The Road to Wellville

Well, I am home from my mother's. The good news is that the problem appears to be an infection that she had diagnosed in herself, but her self-treatment wasn't working. She's now on an antibiotic for the next week and should be on the road to better health.

The bad news is that she is a terrible patient. She freely admits that her problem is that she has been extremely healthy all of her life. At 91, things are starting to go wrong. Minor things, but "things" all the same. And because she does not have a life history of having the flu or muscle aches and pains or any of the other things that you and I take for granted as a normal part of...well...life...she is angry and embarrassed.

How can she possibly get an infection when she rarely leaves the house and has good health habits?

How can she have pain in her fingers (she has "trigger finger" and is in need of an injection but canceled the appointment because she had a lunch date...but dammit it HURTS and why does it have to hurt her?)

It was interesting being at her doctor's appointment because I had just spent 2 hours listening to how much discomfort she was in, how she felt jumpy and nervous and had a bad headache and on and on and on...and then when the doctor entered the room, she minimized everything, joked about everything and when I added complaints that she had complained to me about, she laughed and said that that wasn't really a problem.

The headache, for example. When we at home, she grabbed her head and shouted "Headache!" and said she just wanted it to go away. When we were sitting in the waiting room waiting for the doctor to call her in, she was going over the list of things she had to talk to the doctor about. When I reminded mer about the headache, she said oh, she didn't really have a headache. Then when the appointment was over and we were in the elevator, she grabbed her head and said "Owwwww.....Go away, headache!" When I asked her why she hadn't mentioned the headache to the doctor, she said that it wasn't hurting when she was seeing the doctor.

Sigh.

We got home after the appointment and she took a very long nap, while I took my walk around the lagoon near her house. I took lots of nice photos. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the "new" camera, which is very nice. This walk-and-photograph plan is a good idea.

Because she's been feeling so bad, my mother had no food in the house, so I went up to the local pizzeria and bought a "mushroom lovers' pizza" which we shared for dinner. Then we sat down to watch TV and she took two long-ish naps during the evening too.

Because I'd had so little sleep the night before, I nodded off during Criminal Minds so we were both sound asleep before 11 p.m.

At least I felt good knowing that she had actually seen a doctor and I will now stay on top of how she's feeling until I go back down there again next week for Cousins Day. (Of course, I fully expect her to tell me only the good stuff unless she's really scared about how bad she's feeling).