'Rent Rant, or Drip Drop

Hello, loves. I'm going to do a bit of parental ranting tonight. So I of course have to issue my first disclaimer of 2011.

Which is, of course, I love my parents. They're crazy, and I love them. They're exceedingly good and kind people, as anyone who knows them will attest to.

And they drive me nutso sometimes. As you well know, this isn't the first parental tale you've seen here.

So let's hop straight to my mom, aka Granny. Granny has been unwell for the past three years of her life. She's gone from vivacious and peppy to hunched over and shuffly. She has a raging case of psoriasis and several other medical concerns. And while I hate this, and would not wish what she's going through on my worst enemy, I hate it more that she doesn't try and fight her situation at all and seems perfectly content to sit in a chair all day. She only leaves the house to go to doctor's appointments, which she loves doing, and I think herein lieth the problem.

As you might imagine, my mom isn't overly abundant on immunity. Her immune system is quite, well, it's damn near non-existent, if you must know.

In October, she had to have a cataract removed from her eye. Surprisingly, it all went quite well. Well, until she went from opthamologist to optometrist to have her glasses changed. Then good ol' Dr T, our family opto forever, looked in her eye and found a virus.

Yes, a virus, living right there in Granny's eye.

Dr T said this is quite rare. So rare, in fact, that this was the only time he'd seen it happen, which is apt, since if there's one person a virus would pick to latch onto, it would be Granny. Dr T said things like this can happen because after something like a surgery, one's (non-existent) immune system was at its lowest point.

He gave her two kinds of drops to put in her eye. This was around Dec 10th or so. The VK drop, the Virus Killer, was to be put into her eye at three hour intervals, starting at 8am. 8, 11, 2, 5, and 8 o'clock.

And so she's been going back and forth to see Dr T, and he's been looking right into her eyes, and he's still been seeing this virus. And giving her drops.

Well, I took her to good ol' Dr T yesterday, and he was all excited to look right into her eyes again, and then when he did, he became rather frowny. "It's still there," he said. He also said, "We have to kill this virus, because you're in danger of losing your cornea."

And that's when my mom, aka Granny, blurted out right there in the office, "Well, I can't get those drops to go in, and Paw can't see to get them in."

And good ol Dr T looked at me as if to say, "What the hell kind of daughter are you?"

And I looked back at him as if to say, "Now listen here just a minute, sir. This is the first I've heard of this, too."

Yes, for almost a month my mom has been attempting, with the help of my dad, to put drops in her eyes five times a day that aren't going in, and apparently neither of them thought it might be, oh, you know, semi-informative to tell me, my sister, a neighbor, or good ol' Dr T himself that they weren't getting the hang of it. That's my folks. The Granny & Paw Club. I've mentioned it here before. They're so wound up in each other they won't let anyone else be a part of the little club.

So, here's what good ol' Dr T did.

A new prescription for VK, the Virus Killer drops. He gave it to me. With the missive, "You're going to have to make sure she gets these in her eye five times a day, every three hours, starting at 8am." Then he handed me some other drops. "These can go in whenever she wants, they're to keep her eyes moist, but can't be put in less than an hour after the Virus Killer."

Then he asked Granny if she still had the steroid drops he'd given her, she said yes. Dr T turned to me. "Those have to be put in twice a day. They can be put in as soon as 10 minutes after the Virus Killer drops, but no sooner."

Finally, he went off and returned with another little bottle and gave it me. "These are antibiotic drops. I want them in twice a day, not with the Virus Killer."

Sitting there in his office holding a prescription and five boxes holding eye drops, I uttered, "Um. So when exactly do I move back home?" It was a joke, you see.

And good ol' Dr T's reply was, "Well, that's actually what I'm suggesting." I stomped every toe on my left foot with my right foot to keep from yelling out "fuck."

Well, I took Granny home, dropped her off, took the prescription to the drug store, and got up with the sister by phone. I told her the situation, and that we had to come up with some sort of schedule for all this dropping. Although I knew we'd be the ones who'd end up dropping, from exhaustion.

This is what we came up with.

The Virus Killer drops at 8, 11, 2, 5, and 8. The steroid drops at 11:10 and 5:10. The antibiotic drops at 10 and 4. Then the rinsey drops at 9, 12, 3, 6, and 9.

And that, my friends, is a shitload of eye drops.

Add two working sisters to the mix, and you have, well, you have something of an impossibility.

And then a light bulb appeared over my sister's head. "I know what we'll do. We'll get C."

And it was a brilliant idea. C is a relative of my friend, workmate, and mother figure San. She's an expert caregiver. It's what she does. She can take care of an elderly person, get them where they need to be, make conversation, and she's just an all-around nice gal.

I told the sister this would never work, that C is not a card-carrying member of the Granny and Paw Club, and that they would fight us tooth and nail on this. "I don't care," the sister said. "They're getting C. We can do the 8am, and 5 and 8pm, but during the day, they're getting C."

So yesterday we went to the folks' house together and told them what was going to happen. And you know? They didn't fight us on it. I was amazed. "That went well. Too well."

And so, today C showed up to start putting in drops and be the nice person she is, and we found out later - Paw bucked. He didn't like her drop putting-in, or schedule. And at one point he told her, "I don't think you realize who's boss around here!"

To which C replied, "Yes sir, I do. [Bet's sister] is the boss, and I have to go by the schedule she gave me." I'm so sorry, I just had to have a giggle at that.

So Paw has been dethroned as the president of the Granny and Paw Club for now, and he's not happy. Granny's happy, because three people are taking care of her and putting drops in her eye and asking if she's OK.

The sister and I are happy, because we don't have to leave our jobs once an hour to put drops in Granny's eye.

Poor Paw.

And I have to say, after taking my 8pm turn tonight, driving "between the bridges" to their house on horrible icy roads, I can totally understand why they couldn't get those VK, Virus Killer, drops in her eye. They're very, very thick.

I can not understand, however, why in the hell they didn't just tell anyone!

*sigh.* Wonder if there's a secret handshake to the Granny and Paw Club?

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Well, I did what I swore I'd never do. Go to another groomer over my old one. Señor Taylor is just too busy nowadays, so I called the new groomer in town. I really enjoyed what he said on the phone about cutting mutts, so we'll see. Appointment tomorrow!