Touring now, Broadway later

In which our Hero is providing multinational health management and wishes he’d thought to charge a fee

On the first day of her vacation, my mother went to the ER… and was eventually discharged with a new batch of medication to control an issue what all her doctors to date have told her that she didn’t haaaaaave.

On the second day of her vacation, my mother went to the ER…but that was because I made her, after she had a collision, with a wall driving her glasses, into her face so hard they cut her, (while playing catch, with very small children) and they glued her face up and sent her hooooooome.

On the third day of her vacation, my mother went to bed… because not every day can be spent at the ER. (Except that then she woke up in the middle of the night because she was aware that the medication from the first visit wasn’t doing what it was supposed to and so she went to the ER at 4 in the morning…..)

On the forth day of her vacation, my mother was sleeping in the ERbecause the doctor wanted to see how things changed after she got some rest, and as the updates came in, we began to see that we weren’t going to get a look at the underlying issue just on the strength of her travel insurannnnnce. But I talked to her ER doctor and I got an update on her condition and it seems that she may have had an issue for an extended period of time that’s somehow been overlooked till now (which makes me fairly angry).

On the fifth day of her vacation, my mother said to me: “Fiiiiiiive Gooooooooold Riiiiiiiiiings”(Sorry, Eddie Izzard moment). Actually, what she said was, “I don’t know why you came here, I’m fine now.”

Except my poor little mom had a still-red welt on her cheek, a raised-but-healing welt at the cut on her eyebrow and enough inconsistency in her condition to prevent concern, so we were monitoring. And I was meeting my nephew for the first time in a long time. And I was suddenly realizing that if this guy is my nephew, that means that his kids are my grand-something-or-others. I have grand something-or-others. I’m too young to have grand something-or-others.

My momentary existenial heart palpitation aside, I was in the U.S. for the day so that I could collect my mother and escort her home. Meanwhile, I was struggling with the frustration of supporting all these different people who all were asking for updates. My father is overseas, I need to keep him updated, without question. But he’s too far away to take an action, and he’s too far away to make decisions which means that giving him raw data is just stress without benefit. My cousin in Georgia has a close relationship to my mother and has been a help in me keeping tabs on her while I wasn’t in the same place as her, but now she’s calling every hour or two for an update. And now that we’re home, the family here is also in on the act, to the point that I was starting to get angry last night, even in the face of some very kind and thoughtful actions, like a 2 minute visit just to drop off food and wish her well.

Of course, she’s my mother, which is why I waded in as she started to scold a *very* unimpressed TSA agent. She had a drinking bottle with her that she’d been swigging from and insisted she could carry it through. “I did the same thing coming here and they let me go through when I took a drink.” And in fairness, it’s a small bottle, like 250 mls, but… I warned her. I told her to get rid of it. Drink it, or empty it, and they’ll be fine with the bottle which we can refill.

But no. She went through. And they took her drink. And she’s ornery.

They only gave her a pat-down. And I shut her down and led her away. Later on the plane she admitted it was a dumb thing to do. But they were being unreasonable. (sigh)

She’s home. She’s resting. I’ve got an appointment for her with the family doctor in a little bit.