Reader's Digest Reject #3

You know 'em, you love 'em and you've been wondering where are all the Reader's Digest rejects that she talked about way back when.

Well, here's another one.

_______________________________________

My slightly hearing-impaired, frustrated friend complains to his wife.

"I don't trust doctors. You go in for one thing and before you know it, they send you to specialists for all kinds of tests. The doctor said, 'you have blood in your urine; you have to see a urologist.'"

"You complain about your hearing and they end up looking at the other end?" she asks, puzzled by this development.

So she phones the doctor's office and the receptionist chuckles while relaying this message. "The doctor said to your husband, 'you have blood in your ear; you have to see an audiologist.'"

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Rules: word count must be 100 words or less; story must be true.

Word count: 100

And, as per the rules — totally true story.

If you liked this (and who wouldn't) you will want to click on

Reader's Digest Reject #1 — which recounts a sad tale of rejection and revenge

Reader's Digest Reject #2 — about Mom

The Turn Around

Aspirations blocked at

every turn

Fire of desire

Turn me

inward

Oppression, compression, tension,

Drive me

Deeper, deeper...

Diamonds bursting forth

Cascading

worlds

in Moon-drops

Sunlight dances

on water's rippled edge

(Poem and photo copyright Nance Thacker 2010. All rights reserved.)

It takes a village

So, maybe you're wondering what happened to Dad after his assessment. Well, pretty much nothing as he passed it within an acceptable range. But more importantly, just the year before when my parents had been together, the social worker deemed them to be a "lovely, little, co-dependent couple." What enabled them to cope was that each compensated for what the other lacked.

Life went on as usual except over time his wallet disappeared with increasing frequency and every once in a while, although he'd driven into town, he'd return home in a cab courtesy of Oakville storeowners who knew who he was and where he lived. And when a bank employee brought it to our attention that he was getting money out of the ATM with the assistance of strangers, Rob began to manage Dad's finances (Rob also became a wallet and car wrangler). Hillary Clinton said it takes a village to raise a child but it became apparent that it also takes one to keep an elder safe.

He lived with Mom in the family home until he died after which time the unwelcome spotlight shifted onto Mom aka "The Recluse"who lived alone in the family home with the assistance of her 5 children until safety issues and falls became an issue. Without the ongoing concern for the well-being of Dad aka "Mr. Social" her difficulties became obvious.

After her first solo geriatric evaluation (which I wrote about in The Sentence) she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and put on a drug to slow the decline of her cognitive function. Over time another was added to the mix and a year later its dosage was increased which sent her over the edge.

She began to experience visual hallucinations, people were present that only she could see. She voiced her distress, "Something is terribly wrong. It seems so real. I don't know what's real anymore. I'm in a fog half the time. This is no way to live." Thankfully when we took her off the drug the hallucinations stopped.

But at the next assessment her score had plummeted and after reviewing the numbers the geriatric specialist talked into her voice recorder, "I recommend Edith continue with Aricept and we re-introduce Ebixa to stall the progression of the disease..."

She hadn't even asked us. "No" I said.

"If we don't do this she'll decline at a more rapid rate. Her numbers are significantly decreased since the last evaluation."

"For what benefit? She felt she was going crazy."

"Then there's nothing more we can do for her."

We decided that this would be her last yearly, unnatural, stress-filled assessment. Personally, I felt relieved but also weighed down with a sense of loss and failure.

We might as well get some enjoyment out of this day, I thought, though I was going through the motions, distracted by the verdict handed down to her of a life sentence of inevitable, horrible, decline. So before heading back to the nursing home we went in to the Tim's in the hospital and got a coffee and some "donies" (as she called Timbits). She did not want to take her coat off so as I placed a napkin in her lap I said, speaking distractedly half to myself, "We'd better use this as you're wearing the coat that Jude got you and if it gets stained she'll kill me." Then I happened to look down at the floor and notice she was wearing her good shoes, the ones Rob had found for her. "God I hope it's not raining when we leave cus the shoes Rob got you will be ruined and he'll kill me." I'd almost forgotten that she was there.

