Oldness

I'm totally stumped for a blog idea tonight. I asked Mr M. His response was, "How about my getting old."

Well, that's all well and good, but I needed some examples of his getting old. I couldn't use memory loss, the man's had a hazy memory for as long as I've known him, he knows this, and he says it's been that way the whole of his life. I couldn't use gray hair and beard, he's had that rather lovely distinguishing feature since we met. Posture and shuffling gait were out, they were not products of age but of injuries and accidents. The shoulder aches and pains have nothing do with age other than his being in his 50s when he tripped over a railroad tie in the parking lot of Oktoberfest a few years ago. I find that hilarious, by the way. Not that he got so hurt by it, but that the only member of the Sauerkraut Band who doesn't drink should be the one who trips over a railroad tie in the parking lot, doing himself a mischief.

And so I said to him tonight, "Well? Examples?"

His reply? "Hair in the ears. It's icky."

And I daresay it is.

So there. Mr M has hair in his ears because he's getting old, and it's icky.

I had to kick my mother's ass today. Verbally, even in my worst moments I couldn't physically kick my mother's ass. She's much too nice a lady, and I'm much too respectful of her.

As you all know, my dad has been undergoing cancer treatments for some eight months, but is doing well now and has been pronounced cancer-free at this point. Dad's a strong man. And mom's a strong woman, and has taken it upon herself to be his caretaker all through those months. She's been his eyes for some six years now, since his sight has gone to almost nothing, but lately she's been so much more. Much more than she has to be. The sister and I have offered up help of any kind we know how, and the only acceptance has been of an occasional trip to the hospital to take my dad for radiation. That's it. It's very odd. In a way, I imagined that coming, the fact that they'd want to keep my sister and I completely free of work and worry where this is concerned, because my folks are just like that. But in another way, I just wasn't prepared for the scope with which were kept out of the whole cancer loop. I can't explain it, I've thought more about it than I can tell, I guess I've thought about it up to but not past the point of just coming out and asking them why they don't seem to want us to be a part of the whole cancer experience.

But for months now, probably since September, my mom has been complaining. My mom has done this forever, she's very vocal about complaints. I've blogged about it before, how no matter what you have or how bad you may feel, don't mention it, because she has something else and feels even worse. But she's been complaining about her feet.

Now, my mom has what is known as The Fowler Family Feet. (her maiden name, btw) I also am the sad recipient of The Fowler Family Feet, which is the main reason pedicures are so important to me. Dry cracked heels, sometimes to the point of tippytoeing around like an idiot for a day or two, every lotion, balm, gel, cream, foot soak, gizmo and gadget bought, constant foot attention. It becomes a part of life, and to be honest, until the blissful days of pedicures, I wouldn't even wear a sandal, or go barefoot in front of another living soul. Those days are behind me now.

So when my mom started complaining about her feet, the agony, and the, "I don't know what I'm going to do," I thought it was just what I go through from time to time. Until they arrived back here, in December, from their last Florida jaunt, and I'd heard enough of this complaining, and I finally said, "Let me look at your feet, please." And she showed me, and I was more than a little shocked about what I found. Her feet were not only dry and cracked, on the soles, anyway, but the sides and tops were covered with sores. Open sores.

Now, you and I (I'm assuming you would, because you have enough sense to read), upon having this condition, would hie our asses to the doctor and find out what was going on. And if that doctor couldn't tell us, I'm guessing we'd go somewhere else, and else, and else, till we found someone who could.

But my mother keeps going to her same family doctor, the general practitioner who doesn't know about foot fungus and the like, and he gives her an antibiotic and she takes it for two days, quits, and complains. When you mention maybe possibly going to someone else, she brings up the time she went to a podiatrist who told her if she was his wife, he'd kill her (now, I wasn't at this appointment, so I have no idea, OK?) and then sent her to a dermatologist, who looked at her feet and said, "Well, I don't know what it is." This was, by the way, some three years ago, before the sores and agony. But it's apparently still very fresh in her mind.

