99 Year Old Toddler

It was not where I wanted to spend Friday night, but they called from Atria to tell me my mother had hurt her arm and needed to go to the ER now.  If I couldn't drive her, they said, they would send her by ambulance (which would cost us about $300, I believe, since it would be a round trip).  I drove over to pick her up.  I don't know what the aide was thinking.  She brought her out in a short sleeved shirt and asked if I thought she should put her in a coat.  Duhhh....it was in the 40s!  She also was wearing shoes, but not the ones I'd bought her...and not a pair that had ever belonged to her.

So off we went to Vacaville yet again.

 

My mother complained all the way there, but there is a plus side of having hearing problems...I could not understand a single thing she said and she didn't seem to notice that I never answered anythig she said.

I didn't actually see her wound until I got her coat off and yes, it looked pretty bad, but I think if it had been up to me I would have cleaned it and put on a bandage.

 

The doctor, when he arrived (after 30 minutes) rolled his eyes when I told him Atria had insisted on an ER visit...but he ordered an x-ray in case there was a problem (there wasn't).  In all it was 4 hours before we returned to Atria.

But the in between time was, I swear, like having a toddler.  She wanted desperately to open the door and wander around the waiting room, or go out the curtain to wander around the ER.  When I wouldn't let her do either, she paced around and around and around the exam room, checking out everything.  She moved the hazard waste container so it looked in a better position, she sat at the doctor's desk and examined everything on the desk, she tried to open the supply closets, she tried to organize the stuff in the trash basket and she asked over and over again why we couldn't just leave.  She kept putting on her jacket, though I Told her over and over again, the doctor needed to look at her arm.  "put that down," "don't touch that," "No, you can't open the door," etc. It took me back to the days when I took the kids to the doctor, except now I'm too old to have a 99 year old toddler.

Eventually they cleaned the wound and put on a bandaid and sent us home.  Just what I would have done without the ER.

I wheeled her out to the car and she complained that she didn't want to leave the building because it was cold outside and then complained all the way to the car.  I finally yelled at her that the only way for her to get into the car was to spend a minute in cold air. She couldn't figure out how to get in the car but we finally got in the car, got her buckled (which she didn't want) and headed home.

When we got back to Atria and I handed her over to the aide, I gave her the bag of bandaids and antiseptic and said that doctor said to change the bandaid once a day for two days and she told me they weren't allowed to change a bandage.  I am afraid I was not very polite, but in thinking about it she might have thought it was a bandage rather than a bandaid.  But I drove off, sorry that I don't drink any more.  I would have loved a gin and tonic.