Mom & Me Four Archive

    It took three hours, but Mom and I were both innoculated this year: Mom for flu and pneumonia, me for flu. Tetnus shots weren't being offered and the innoculators had no information as to when and where they'd be offered, although they had the forms with them. They just didn't have the shots.
    Interesting day. Because of yesterday's amazing bowel movement (aided with a laxative), I was not worried about having yet another bowel incident like we had a couple of years ago when serum was short and lines were long, so, as we approached the innoculation "center" in a local grocery (our usual grocery, as it turned out) and noticed the unusual and obviously slow line set-up, I decided I wasn't going to try a different day when there may not be as many shot hopefuls and take the chance that serum would suddenly become short again, as it did last year. I came prepared with plenty of oxygen, our usual ER bag and Mom's walker doubles as a seat so we were set. I figured if the wait was a long one I could peruse the store for something for her to eat. There was also a coffee shop in the store, a bathroom and a water fountain. I figured, Mom could just as easily sit here as at home and, anyway, at least here she'd manage to pack some movement under her belt.
    Mom and I are good at entertaining ourselves in lines and this talent proved very welcome today. We ended up making friends with our immediate line mates: Paul the Gallant, who showed me, by example, how easy it is to push a walker with breaks along on a tile floor when Mom was obviously getting tired of standing up and sitting down; Linda Gayle, a sparkling, sweet and sour woman with a wry sense of humor to whom Mom took because her first and middle names were the same as two of Mom's daughters; Always Up For A Laugh Sally who made me and everyone else feel incredibly funny, as she has the ability to appreciate and laugh about the off-track in everything. These were our main mates. A few others who were close joined in the fun, as well. Around 1400, realizing that Mom needed something to eat, especially something that would raise her BG but not by too much, I took off to produce and bought enough black plums to feed everyone in our vicinity; we even went home with three. This solicited stories from yet another couple down the line who raved about their back yard plum tree.
    Conversation was varied and interesting:

• Unusual, anecdotal traveloques about Italy, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Argentina and Honolulu, HI (including the best online discount sources to use for international reservations);
• why import taxes are so incredibly high on U.S. cars in Italy (the streets are too narrow for most of our cars, so the government tries to discourage their import by taxing the shit out of them);
• how to find a cheap efficiency apartment in Prescott;
• the ins and outs of various virus and spyware programs for PCs and the relative merits of PCs vs. Macs;
• how to encourage sweet, succulent plums from a plum tree (compost, compost, compost and about half the fertilizer one is directed to use);
• whether or not to care for a mother who is insufferable (one of our line mates has such a mother and, as she took meticulous, vocal notice of my relationship with and caregiving for my mother, talked about how awful she imagined it would be to take care of her own mother, if the need arose);
• the last days of a woman who was taken care of in home by her daughter and son-in-law (both of whom were in their mid to late 70's during the caregiving) and died at the age of 99, deaf, blind, and mini-stroking on a daily basis;
• which triggered another conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of hospice care (which was approved so late for the 99 year old, who was obviously dying but for whom none of her doctors could offer an acceptable terminal diagnosis, that it provided less than a week of relief for the caregiving couple);
• how to buy titanium jewelry in Bermuda;
• how to determine if the jewelry is really titanium (which involves a simple chemical test that you have to be prepared to perform on the sly);
• What WWII military service was like for women (my mother was one of two women in our immediate area who had served in the military during WWII; the other woman was five years younger than Mom and served overseas as a nurse; she, by the way, also uses oxygen, which I found interesting; I figured she probably also picked up smoking in the military).

    Everyone in our immediate area had such a good time that, as our group approached the final phase of shotting, we joked that we should make plans to meet at the same innoculation location during next year's flu season.
    Although quite a bit of the outing involved sitting for Mom, she peformed a bit more than a fair amount of walkering into and out of the store, to the bathroom (which, of course, was on the opposite side of the store), then, after her shots, the nurse cautioned that it might be a good idea to walker Mom around for about 15 minutes before having her sit down again, in order to get the serum pumping throughout her body. I spent the entire time on my feet with Paul the Gallant. Both of us were the youngest people in line; he six years older than me. Although chairs were provided, there were barely enough, so he and I stood by preference. I think I enjoyed the outing more standing up than sitting down, as it allowed me to schmooze and help people out.
    Toward the end of our outing, as I was leading a very tired but determinedly spirited Mom out the door of the grocery toward our car, we passed a man coming the other way wearing an adidas "Impossible is Nothing" t-shirt. I had to smile. Over the last couple of years, since the disastrous BM flu shot shuffle, I've considered just this sort of flu shot scenario impossible and have gone out of my way to avoid it. Which is why, finally, today, even when we saw into what we were heading, I decided, what the hell. It's not going to get any better. Surely we can endure this in the name of protecting Mom. So, we surrendered, took advantage of the laid back atmosphere, partied down and did better than endurance, we had a great time. It was, literally, nothing. And everything. In case you don't want to perform two clicks into the full "Impossible is Nothing" advertising wordage, here it is:

IMPOSSIBLE IS JUST A BIG WORD THROWN AROUND BY SMALL MEN WHO FIND IT EASIER TO LIVE IN THE WORLD THEY'VE BEEN GIVEN THAN TO EXPLORE THE POWER THEY HAVE TO CHANGE IT.
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A FACT. IT'S AN OPINION.
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A DECLARATION. IT'S A DARE.
IMPOSSIBLE IS POTENTIAL.
IMPOSSIBLE IS TEMPORARY.

IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING.

    Later.