You’re not an idiot.
The thing about life is that none of us get out alive.
We each deal with that harsh fact in our own way.
My mother hated doctors or anything to do with medicine.
She lived exactly six days after her diagnosis, which was
exactly the way she would have wanted it. No time wasted
sitting and worrying.
Your mother sounds just like my mother. She always said she would rather have a baby than go to the dentist...and she meant it.
I was born in '47, the baby of the family. My mother never went to the doctor in all the time I was growing up. It wasn't until she started feeling really bad, in the mid-60's, was found to be anaemic, and ended up in the hospital. At first they thought it was all in her head, but then they diagnosed her with Lupus. The disease had basically just been identified, and she didn't experience many of the symptoms. They put her on steroids to build her up, and she did quite well for many years, until May of 1990, when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She passed that August. I was tested for Lupus, but didn't have enough symptoms to be diagnosed with it. I do have what they call undifferentiated connective tissue disorder that I take an anti-inflammatory for. My oldest son has RA, for which he takes Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) twice a day, plus an injection of Humira once a week.