Friday, May 11, 2007

Several days have passed since my bout with food poisoning. Not an enjoyable experience. AS I sit here at 8 AM writing this, it is about 72 degrees, but sweat is dripping off the left side of my chin. I don't know if it is a residual effect of the food poisoning, or the car wreck in 2005 but it is very annoying. I am leaving in a little while to get a perm, in preparation for my trip to NY, and if I continue to drip, I wonder if the perm will take?

Yesterday I did my good deed, took Ms Muriel, a friend of my late mother's to the doc, then to lunch then to the grocery store then home to put away her groceries and help her move things in her house back in place since she no longer has to use the walker. Muriel is 83, 68 lbs and very frail, but she lives alone and is very self sufficient. She takes no medication, largely because she believes in Christian Science which for her has worked for her whole life. She eats like a little bird, doctors want her to drink Ensure, but she won't because if she does she will not be able to eat her meals which, though very small are well balanced. I think when Muriel's time comes it will not be from illness, but perhaps malnutrition, she just cannot eat enough. She told the Doctor that if she has never eaten between means, and she can't start now. I should add that Ms Muriel has always been single, was afflicted with at stroke at birth and her right side is very much weaker than her left, but she keeps her house, tends her plants, does her own cooking and bill paying and is very independent, She has a handyman and a house cleaner once a month, but otherwise if very independent. The day she woke up with pain in her back and hips, she bore it for a week and then asked me to take her to the emergency room. It took from 4 pm until midnight before they got her into a bed. They admitted her and did all kinds of tests. She had broken a bone in her bak probably from a previous tumble and her spine has little cracks all up and down it. For a person who rarely ever darkens the door of a doctor's office, she spent several days in the hospital and several weeks in a rehab center which she hated except for the physical therapy. Aides were rude and said she wasn't trying when she asked them to help her cut her meat or push the wheelchair to the sink. Her right hand is spastic and she was unable to do it, they thought she was faking. Those people have been replaced. They also forced medication on her simply saying "doctor's orders". She has a funny way of speaking and often people think she is slow or retarded because of the way she speaks so they act as if she can't understand. Her hearing is perfect, and there is nothing wrong with her mind.
By the time I got home from those errands, I was wringing wet and pooped, so I doffed my clothes and slid into my cool bed and took a nap. Can't think of a nicer way to spend an hour.

Enough for now. I must get doing constructive things

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