Snippits

Here are a couple posts from my blog that were written during Mom's illness. Please pardon the profanity.

Tuesday, January, 8

caterwhaulin'

Sometimes I feel like we're trapped in an episode of Hee-Haw. I'd say not a good one, but were any good? Anyway, I was getting out of the shower and thinking about what I was going to write today. Yesterday was okay, but kind of trying. She was moving slower than molasses up a hill. I got home from tutoring and literally had to wave my hands in front of her face to have her answer a question. Course, she was watching tv. Not law and order though. It was like I was shouting across a canyon. Helloooooooo. Anybody there, ere ere ere ere. Decided that we are NOT waiting to start the steroids, Roger Clemens, we are taking them NOW! Gave her a dose, which she did not seem too excited about.

Anyway, back to my original story. So, I'm drying off and thinking to myself "I'm gonna title my blog 'take your goddamn steroids, mama' " and grumbling to myself about her resistance to taking them when I hear "AAAAAAAA!" from her bathroom (she was also in the shower). Oh shit! Another fall?! I stop and hold my breath. Then comes the "mi-chi-GAN. Ohhhhhhh, I got to...." Singing the Michigan fight song in shower. I started cracking up. Went in and peeked on her and she was doing just what I thought, bouncing around nekkid. Take your goddamn steroids, mama. It makes a difference.

January 5

It ain't broke

Went to the e.r. today. Mom woke up and the side of her hand was hurting where she had caught herself during the fall. Better to be safe than sorry since chemo can make bones brittle and all.

Anyway, in the old days, p.c. (pre-cancer) any trip to the emergency room would have triggered some sort of panic or sense of urgency. But now.... we decided to have lunch, take showers, I cleaned my car. No hurry, her hand's not going anywhere. We've become so desensitized to medical stuff, I guess. Or we were just freaky drama queens before :).

So, we get there and are eating our snacks on the way, listening to System of the Down (What is THIS? It's not music! Yeah? Neither is Windy, you crazy lady). Her demeanor changes the minute she walks through the doors. Loud Mary has arrived in the e.r., folks. I can really see now how affected she is by people. She really likes the social contact and being noticed. Beginning with asking the intake person when the LSU game is, with a very dramatic eyebrow wag. Uh, mighten we sign in first? Show him the insurance card, perhaps? He doesn't know of course, and commences to GOOGLE it. Fucking surreal. Dude, a guy just walked in with a bloody nose. This is an emergency room, for chrissakes! Enough with the game! Anyway, this little scene ends with her telling him, and everyone else within a 100 mile hearing distance, that she hopes Les Miles gets his "butt whooped." Nice.

P.C., I would have been mortified. Actually, most of my childhood and adolescence was (were?) spent being embarrassed of the things she said or did. Can't she just ratchet it down a bit? Be a little softer, quieter......less. Now, I realize that while I still get the "oh god, mother"(s), that I am proud of her for not being any less, for saying exactly what she thinks, all the time, not mincing words, and living life on her own terms. And she lets me laugh at/with her and doesn't get offended, for the most part. That is what I love about Mom.

Other recent "momisms":

"those doctors got in there and fucked with my brain"

yes, they did.

"black birds are bitches."

"get out of the room so you can save your ovaries"
this was said in the e.r. when they were wheeling in the x-ray machine. point taken, but still an oh-god-mother moment.