Tuesday, August 7, 2018

it was exhausting...

... but very satisfying in a perverse, demented sort of way. I spent the day on Monday hauling my auntie from one appointment to another, in the miserable  unrelenting, blistering south Georgia heat. I've started to wonder, question how people survive in such weather, and think of living in a house that was cooled by an attic fan, with windows open all summer. How did we survive? I guess we just didn't know any better in the days before the marvels of HVAC.

When I got out to the facility where the auntie lives, she was sitting in a chair, with a wheelchair available, so I assumed she could not walk, and needed wheels. I must have completely Lost My Mind as I rolled her out to the car, put the folded chair in the back and carted her around ALL day long in that forty pound piece of weighty equipment.Wrestling and cursing, sweating and swearing all day, time after time, as I struggled to fold and insert it back into  my car.

The auntie had three places she had to be in the course of the day on Monday. First we went for a followup visit with the Orthopedic doctor, who put cortisone in her knee about a month ago. The fact that she is actually no longer ambulatory pretty much makes any possibility of joint pain a moot point.  If she isn't walking anyway, not much concern about her knee hurting. Causing me to think that there was not real reason to keep that  appointment that was made  weeks ago. But I thought: if we need to get back in there for some other reason in the future, better we should leave on good terms.

A couple of hours to kill caused me to go to the newly opened community library. An attractive, well appointed spacious facility with lots of empty shelving, so they have room to grow and expand. I was happily typing away, having left the auntie near the entrance where she could observe little people coming in and out, be amused by their antics and activities. She started  shouting after about thirty minutes, loud and disruptive, demanding to leave, so I quickly hustled her out and back to the car.

We killed a little more time as I struggled with the folding chair more getting in and out, her in and out to go to get some fast food lunch. Then on to the second appt. at 1:00. Where the Dr. decided we needed to come back at 2:00 for a chest xray. More in and out, to go to the drug store and get Rx filled, then back to family practice office, before she had to be at a dental appointment at 3:00. Man! That big, awkward wheelchair is a major pain in the butt - but I could not have gotten any thing done without it, as she cannot get around under her own steam at all.

I was hot, cranky and frustrated with that dang (essential) chair, as I wrangled it into the back seat repeatedly, muttering to myself :'I am not doing this again!' I am not doing this again!' While continuing to do it over and over. I actually stopped at a thrift shop to ask if they had transport chairs, with smaller wheels that are much lighter, designed to fold, more compact for travel. No such luck. But they have my number, I'm on the list. I am not doing that again!

No comments:

Post a Comment