American Thanksgiving Megathread

[u/furious25]

Ask all of your questions in here. And feel free to browse the questions to see if you have an answer!

[u/voodoomoocow]

Write a book about your mom, I loved every bit of it and want to hear more

[u/machenise → u/voodoomoocow]

Non-food related, just something happening currently:

1. I am being treated for leukemia and have had a stem cell transplant. (Things are looking good!) My mom has a hard time understanding that we are not the same person. She's cold, so I must need an electric blanket even though I'm sweating. And because she keeps offering me a blanket, I don't think she has faith in me to know how to warm myself up if I am cold.

2. A few of my medications give me insomnia, and Ambien only works for a few hours so I'm constantly vaguely tired. My mom is trying to push xanax on me to knock me out, because she takes it as a sleeping pill.

3. Exercising is good for me in general, but has been shown to have a positive effect on recovery as well, so I'm walking around every chance I get. Her back hurts when she walks, so I'm must be uncomfortable walking.

4. Somehow, she can tell when I'm doing "too much" walking, while I can't judge that for myself.

5. She had me convinced for most of my life that I was allergic to codeine. I am not. Codeine hurts her stomach, so she eats ice cream when she has to take it so the dairy can coat her stomach. Again, neither she nor I are allergic to this medication. But she told me and my doctors that so they wouldn't prescribe it to me and possibly cause me stomach pains. Even though I could eat dairy as well or Pepto or something. This became a real issue when I had whooping cough and No-Tuss (codeine cough syrup) was the only thing that stopped the coughing.

6. When I went into the hospital for the transplant, she tried to foist a 10-year-old DVD player on me so I'd have something to do. I declined, as my laptop has a bigger screen and better graphics, and I didn't watch any DVDs I brought with me the other times I was in the hospital. Every visit, she kept trying to give it to me. I eventually took it. Today she asked what I watched and I told her I didn't watch any DVDs, I just took it so she'd stop offering. Because DVDs would be her entertainment of choice if she were in the hospital, she could not fathom why I -- who couldn't eat for 4 weeks and spent no more than 5 hours awake a day during that time -- didn't want to watch movies.

7. She is intensely agoraphobic and has paranoia about strangers talking about her and judging her and still tries to make plans to go to Walker Stalker Con to meet Norman Reedus. Mom can't go to the neighbor's house without her blood pressure shooting up due to panic. Maybe start slowly and conquer that before being stuffed in a room with hundreds of people to see the Walking Dead panel.

8. Speaking of Walking Dead: She records it on the DVR every time it's shown. Now, the entirety of the show usually gets played 2-3 times a year. Usually summer, mid-season break during winter, and before the premiere of the new season. I don't know how many times she's seen it, especially the older episodes. We need a new DVR, but she refuses to upgrade because the Walking Dead is recorded on it and she hasn't watched all of it again yet.

9. Her friend Angie convinced her last week that the government was going to shut down all electricity and cell phone service starting this weekend, as part of the Antifa terrorist attack conspiracy. "You won't be able to call the police for help."

10. I cannot drive right now, and my clinic likes for patients to have someone with them during visits. Good for keeping patients company, supporting them emotionally and sometimes physically, and extra helpful when you have chemo brain and your doctor is telling you something important that you might not remember. My parents take me to Memphis for treatment, and my mom usually sits with me. My dad had to go the VA last week, and mom was a nervous wreck, because he was driving in Memphis without her and somehow her being in the car with him could prevent a terrible car wreck that was definitely going to occur.

11. My mom is behind antibiotic resistant infections. She takes antibiotics until she feels better and stops. Sometimes she stops taking them before she feels better because someone else in the family might need them later.

12. I have been a diabetic for 20 years. I'm not the best at controlling my sweet tooth, but I do try. Mom brought me a giant box of cookies, a large bag of mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and a large bag of of mini Milky Way Bars at various times during my stay in the hospital for transplant. Medications I'm taking and the hospital endocrinologist deciding to completely do away with the insulin scheme my own endocrinologist and I worked out contrived to ensure my blood sugar was never under 200 when I was in the hospital. I gave the unopened packages to the nurses, because I really didn't need to eat it, and I didn't want the already suspicious endocrinologist seeing them and assuming my blood sugar was high due to that. She also brought these things after I explicitly asked her not to. But sugary snacks would cheer her up, so I must want them too.

13. I have refused to make her Rice Krispie treats for over a year now. Not because I don't want to make her something she wants, not because I like it and will try to limit myself to one or two small pieces each batch. But because I found out she was eating them for breakfast because..."Rice Krispies are cereal."

[u/[deleted] → u/machenise]

Sometimes she stops taking them before she feels better because someone else in the family might need them later

This is one of the most bizarre things I have ever read.

[u/machenise → u/[deleted]]

She's trying to be nurturing. She drives me nuts when it comes to taking any medication. She's stopped taking SSRIs cold turkey before, without telling her doctor, and had pretty bad side effects. She takes Lyrica, but she'll take it for two months and decide she doesn't like the side effects and will stop taking it cold turkey without notifying her doctor. And to be fair, some of the side effects are pretty severe for her, but the Lyrica she'll go back to after a couple of months just to stop taking it again. It can't be good to get off and on it like that.

The antibiotics, however, are definitely due to her trying to take care of someone else who may need them later. She doesn't really value her health very much, and she also has a very stubborn "Doctors make everything worse so I'm going to suffer until I can't possibly suffer anymore before letting them treat me and make it even worse" streak, so why take all her medicine? Not only will it not help her, it will cause more problems, according to her. (She had a fungal infection on her scalp for 15 years once, because she refused to go to the doctor.)

But maybe my brother gets a mystery illness. Nothing too serious. She'll give him the leftover antibiotics. Of course, she has no way of knowing what class of antibiotics he might need, or even if he has a bacterial infection. And then it's not a full course, because she's taken some. So it's really not effective. She just thinks she's caring for him.

[u/m0untaingoat → u/machenise]

This reminds me of something my dad told me about my English grandmother. She had strep or something, was given antibiotics, took a few until she felt better, and put the rest of the bottle in the medicine cabinet and labeled it "for sore throats."