She began to laugh, "Well, you can only die once."

She was present, she remembered what I'd said and made a joke in an effort to cheer me up. There was a glimmer of hope and I laughed with her.

* note: I began this on Sat but finished it Tues May 18th, just don't know how to get it to appear in the right order.

The Sentence

My mother is wheelchair bound, her memory is failing, and although her desire to communicate seems to be increasing her speech is incomprehensible most of the time but her spirit is kind and she is well loved by all who meet her.

The last few days we've had to make a yearly decision regarding the Life Care Directive - basically a guide of protocol for the nursing home to follow should she suddenly be faced with a life threatening event and family members met with staff to review her progress since the last meeting, ask questions and address any concerns we might have.

This has put me in a reflective mode, so here is a piece I wrote some years back about another aspect of my parents' journey through old age.

_____________________________

The Sentence

The white-coated geriatric specialist quickly glances over the completed questionnaire she holds in her hand. The goal of this geriatric assessment is to ascertain the state of my father's memory and judge, ultimately his competency.

She notes that the questions WHAT DAY IS IT? and WHO IS THE PRIME MINISTER? have been correctly answered. The task to reproduce the drawing of a six-sided symbol has been performed reasonably well for an 84-year-old with "intentional" hand tremours. But his response to the request - WRITE A SENTENCE IN THE BLANK SPACE PROVIDED - catches her eye, as he knew it would.

Watching her; his blue eyes twinkle in anticipation. As she reads what he has written the barest hint of a smile momentarily cracks through her cool reserve. He smiles in return; a visual receipt of a delivery completed.

* * *

A year after his death my mother is faced with the same geriatric assessment. She reads the same request and it puzzles her.

WRITE A SENTENCE IN THE BLANK SPACE PROVIDED

She looks at me, pen suspended in space, frozen in the moment, quietly beseeching me.

"Don't look at me," I say. This is her test. I cannot interfere. Her hesitation is damning. "I can't help you. It's up to you." After an unbearable eternity passes (though in reality I know it has only been a few seconds; it is my sorrow that has stretched time) I give in and coax her anyway. "What do you want to write?"

She laughs shaking her head. Stupid assignment; stupid me, is what she's thinking, I suspect. Then she resumes staring blankly at the blank space on the page on the table in front of her as the social worker waits, checks her watch and notes.

"Write a sentence there," I point, I think that's allowed "anything that comes into your head."

Her hand makes tentative circles in the air just above the page, writing imaginary letters of thought. The moment her pen alights on the paper possibilities evaporate. "I don't know what to write." Her laugh betrays embarrassment and performance anxiety.

"You could write that," I suggest encouragingly.

And so, in her beautiful cursive script she writes:

I don't know what to write.

* * *

Today I smile as I recall what he had written, complete with three exclamation marks:

Getting old sucks!!!

Truce

I woke up several times during the dark hours Sat morning feeling yucky with waves of nausea washing over me, stomach churning, salivary glands secreting, beads of sweat breaking out over my forehead and body, jaw clenching to keep myself from vomiting. Don't you hate throwing up? I do, uugh!

From the tip of my tailbone to my atlas/axis, my back felt like every vertebrae was subluxed causing discomfort from my muscles, tendons, ligaments and connective tissue down to the finest fibres of my body. Oddly, the only thing that didn't hurt was my head and hair. I had all the symptoms of a migraine without the head pain — weird. Since I tend to migraines this was a medical wonder and a small consolation.

I did what I usually do with migraines, I meditated on the pain and went into it. This often helps diffuse it to some degree. I tried various positions: lay on my back in a restorative yoga pose with my chest and head elevated which gives space to the abdominal organs and helps to settle them; then lay on my stomach turning my head and changing my arm positions every 20 breaths or so. The latter is my Mom's remedy for a "tummy" ache which I think has some merit from a meridian point of view as the stomach meridian runs through the front of the body, down the quads and over the top of the ankles and feet (the pressure on the front of the body and warmth is soothing). These efforts did indeed help everything to settle somewhat; enough that I could go deeper.

