Well, so I went in for my annual exam at the VA docs — since my VA doc went into private practice, I have a new one, who works out of the Maplewood clinic. Nice lady, I liked her a lot.
I drive over to Maplewood, had a little trouble finding the clinic, but I left plenty early, so had lots of time to drive around — this is hidden in a residential district — lots of row houses like those “painted lady” houses you see in San Francisco.
They asked me all the usual questions — including some new ones — as in “do you feel fearful about money or losing your residence, or becoming homeless?” No I don’t, thank God or Goddess.
This doc is very sharp. She asked me when did my Mom die — and I, all discombobulated, said February 2012, then I shook my head said no wait, February 2017. Well. February 2012 is when Patrick died — my friend that I loved dearly who killed himself — I was devastated, went to the VA for a couple of counselling sessions about that — Doc got all sharp-eyed, and said, do you still have problems with your Mom dying or with your friend dying? I said NO, I really don’t. And I really don’t. I was a complete mess after Patrick died for awhile (if you read back through my diaries you can see that) and it was awful watching Mom suffer so much before she died, but I’m in a pretty good place. Dad is relatively healthy, we’re all good. But this Doc I can tell is all worried that I couldn’t tell the difference between when Patrick died and my Mom died. Well, they were both in February, within days of each other, although different years, and it was a damn slip of the tongue. Sigh. February will never be my favorite month haha.
And of course my BP was up. It’s ALWAYS up when I have to do this annual exam, because I know it’s going to go just exactly this way. And I had the added stress of driving out to try and find a new clinic. My BP is mostly pretty normal, but it was up in the 145/90 range for this conversation. Added to that was the stress of finding I couldn’t find my Medicare card in my purse for them (I eventually did find it).
So, they took a blood draw, and then I could go. I’m on my way back to work, and stopped at the Byerly’s in Roseville to get a bit of lunch before going back to work.
Well. So I get some food from the deli, and then go to the room with tables they have for people wanting to eat their lunch from the deli. Two young girls pushed in front of me and went and took up the last two single tables in the area. No food. They just wanted to have a place to sit down and play on their phones. Thanks, selfish and thoughtless young girls. Karma will get you one day, I don’t have to do it at all.
So I tried to find a table. The only table left was these two tables pushed together, and at the one, there was a Mom and her daughter sitting there. I asked if we could share, she said sure. I sat down with my food, then I saw that the daughter was either severely developmentally disabled, or else brain-damaged — traumatic brain injury. I had planned to just sit there and eat my food and read my book, but it was not to be. Mom was desperately wanting to talk to somebody, and all the time was wrestling with the daughter (about 8 years old, I guess). The Mom was a little twig of a person and looked completely exhausted. The daughter was quite the bruiser. 8 years old and almost as big as the Mom, and VERY strong, and not interested in eating, although Mom kept trying to feed her some food. Mom told me, the doctors don’t know what’s wrong and don’t care, she has a young guy come in for care about 2 days a week, her other daughter, who is college age, is off at college, so now she has nobody to help her. (this woman doesn’t look old enough to have a college age daughter, but what do I know? everybody looks young to me now)
I said “so you live ALONE with your daughter? she said yeah, I’m so TIRED. She said. And I believe it. She was trying to feed this poor girl a little something, and the girl (who had one of those little knitted hats on her head that looks like a helmet) was banging herself on the head, braying and singing nonsense songs, and throwing food around.
Then the daughter picks up one of those plastic knives they give you at Byerly’s for food, and snaps it in two like it was a twig. This kid is STRONG. And willful. And a handful for this Mom. When she snapped the knife in two, a piece went flying, hit me in the face, missing my eye by a millimeter, OMG. I said to the girl, ok honey you tried to get me, but you missed me (laughing, a little bit). Mom says, oh I’m SO glad you have a sense of humor about it. Oh man. I said, are you ok? Is your Mom meeting you here? She said no, we’re going over to my Mom’s and she’s going to watch her for awhile, and then I can take a nap. If ever a person looked desperately in need of a nap, this woman did.
So. I said, “I’m so sorry, can I do anything to help you?” She kind of stared at all the food debris left on the table, I said “let me get this”. I cleaned it all up and dumped it in the trash, and then said, “can I help you get her out to the car?”
She just said “thank you” and I went to throw some more stuff in the trash and then turned around and they were gone out the door.
As I said to my sister at work “every time I think MY life sucks”. Haha.
Happy Easter, everybody. Enjoy every single moment.