I was going

12:29

to cry, put on my sunglasses because, you know,

12:31

Russians. But then when

12:34

I finally got over it and

12:36

I tried, I did my best to be strong.

12:38

I realized that I had to really take

12:41

over the situation.

12:43

Pets aren't just like family.

12:45

They are family, especially if you're lonely

12:47

like me and your

12:50

animal becomes your life. As you know, I'm

12:52

obsessed with my cat pancakes, so she

12:54

is my baby, my everything.

12:57

She's my world. So when you need to find

12:59

a sitter for your little fur baby,

13:02

you have to go to care.com slash pets.

13:05

I am so obsessed with pancakes that when

13:07

she's just existing, blinking,

13:09

breathing, sleeping, I don't care. I got to

13:11

take a hundred pictures of her and her cute

13:14

little butthole.

13:15

It's so easy and fast to find a local

13:17

experience and background check pet caregiver,

13:19

and it's more affordable than you think. From

13:22

dog walkers to cat sitters to pet

13:24

sitting or boarding. you have plenty of

13:26

options to choose from and they are long or

13:28

short-term care options of care. And rest

13:30

assured, all pet caregivers who you can

13:32

interact with are required to do a complete

13:35

background check. So just go to care.com

13:37

slash pets and search for candidates, view

13:40

profiles, route reviews and ratings, see

13:42

availability plus more. You

13:44

can even post a job for a pet

13:46

caregiver to apply to. So you

13:49

can even find other kinds of care like childcare,

13:51

housekeepers, caregivers for seniors and so

13:53

much more. so much more. Find the care

13:56

for all the people and animals that you

13:58

love. So go to care.

17:59

all the papers to release her in

18:02

order for her to be home because basically

18:04

recurone disease or the type of disease I'm

18:06

talking about you cannot eat many

18:10

many many foods

18:12

and because you cannot eat many of those foods

18:14

a lot of the time you will starve

18:16

if those locations don't have the foods

18:18

that you you're able to eat and the hospital

18:21

didn't have the foods that my mom is able

18:23

to eat and

18:24

and she then cannot take any of her

18:26

medication without food.

18:28

So my mom,

18:30

the hospital was in a way kind of starving my mother while

18:32

needing her to take medication that would then

18:35

make her very sick.

18:36

And I knew her

18:39

starving was going to make

18:41

her memory and all the situation even worse, which

18:44

is why I had to remove her from the hospital. We

18:46

went home and I made the right call because on the

18:49

way home and at home, and at home, she was, her

18:51

memory was slowly going back to normal. And

18:53

that's when we found out also what happened

18:55

to her, which was this weird thing that happens

18:58

for women with severe migraines over

19:00

the age of 45. It's, I

19:03

forgot the name of it, but it's literally something

19:05

that can happen in your sleep that

19:08

just switches in your brain chemistry and

19:10

causes you to lose your memory for

19:13

that day or a couple of days. It has

19:15

happened one or two times since

19:18

to my knowledge, because as usual, my parents don't

19:20

actually tell me when things happen, which

19:23

is why I'm always on edge

19:26

all the time

19:27

because I never know if there's something going on with

19:29

them, but it's never was as

19:31

bad as that. So anyway, now today,

19:34

my

19:35

mom's blood levels and all of that stuff

19:37

have been

19:39

as low as they've been

19:41

in 2018 and

19:44

she suddenly couldn't

19:47

eat and

19:51

she was suddenly anemic with

19:53

the blood results and then when

19:55

we redid her blood results that

19:57

same day, it just kept dropping and dropping.

