Where things are now …
Ok, so today, hopefully Mom will finally get to move out of ICU into a regular room. That is a big step toward getting her rehab moving along, both just the regular post-cardiac surgery rehab and whatever extra stuff needs to be done to deal with the additional obstacles she’s needed to overcome to get to this point.
Yesterday, Sunday May 10, I was able to get downtown for a quick visit. My Aunt Rhoda & Uncle Noel were also visiting, down from Mpls Mn. As we could only have 2 visitors at a time in the room, I kept my visit extra brief to allow them to maximize their Mom. She was totally alert, expressive, speaking in a very faint (esp. over all the machines and hospital noise) rasp, making it more a case of lip reading. Thankfully Marissa’s quite good at it, as I was not quite so quick on the lip uptake.
I brought a Mother’s day card, which brought a genuine grin to her face, as did other commentary. She was able to show off her latest “tricks”, tapping her fingers one at a time to her thumb, even with her left hand. Folks she did it as fast as anyone would do it. She even has mastered giving THE finger. She can haz self expression! She said that she felt it was important. I couldn’t agree more. No one can mess with her w/out them knowing where she stands on what they’re doing.
She is able to move her arms much more accurately now, scratch her nose, handle suctioning out her own mouth when she coughs, ringing the buzzer if she needs help too. These are the skills that matter greatly in her next step of recovery.
After that short visit, I went out to spend a few minutes with Rhoda & Noel, as Mom needed a lil nap. After that, they went in for a bit, got punted when the nurses had to do some stuff, so I got in a nice lil fragmented visit with them as well, double plus good!
Afterward, I went to the hospital garage to drive home. And then the real adventure to the day began.
Zippy wouldn’t start. Key turns, lights on, solenoid clicks, but nothing. Called the garage office, as they offer free jumps. Still nothing. Called Pops and he came down w/some tools to see if it was the battery posts being corroded again, but that didn’t work either.
So then we went through the multi phone call process of finding a tow company that would come down on Mother’s Day Sunday, with a truck that was under 7 feet tall to take Zippy to a nearby garage for repair. The tow guy had to back Zippy out of the space in neutral to get him in the aisle so he could lift Zippy up on the forks. No power brakes made it a lil more difficult than usual, but not too bad. Thankfully the garage manager and I had been communicating all through this, so he let us all out w/out paying extra, that saved us prolly 50 bucks right there (my dad’s truck, the tow truck and extra fees for the extra time I was there).
The repair garage, which is open till midnight (cabs came and went while I was there, as you can imagine), was bare bones, well stocked and looked good to my eyes. To those of you that don’t know, for about 5 years we, and I do mean we, as the funds for my college and Marissa’s went into the business, owned a Milex auto shop. Spent my tweens and some of my teens in a garage on the weekends. Anyhow, it was the starter motor as I suspected, well as we all did. They drove up to a part shop on the far north side, actually I think right in my neighborhood, and once they got back had it installed in about 20 minutes. Zippy started right up.
So a simple trip downtown cost an extra $325.00, but in the big picture, Mom’s doing better, Marissa’s doing better, I know Rhoda’s feeling better having been here to see Mom w/her own eyes, and Zippy’s better and ready to roll. I prefer issues that can be resolved, vs. ones you can’t do jack stuffing about, even if it makes a 2 – 3 hour trip turn into a 9 hour adventure.
I don’t call myself the Master of Disaster w/out reason I tell ya.
**please see the previous post and comment section for background on what lead up to Mom’s current condition**
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Madame Maracas' Blaaagh 