Chantix Turned Mother into Momzilla

August 20th, 2010. By janem

I don’t know what’s worse: second-hand cigarette smoke or second-hand Chantix. After 62 years of smoking, my 78-year-old mother decided it was time to quit so she asked her doctor to prescribe Chantix. She drove me crazy.

Fortunately for me, my mum lives a few thousand miles away. My crummy sister Jill, who warned me about our mother’s sudden change in temperament, is not so lucky—she lives a stone’s throw away. I say crummy because it was Jill who suggested that mum visit me for two weeks, just after Mum finished taking two month’s worth of Chantix. Crummy because she warned me about Mum’s anger issues just a day before mum arrived. If I’d known our mother had turned into Momzilla, I would never have let her get on the plane to visit me. (Good thing she wasn’t Steven Slater’s passenger—his hissy fit would have likely resulted in fisticuffs!)

Mum arrived August 6^th and by nightfall I was drinking heavily. The first thing she commented on was my appearance. “Your hair is too dark; when you get older you should go lighter,” she advised. “You’d look better as a blonde.” I guess she doesn’t know any stupid blonde jokes. “You’ve got quite the pot,” was her next remark, and she wasn’t referring to anything in my kitchen.

“I’m thinking about making a new will and leaving everything to your brother because he doesn’t have much, what do you think?” she asked/said. I suggested that might not bode well for the rest of us (I have three sisters) and would likely cause a rift in the family. “Well that’s what I’ve decided.” Why bother asking me?

She’s a bit hard of hearing so the TV was blasting at full volume and always tuned into programs I hate: afternoon soaps, reality shows. I started drinking in the daytime. Cabin fever set in just a few days after her arrival so we went on a road trip. Big mistake. My mother doesn’t drive but she sure knows how to instruct.

And she argued with everything I said, right up until it was time to leave. “I have to be at the airport two hours before my plane takes off,” she insisted. “OK Mum, but it’s a domestic flight so you just have to be there an hour beforehand,” I replied. “No, it’s two hours.” As I was hauling her 200 lb suitcase down the stairs, she said “I don’t have to be there until 60 minutes beforehand.”  I should have told her she had to be there a day beforehand.

And the glass was always half-empty. “There probably isn’t any parking” or “There likely won’t be any seats left” when I suggested we see a movie. “I bet they [the airline] make me pay extra for all this added weight” because I gave her a book for my sister—the crummy one.

Of course I love my mum. Even my friends love her and say she is the sweetest lady. But that was pre-Chantix. I just hope she gets this drug out of her system and back to normal before someone loses their patience. Before she turns her family and friends into raving alcoholics. Of course she is blissfully unaware that she has become Momzilla.

Mum, if you are reading this, it’s for your own good. I have to go now and pour myself a gin and tonic.

This was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.