And the thing is, if that podiatrist actually said he'd kill her, while that's incredibly rude and unprofessional, I can almost understand why he said it. Because my mother is one of these people you just can't tell anything. No matter what you suggest to her, no, it's not that, that won't work, I've tried that, you don't know what you're talking about, they told me not to do that, I don't think that could have anything to with this, and on and on till really, well, I do love my mother a great deal, but many's the time I've had to hold my hands behind me so they don't make a beeline for her neck.

And so she complains, has talked for five months now about her her feet hurt so much she just can't walk, stand sheets to touch her feet, stand up, wear shoes, or anything else. But all the while she's walking, standing, running here and there, to the store every day, Christmas shopping, cooking, baking, taking care of everyone in her life, and doing everything but saying, "Listen, you folks fend for yourselves a while, I'm going to go put my feet up."

Finally, my friend, workmate, and mother figure San got involved. She's now become my mom's mother figure. She, completely on her own, called a foot specialist she knew about and made my mom an appointment. I loved it, and wondered aloud why I didn't do such a thing.

So my mother went - all the while complaining that she didn't see the head specialist, but another foot associate - and that specialist did all kinds of things, took cultures and scrapes and sent them off to be tested. Her follow-up appointment was to be this Thursday.

Today at work, I got a phone call from my dad. He upset me right off the bat by saying something my dad just never says to me, or my sister. "I'm worried to death about your mother, and I don't know what to do." Seems last night she had some sort of reaction where the itching in her feet spread all over her body, and she spent another night in agony keeping them both awake while she scratched and ached. So this morning, she went straight to - her family doctor! Who knows nothing but to give her something for the itching, and to send her for a blood test.

I was really stacked up with work, was tired from my own sleepless night (but I love podcast recording nights!), and said, "Dad, put Mom on the phone." She said, "Oh, the agony I'm in," and when I told her to tell me all that happened, I told her to call her foot specialist and tell him what was going on. And then she let out two little nuggets Dad didn't mention. First, the family doctor's nurse said it was possible if there was infection in her feet it had spread, possibly into her bloodstream, and second - she had called the foot specialist, and they told her they could work her in as a walk-in - not with the first guy she saw, but with the one she complained about not seeing in the first place - today at 3:00. And she said no.

And it was at that point that 40-some-odd years of dealing with my mother blew right out of the top of my head, and I went flat-ass crazy nuts. I told her I was basically ready to give up. That no matter what anyone told her, she wouldn't listen, wouldn't take care of herself, and that, "You're going to die. If you have infection in your system, you're going to die right there in your house sitting on your ass not bothering to do anything about it." And then, even though I didn't mean to, it was involuntary, I pulled out the Trump Card. I started to cry. That's the one thing that will upset my mom more than any harsh word could, if one of her girls cries. She started backing up, oh, I can wait till Thursday, I can't go without the results of my blood test today, and on and on. I told her that if she didn't call the specialist immediately and take that 3:00 appointment, and let me leave work and drive her to their offices, she need not speak to me anymore. She agreed.

However, in fifteen minutes, she hadn't called me back to come get her. I called her. They'd given the appointment to someone else and couldn't see her. I told her that at 5:00 I was leaving work and taking her to the emergency room. She started again. "But they won't have my blood test results." I told her the hospital could get her results in two minutes, and to have her clothes on, I was coming.

Well, it's tonight, well, actually it's tomorrow because it's after midnight, and guess what. My mother didn't go to the emergency room. Because she's my mother. She's the "I'm in so much agony I can't move and listen to me tell you about it, but don't worry, I'll be all right" person.

And I officially give up. If she has infection in every inch of her body and if she ends up losing both her feet and really not being able to walk, there's not a thing I can do about it now. She has to take upon herself to care enough to want to do something about it instead of complain and argue with anyone who wants to help.

It's mean, I know. But I can't help it. I give up. I still care, but I give up.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So - two men walk into a bar.... Punch line?
- Honorable Mention goes to Stennie, with her, "One leans near Esther's face, retches." I actually liked your other one better, Stenns, but the letters were wrong. It's OK, you haven't played in a while.
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with her, "Only lice, not eczema? Fooled Roger!" Somehow, "Fooled Roger" is very funny.
- And this week's winner goes to that acro juggernaut, the DeepFatFriar, with his, "Only Latvian nerds eat fried rutabags." You know, I can almost construct a whole joke from that.
- Thanks to all who played - you've all done very well!