Sunday, October 19, 2014

flight of the baby boomer

I am by no means in this parent thing alone, and most of us are struggling to care for our elders while still tied to kids who can't afford to be on their own due to the shitty economy and job market. BG is a dishwasher/everything gal at a local restaurant and gets less than 40 hours a week at minimum wage but "it's a job." That's our mantra! I'm up to my eyeballs with loan sharks but we're trying to fix this mess together. All one can do is the next right thing. For me that included staying with Mom while Daddy went to church this morning. She was sleeping like the dead until I started rambling through the junk room upstairs (where the big window fan used to be) and chunking empty boxes. I swear there were about FIFTY empty light bulb packages thrown in there on top of the whole mess. I ended up with three boxes full of burnables and promptly lit them on top of my fire pile out front, in spite of the fact that Mama said not to "because it's against the law." Okay then.

I called to check in last night and could tell she had been crying so I asked what was wrong and then heard him yelling in the background about her being on the phone with her childhood friend and I knew what was up. I asked her if she wanted me to come down there or she come up here to which she replied "Just leave me along Janie!." Hmmm. This morning it was like nothing ever happened with either of them. This is why I don't move in with them because they simply won't have it. Proud, independent and disabled they still are determined to care for each other within those walls. She's doing well with a walker and will pick up speed once she loses the brace which is worrying the fire out of her because the velcro is worn out. And of course I forgot to pick up daddy's allergy extract again because, hey. There's only one of me.

I made Jenny's day at eggs and doughnuts by telling her that the cheesy hash browns she cooked for me were the best I'd ever had. I had to move away from omelettes because they're pretty dang hard on the old gut. The place was literally crawling with people when we got there and barely managed to snag a table next to a bunch of well mannered kids and their parents. The owner's daughter is a student in healthcare and we often chat about what's up in the hospital world. Her specialty is muscles and how they work.

Tomorrow is another Monday which now just seems to morph into another and another with weekends and days off flying by in a whirlwind of activity. As bad as I'd like a Sugardaddy, I don't think I could squeeze him in right now. I keep dreaming about the beach in Destin as if I'll ever get there again and it makes me sad. This whole Ebola deal has turned into hysteria with a capital H and while I can understand how non-healthcare folks would be alarmed it's all in a day's work for those of us who are on the front lines. I read a piece about how a couple of companies spent millions of $$ from the NIH to develop a vaccine and the money ran out a couple of years ago. In my opinion, the process to have a drug or vaccine developed and approved is one of the biggest obstacles to public health safety. And who's in charge of that? You guessed it...the feds.

I was involved in an incident recently where someone had an adverse reaction to something they really didn't need and almost died. So much of medicine today is CYA by over ordering diagnostics and meds. I wonder how Marcus Welby made it without all that technology. I barely remember doctors making house calls when I was a child but I never got one. I was born in the Baird Brewer hospital that would later serve as my grandmother's real estate business and doctor's offices. There was one of those old timey elevators that looked like a cage and an old guy named Herman ran it up and down the three floors. Daddy's USDA office was in the basement next to a beauty shop. A new hospital opened in 1958 and I've worked there for 37 years.

So, how's y'all's mama'n'them?

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