May 6, 2004
Dear Everyone:
So what happened to last week’s Letter? Lots.
A few weeks ago, “Jeannie” and I decided that it was time for us to visit Mother. We have a loose plan for a family member to visit about every 6 weeks or so. “Jeannie”, with “Alice” and her girls, had visited back in February. “Richard” had spent a few days with Mother in April. We decided that it was our turn.
And we thought, let’s go up for Mother’s Day! We thought we could fly up on Friday, spend the weekend taking Mother to various places, then fly back on Monday. I had even mapped the dates out on my calendar. We called and let Mother know that we were planning on a visit.
That’s when she let us know that she was not
planning on being around that weekend.
She was planning on going to
Also, as the family Point of Contact (aka Minister of Information) with Mother’s doctor, “Jeannie” had received various phone calls when Mother missed her last two appointments. If Mother didn’t make her appointment last Thursday, the doctor was threatening to drop her as a patient.
So “Jeannie” and I dropped what we were doing and flew up after work on Wednesday. We took Mother to the doctor’s office, armed with directions from multiple Internet map services. The first missed appointment happened when Mother tried to drive herself, couldn’t find the place and gave up after a couple of hours. The second one happened when a friend was driving and they still couldn’t find the right place.
So we left lots of extra time and a good thing, too. Finding the correct street was only marginally difficult. (Remember, the whole family is geographically challenged.) But it was one of those medical complexes with names (“The Healing Place”) instead of street numbers. After wandering around, looking at signs that never gave addresses, we finally parked and asked. “Oh, it’s that first building right as you come in.”
And when you are standing directly in front of the door, you actually can see the numbers stamped on the wall above the door. But you can’t see them from the street. Hence, Mother and her friend are exonerated.
The appointment was a follow-up and evaluation. I am pleased to announce that Mother is, in fact, doing extremely well. Her back pain is clearly much less than when I last saw her in December. And she is moving around much more easily than when “Jeannie” saw her in February. She scoots that walker around quite quickly and doesn’t have to stop to catch her breath like before.
“Jeannie” and I agreed that Mother was actually in
pretty good shape. And that
she could make a trip to
With “Amy”, and a “retired nun” to be named at a
later date, along to help, we weren’t too worried about the
Our major concern was if something went wrong. If a connection gets missed, someone has to be there to handle the problem. Someone has to make sure that all the daily medications are clearly labeled, with original prescriptions on hand, and that they don’t get left behind in the overhead bin somewhere along the way.
So “Jeannie” and I have been merrily jumping
through hoops to set up airline tickets and getting the doctor’s office
to send the prescriptions overnight to “Jeannie’s” office and so on and
so forth. We’re driving up
to
Once in
When Mother returns on the 27th, “Alice”
will meet her in
As for the cost, we’ll work out an arrangement to
spread that around to various additional siblings.
After all, that’s what families do.
And we even have a Mother’s Day gift to take up to
“Jeannie” bought Mother a shiny, new walker, complete with a fold-down seat, for the Italian trip.
Love, as always,
Pete
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