caught with pants down...

ok, here's the latest from the "my mother is driving me crazy" files:

she calls me yesterday to tell me she was driving to her physical therapy appointment when she had a sudden, uncontrollable need to pee. she pulls over on the side of the highway, gets out and by this time is already peeing but goes around to the passenger side of the car and gets her pants down to finish the job. now i should mention here that my mother is 70 and has rhematoid arthritis, a bad back, and a bundle of other ailments besides the obvious incontinence issue.

well, once she's done, she can't for the life of her get back up again. her knees keep buckling under. the more she tries, the weaker she gets. then a truck pulls over and a man comes to help her up. he's having a struggle trying to get her up (not sure why, it's not like my mom is very heavy or anything...). meanwhile, she's trying to get her pants pulled up. finally they make it to the back seat on the passenger's side and the people in the truck are hollering "help is on the way!" the man asks, what were you doing down there? so my mom tells me, i wasn't going to say, well i just thought i'd sit around with my butt hanging out... so she says, i had to pee. next thing she knows, a fire truck shows up followed shortly by the police. a fireman takes her blood pressure and it was sky high. and he asks, what were you doing out here? and she says, i had to pee! and then she hears the cop ask the fireman, what was she doing out here? and the fireman says, she had to pee. the way word gets around, probably half of jackson, mississippi, knows my mother was peeing on the side of the road...

so she says, i don't know why this happened, i took my detrol this morning. and i say, maybe you need to increase your dosage. how many are you taking a day? she says, well, i take one whenever i'm going somewhere. i say, WHAT? they're not like aspirin. you can't just take them when you need them. you have to take them EVERY DAY. she says, well, they cost sixty dollars a month. i said, yeah, so. you have sixty dollars. but if you want to save sixty dollars, you can keep peeing in the street. well, i take them three or four days a week, she says. you have to take them EVERY DAY, i say. there's no point in taking them if you're not going to take them correctly. are you listening to me? i say. i hear you, she says. yes, but are you paying attention? i heard you, she says.

she heard me. and she has no intention of doing what i say. it drives me nuts because i know she will call again with another incontinence episode. and we'll have the same conversation over again. i don't know how to stop.

i guess i'm like a man in that i always want to solve her problems for her. maybe i need to distance myself and just give her sympathy when she calls. I mean, she's 70 years old. she's made it this far without my solving her problems. i guess she can manage well enough on her own.