And what did I find? Everytime a thought or worry came into my head — wham! My stomach would turn. Even the mere inkling that my mind was veering in that general direction was enough to trigger it. When I settled my attention on neutral things, as when I focused on the breath and body position, or, better still combine this with images of a warm, golden, desert plain or a blank canvas it would level out and I'd feel a degree of warmth and calm.

Once I made the connection I tested my theory and sure enough it was so. Every thought brought that churning sensation, most especially these: OMG I'm having a heart attack (Not, or 2 of my clients and 1 friend had had one over the past few weeks too.) and OMG I'm having a stroke. (Can you smile - check, raise both arms - check, speak a sentence - check. Not.)

The nausea persisted the rest of the day and into Sunday as a low laying sour stomach feeling. Within about 48 hours, aided to no small degree by hanging like a bat from my yoga ropes, doing meridian stretches and laying on my back with balls under my skull and glutes it had gone.

Normally I hate being sick with a passion but this time it was different. I had a great weekend! I spent most Saturday sleeping (which I haven't done since... well I can't remember when) drifting in and out of dreams and occasionally rousing myself enough to munch on crackers (the ones "Mooching" Maya hadn't licked) or sip tea or ginger ale which Rod had brought up to my bedside. I'd allow no thoughts of: past, future, things to do or not do, judgements, plans or the like to cross my mind.

I stayed in my PJ's the whole day! And when I got up at 5 p.m. I dove into The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill which was so beautifully written and engaged me so completely that I couldn't put it down til I'd read the last word on Sunday night.

It was as if my mind had reached a point of overload; the only remedy was to give it a rest. The ideal would be to go away, live on a mountain top and just be. So that's what I did, minus going away and living on a mountain top. No phones were answered; e-mails checked or errands done. I let the busy-ness of life drop away once I'd convinced myself that surely the world and everyone in it would get along just fine without my input for 48 hours.

I let cares dissolve into meditation, unloaded my mind through dreams and when my mind had settled enough, I gave it permission to focus on words someone else had written on a page rather than be scattered by those swirling around in my head; I allowed it to become entranced by the author's finely crafted story line rather than be tossed by the gazillion random fretful, fearful, busy ones that normally bubble up in my overwrought mind.

I read without a highlighter in hand, bending any pages or making notes in the margins, which was tremendously freeing (I usually read non-fiction books and articles related to work and am constantly entering info into my brain).

I'd forgotten what a treat it is to be able to just read for the pure pleasure of it.

Late Sunday night Rod was surfing the net in search of a dining room table. He was cruising Amish furniture websites as we're looking for a dining room table to go with some stuff we already have. On one website was a picture of a church and a statement that said they kept Sunday sacred and would be back tomorrow. Not only do they take the day off, they even give their website a day of rest!

It was a synchronistic reminder for me to question how important is the s**t that goes on in my mind or the stuff that I do in the scheme of things that I can't give it a day of rest now and again.

Next time it won't be because I feel like crap, it'll just be because.

revenge is sweet

(cartoon copyright Nance Thacker 1991. All rights reserved.)

click on image to enlarge

My mother stood with her face mere inches away from the mirror that hung on the side of the cabinet in the kitchen. She often did this on sunny days.

"What ya doin'?" I was filled with an eight-year-old's curiousity because I was an eight-year-old.

"Never mind, go away!" she swatted in my general direction, never taking her eyes off the mirror as she looked down her nose at the offending object and then directed her tweezers with the dexterity of a surgeon.

I leaned in closer too and I was amazed and puzzled by what I saw. Then I began to giggle uncontrollably and point at her face. "You've got hair on your chin!"

She was mortified, which made me laugh all the more. Yes, children...OK, let's take more responsibility here, I could be cruel and I was, unrelentingly so. "You've got a beard just like Dad."

"It's not a beard, it's just a few chin hairs," she sounded like an upperclass New Englander as she jutted her chin out to dig at another tiny black stray and yank it free.