19:59

and

20:01

she has a kidney infection

20:04

but it's coming from another

20:06

reasoning and again

20:08

when I'm sharing this information it is not

20:10

for you to make a medical

20:13

assumption whether

20:14

you're a doctor or not

20:16

and to DM me with whatever disease you

20:18

think she has. I'm sharing this as

20:21

your friend And just for you

20:24

to know that we

20:26

all have bad days and to know

20:28

that today's one of

20:31

my bad days. And I'm sharing it

20:33

with you so you don't feel alone if

20:36

you're going through some type of struggle,

20:38

whether it's a friend or

20:40

a family member

20:41

going through something and you have no

20:43

idea how to deal with your grief or

20:46

your care because it is very difficult

20:48

to know how much should you reach out to

20:50

someone.

20:51

How much should you show that

20:54

you're upset?

20:56

You know, because grief and fear, they're

20:58

two very interesting things. Fear can

21:01

be so dangerous. Fear is a dangerous,

21:03

dangerous thing. Because

21:06

once you let fear in, it can grow

21:08

inside of you and

21:09

it spreads like a disease in

21:12

your body and takes over your mind. Fear

21:15

makes things seem so much worse than

21:17

they really are. It consumes

21:19

you.

21:19

same way anger does, only rage

21:22

fuels you

21:23

while fear keeps you stuck."

21:26

There is this quote by Quarry

21:28

Ten Boom that goes, "'Worry

21:30

does not empty tomorrow of

21:32

its sorrow.

21:33

It empties today of its strength.'"

21:36

And I think today I'm all out of strength.

21:39

And it's so true because today I lived

21:42

in fear of the what if of the unknown

21:44

because in reality I don't have the test

21:46

results and I won't know until the end of the week or what's

21:49

going on with my mother. And all I've done instead

21:51

was stress out my parents, cry to

21:53

my sister.

21:55

And that is the

21:57

hardest truth that you have to realize.

22:00

that your pain

22:02

of being upset for your loved

22:04

one

22:05

isn't about you. And my sister, her

22:08

and I had a conversation today and she really

22:10

put me in my place because I was just a

22:13

wreck.

22:14

And normally I stay very strong with these

22:16

things, you know, I keep it to myself, but today

22:18

it was this one moment of

22:20

actual realization that

22:23

maybe this time everything isn't going to be okay.

22:26

And then the more I cried about it, the more I thought, oh

22:29

wow, if I'm crying, maybe it's a sign. The

22:32

things really are bad.

22:34

And

22:35

my sister said, listen, you

22:38

are making things so much worse. Stop

22:40

crying.

22:42

It is not about you. And it is not

22:44

about me. The person that's suffering the most right

22:46

now, it's our mother.

22:48

And you need to be there for her.

22:49

And the second person that's suffering the most right now

22:52

is our father, who would be so helpless

22:54

without her.

22:55

So the best thing you can do is remain

22:58

calm and let them do what they need

23:00

to do because I wanted to

23:02

help my mother by paying

23:05

for doctors and doing all that because

23:07

for me, honestly, there's no

23:09

point in my opinion to

23:10

make any money if

23:12

it's not to spend on your family.

23:14

If I'm able to afford something where I can take care of my

23:16

family, that is my purpose. That's

23:18

what I want to do.

23:20

What's the point for me to be able to finally

23:22

make a good living if it's not to

23:25

take my mom to the best doctor out

23:27

there or to pay for medication my mother is not able

23:29

to afford. And what

23:31

I thought I was helping my sister said, you're treating

23:34

mom and dad like they're children and like they're incompetent

23:36

and you need to stop.

23:38

And I agree. And I think again, that is the

23:40

hardest thing that some things we do when we're grieving

23:43

people who are not dead yet.

23:45

We accidentally make it up ourselves.

23:48

Because

23:48

I realized I was trying to

23:50

get down to the answers.

23:52

I was trying to keep checking in because

23:55

it was going to make me feel better. To

23:57

know that everything's okay, or was

23:59

going to make me

23:59

feel better if I just had an answer because

24:02

then at least I would know what's going on.

24:04

But it's not about me.

