My family visits
My parents are on a long road trip visiting family. They just left my house after a three day visit. (Dad always pounded it into our heads that guests and fish smell after three days, so his visits are limited to three days.)
I arranged a play date for my mom. I called my Great Aunt Myrtle on the phone and asked if she wanted to come up for a visit. Myrtle, in turn, tracked down Becky (another great aunt of mine), her daughter Bea (my mom’s cousin), and Millie (another great aunt). Bea is probably less than 60 years old, and Millie is the oldest at 90. All of these ladies are in good health and have all their cognitive functions in tact. The visit was a hoot. Those four ol‘ gals are full of animated, funny stories. My dad spins a good yarn and he had a captive audience too. My three aunts, cousin, dad, and my two kids laughed and giggled, took pictures, and had fun. Everyone seemed to like our ferrets too. (It’s a good thing the sniffer works less well as you age, because no one complained about odor of weasel.)
Aunt Myrtle showed me a picture taken of my grandma (her sister) and her when Myrtle was about 16. My grandma sure was beautiful. The picture was tiny, about 1.5 inches square. I scanned it in at 9600 dpi and got a giant picture out of it. Myrtle specifically said “I’d like to see what this picture looks like bigger. You can do that, right Gwen?” I’m going to mail her an 8×10.
Everyone had fun, except my mom. This was a bummer because our relatives came to see her, and she was a no-fun lump of clay. She kept complaining about being cold and passed in and out of consciousness. Aunt Myrtle made an effort to pull mom into the world of the living for a while, and she did get a few sentences out of her. Mom fell asleep after each question and answer posed by Aunt Myrtle.
After nine blankets and a heater directed at her, Dad called my youngest sister, Sara. Sara’s a pharmacist and she seems to know things we don’t. Sara asked us right away, “What’s her temperature?” Dad and I felt like morons and decided a trip to ER would be a good thing when the thermometer bleeped 103F.
“Why would you go to ER for a fever?” you might be thinking. Well, my mom is a medical marvel. She’s had three strokes in the last two years, quite a few near misses, a boatload of surgeries, and several nasty infections. We had enough history with mom to think this wasn’t just a case of food poisoning.
My parents are used to hospitals and ERs in Los Angeles County. Those tend to be crowded and cater to an entirely different demographics than the hospital by my house. We went at midnight. There was no wait. Toward the end of the visit dad had to ask the nurse, “What about insurance information, the copay, and the like?” Everyone listened and helped.
My dad is an organized fellow, and he handed the triage nurse a list of surgeries and dates. He also handed them a list of all of mom’s medicines and dosing schedule. The doctor took the hint and didn’t just say “wait it out.” He ordered a chest X-ray, to rule out the possibility of pneumonia. He had a bunch of blood taken for various tests, and a urine sample.
Mom had a bladder infection that had spread into her kidneys. She’s one of those rare people that doesn’t feel it when she has a bladder infection. Mom was dosed with powerful drugs and hydrated with an IV. Dad and I were very happy that this was “just” a bladder infection.
The next day mom was warm, talkative, and in a good mood.
My parents just left. It was a good visit. My kids now refer to my dad as “the fun grandpa.”
Labels: animals, aunts, family, grandparents, hospital, illness
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