I was in convulsions of outright laughter now.

"You'll get them too." She said, still squinting away, casing out her reflection for more stray, offending outgrowths.

Whoa, what did she say? That shut me up real quick, "No way".

"Yes, you will," she stopped what she was doing, turned and looked me in the eye, "you just wait til you get to be my age and the hormones change... " Then she issued her prophecy, "it'll happen to you too."

I stood like a deer in the headlights as the horrific thought sunk in.

Now the tables were turned and she was tormenting me with glee. "Yup, just wait, then I'll be the one laughing," but she didn't wait; she laughed then and there and waived her tweezers in the air as I ran out of the room. "You'll see."

_______________________

So, here it is a few decades later. I'm washing my face and watching my reflection in the mirror. I rinse off the suds and as I reach for a towel the sun hits my face revealing a rarely glimpsed angle and there it is, the longest, wiryest, thickest, blackest chin hair ever. Now this isn't the first chin hair experience I've ever had (the date on the cartoon attests to that) but IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS. HOW MANY CONVERSATIONS HAVE I HAD WITH PEOPLE AND ALL THEY'VE TAKEN IN IS THIS HIDEOUS THING WAVING IN THE WIND? WHY DIDN'T SOMEBODY TELL ME!

In a nursing home, not far away, a little old lady is laughing.

HAPPY, HAPPY LITTLE GORILLA FEET!

I'm in love with these shoes! It's as if the barefoot fairy came in the middle of the night, measured my feet, went back to her workshop and then crafted these little beauties. They have stubby toes and are broad in the forefoot, just like my own feet!

After my Around the Bay 30K walking experience I threw out my blister-maker, toe-holed, 10-year-old shoes but was at a loss as to know what to replace them with. The sandals that held so much hope proved to be duds when 1/2 hour into the last walk with Candy we had to turn back as blisters were forming on my feet again. I completed most of the walk on the way back, barefoot which, though it left me with blackened soles, was a vast improvement in the comfort department.

I used to often walk barefoot around McMaster campus in the early '70's (ah the days of my free-spirited, youth). Through high school and university when I did have to wear shoes they were simple deerskin hide moccasins that I tied on to my feet. And putting these things on feels surprisingly similar.

Without layers of rubber, air cushions, springs and all sorts of gimmicks that the latest style of running shoe offers, I can once more feel the earth, concrete and gravel under my feet. Knowing this most people ask "Doesn't that hurt?" when they stop me to check out my unusual foot ware.

Believe me I've gotten stopped a lot. I can tell you that I was a real hit at Mom's nursing home the other day when one of the little old ladies began pointing and yelling, "Look at her feet! Look at her feet!" everyone came running thinking that some horrible affliction was breaking out amongst the residents only to find a crowd gathered around me and checking out these funny looking shoes. And, just today a woman stopped me in the grocery store's parking lot, "I hope you don't mind me asking but, at first I thought you were some kind of nut walking around in your socks, then I took another look and I just have to see them." After I flashed them at her she exclaimed, "How cute," asked me a gazillion questions and then stated, "I just have to get a pair."

In answer to the question...no it doesn't hurt to walk in them, amazingly not, I think it's because I have to be more mindful of every step. So, not only do my feet feel happy, I in turn feel more grounded and connected to everything around me. I walk and run more naturally with the most impact on the balls of my feet rather than pounding on my heels.

Sure my feet sweat a little in them, but it's not been a problem for me and people don't recoil when I take them off so I know there's been no problem for anybody in my immediate vicinity.

Though I plan to walk Around the Bay 30K next year in them, I'll probably have to buy another pair before then as I'm wearing these everywhere, all the time. Anything else pales in comparison. It's a good thing I'm not a dress wearing kind of gal, that really would look weird.

They are called Vibram 5 fingers (you'd think it would be toes, but it's not), model KSO. I got them at Neworld Runner's Store in Burlington - but act fast, he's running out and when I last talked to him he said that the next shipment doesn't come in til August.