For
your edification and enlightenment today:
Anatidaephobia is defined as an irrational
fear that one is being watched by a duck. The anatidaephobic individual
fears that no matter where they are or what they are doing, a duck watches.
Anatidaephobia is derived from the Greek word "anatidae", meaning ducks and
"phobos" meaning fear. The person is not necessarily afraid of the duck.
They only fear that the animal is watching them, keeping tabs on what
they're doing throughout the day.
Stay away from Disney cartoons.
When Ned was here Monday, we made plans for
our Wednesday. He would pack up his moveable spa, we would go to
Atria, I would shower, we would take my mother to lunch in the main dining
room and then he would take me to Nugget (our supermarket).
Walt tells me that the last time I shopped for groceries was
June. (He also tells me they have reorganized Nugget so
much I won't recognize it.) I am feeling strong enough to use a
grocery cart as a walker and I miss those impulse purchases I like to make!
So I was excited about our day.
After
Ned went home, I remembered that this is blood test week and my doctor had
also asked me to get a blood pressure check. That all sounds very
simple, but my BP checks are NEVER simple. The BP is always borderline
and the pulse is always one point above the high normal, so they try to get
it back down again, and never can. Last time I was there for nearly an
hour while they tried every trick to get me to be "normal" until they
finally determined that I was not in danger of dying on my way to the
parking lot and let me go.
Anyway, with
the potential of a very long stop at Kaiser, I realized that it might be
more time than Ned wanted to spend so I told him that the stop at Nugget
could be optional, depending on time.
THEN I got a call from Atria that my mother had a lesion or something on her
arm and that they had contacted her doctor. The doctor's nurse called
and we set up an appointment for her for Wednesday. So now THAT was
added to the mix.
I suggested to Ned
that we just get my mother, go to Kaiser, and then take her to IHOP for
lunch and do all the rest some other day.
So I was up most of the night watching election coverage.
It was addicting. And I finally fell asleep around 6:30, to be
awakened 2 hours later by another call from Atria saying that she had
another of her "spells." Not sure I'm exactly clear on what happened,
but this one seems to have been while she was walking and just stopped, bent
over and was unresponsive for a bit. Fortunately she already had a
doctor's appointment so I could talk with the doctor about that. I
think her body is trying to die and she won't let it, frankly!
But we went to Atria and found her passed out in the
community room, but not non-responsive, like before. I found out she
had been "out" for about 10 minutes but eventually came to. We took
her to Kaiser, where the doctor checked her wound and had it dressed, though
there really wasn't anything wrong with her that time wouldn't cure.
But it is now bandaged for the week and they even took my blood pressure to
save me from having to make an extra stop.
I still had to get a blood test, but that went effortlessly
and then we back to the car. My mother got in the car moaning "let's
go home....I'm tired of all this." But she was up for
lunch, so we went to nearby IHOP, went in, sat down and ordered coffee and
water and started to look at the menu when my mother said "OH! I need
to leave NOW." She had to go to the bathroom, but by the time she got
up, it was too late. Her Depends got a lot of it, but not all and she
was upset that it was running down her backside.
We left the coffee sitting there. I
tried to pay for it, but the guy said that he couldn't just ring up coffee
on the cash register, so he didn't charge us. We hadn't drunk any
anyway.
We got her back to Atria and
Ned took her in, leaving her clean up to the aids -- it's why we pay the big
bucks (rising to >$7000 next year). He said by the time they started
to clean her, it was really bad, and more like diarrhea.
After we left Atria, we drove back to just past Kaiser so I
could stop at Office Max and buy cartridges for my printer.
We didn't even think about going to the supermarket.
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