24:07

It's about my mother. If I'm going

24:09

crazy, imagine how my mom's feeling,

24:12

from feeling terrible in her own body to

24:14

not wanting to upset her children or

24:17

her husband.

24:19

So this is that point of realization

24:21

that I have to put my grief

24:24

and my sadness and my fear

24:26

aside

24:27

and understand it's about my mother and be

24:29

there for her and

24:31

my father if they

24:33

need a shoulder to lean on,

24:35

if they need me to listen,

24:37

if they need a hug and so on but

24:40

I cannot make this about me.

24:43

Again, I don't have

24:46

anything wise to say right now or anything smart.

24:50

I guess it's a really scary moment, you know, when we're

24:53

younger that one day the

24:55

day is going to come when we learn that our parents

24:57

are not superheroes, that they're not invincible,

24:59

that they're not going to be around forever, that

25:02

they're aging, and that eventually

25:04

we may

25:05

have to become their parents one

25:07

way or another. I don't know if I'm

25:09

the only one out there, but does anyone else

25:11

fear

25:12

that one day they

25:14

may not be around? I don't know. It

25:17

reminds me of this

25:20

podcast I listened into a long time ago. And

25:23

I think I mentioned on this podcast as well, where

25:25

this man was interviewing this other very intelligent

25:27

guy. And he basically

25:31

said something that really struck a chord

25:33

with me. He

25:34

basically said he asked the guy, how

25:37

often do you see your parents? And he

25:40

said, let's say your dad. So how often

25:42

do you see your dad? And the man responded

25:44

and said, once a year. And the

25:46

guy goes, Okay, how old is your father? And he

25:48

said 70. He said, Okay. So,

25:51

your father is 70 and you see him once a

25:53

year. So what if I told you that

25:56

your father could be gone by the time he's 80?

25:59

So that means

25:59

if you calculate

26:02

it that you actually have only 10 more

26:04

times to see your father. Wouldn't

26:08

that change your meetings?

26:11

Wouldn't that change how you felt every

26:13

time you got to see your dad? Because you

26:16

realize, okay, that's 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then

26:18

one last time before

26:29

he's gone. When

26:30

you put things like that into perspective, I think

26:32

that really changes everything.

26:35

You don't realize that you don't have forever with people.

26:38

You don't realize that everyone in your

26:40

life that you've met,

26:41

you have a last time with them. And

26:44

you never know when that last time is going

26:46

to be.

26:47

So when you put things in perspective like

26:49

that, that for that man, if

26:51

he only sees his father once a year,

26:53

and if his father, let's say we pass

26:55

way at 80 that he only asks 10 more times

26:57

to see him. I think that changes

26:59

how you feel every time you see them. I

27:02

think you take it more seriously to make an effort

27:04

to see the people that you love.

27:06

Because you never know when it's going to be the last day.

27:09

For anyone that's listening out there,

27:11

please hug and kiss your

27:13

parents or the people that you love.

27:16

Extra good tonight for me.

27:18

Go text and call the

27:20

people that you love so they know that you love them.

27:23

Don't wait until tomorrow

27:25

And thank you so much for listening

27:27

to me vent today. I really needed this.

27:29

I

27:30

hope you have a beautiful

27:32

day and

27:34

I will do my best to keep you guys

27:36

posted on what's going on. But

27:40

if I don't

27:41

understand that it is just how

27:44

I deal with things and

27:46

sometimes I can't talk about things until I'm

27:49

ready to talk about them. Aside

27:51

from that, I hope you have a beautiful day

27:53

and if you're not subscribed

27:56

already to my podcast, please do so. Almost

27:58

adulting and If

28:00

you wanted to leave me a 5 star review for

28:03

any of the other episodes that you've

28:05

enjoyed listening to, please do so as well

28:07

as a review really does help my podcast

28:10

tremendously. And again, thank

28:12

you so much for listening and thank you

28:14

for being a part of my life. I hope you'll

28:17

be around forever. I love you. Bye!