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We went earlier in the day to see Snowy yesterday, enough before lunch time that we got a good visit in advance of the meal being served that we didn’t create too much confusion for our darling. She was parked just in the hallway adjacent to the day room and didn’t seem that upset to be there. Her legs were not raised, and I wondered about that.

[I've put in a call to Hospice to see if we can request that their massage therapist add Snowy to her list and massage her poor swollen legs. She so appreciated when I was doing that for her at the beauty parlor.]

Snowy was SO surprised to see us, and it wasn’t the usual gasp and burst into tears of panic & GET ME OUT OF HERE that we’ve had so much of. She does actually seem to be settling better, even though she will still say she wants to be somewhere “home”. But the terror seems to have abated. I feel a bit relieved with that. And as surprised as she felt to see me, she was hugely surprised to see Chick and Dex. No matter how many times we come or how long we stay, she doesn’t actually remember. That’s okay. While we are there, she gets so happy and it soothes and settles her, so no visit is ‘wasted’.

I wheeled her back to her room, of which she said she’d forgotten if she had one. Chick and Dex had zipped on back to set up so we could close the door against the usual baby-wails that Dex usually contributed. This visit he didn’t, actually, and it was greatly enjoyed. Snowy never cares. She is just so entirely captivated by him and the fact of him and the realization that she had lived to see him.

She was far more hesitant to even try to hold him this time, even with my usual help. So I ended up mostly holding him on or next to her when he was taking care of business with his mama. She repeatedly asked how old he was now and a few other short-cycling/repeated questions. But as she got more and more ‘tanked up’ on his essential self, she actually started making some sly, wry jests and comments. She cracked Chick up then and on the way home remembering it about her direction to Dex to be sure he did any burp-ups on his grandmother (me), said with an elbow nudge and a huge wink. We loved having the personality peeking out.

When finally we heard the sounds and inhaled the delicious aroma (and it was yummy smelling) of lunch being served, we rolled Snowy back down to the group and got her positioned for her meal. She was not crying that we were leaving her behind but interested in what was going on. She told me, as she always does, to be careful and safe ‘out there’.

With her more settled manner and Dex’s great timing, Chick and I were both feeling much more peaceful with the visit; no knotted necks or red, tear-swollen eyes; no tension with ‘life’ or each other. We looked at each other and both exhaled in relief.

[The Hospice nurse just called back and told me that Snowy has actually been getting massage work from their massage therapists every 1 to 2 weeks, depending on schedule, for a bit of awhile now. I told her I hadn't known but that I was so grateful since my own experience had shown that it helped her. She asked me if Chick had had the baby yet - she said she has asked Snowy about it several times and Snowy alway looks at her like she doesn't know 'nuttin 'bout no babies'. So, proven before and proven again-- don't count on Snowy for getting your information!]

I planned to drop Chick and Dex off and run do errands, all pretty much related to starting to make some minor repairs to the house before we have to give it up. We ran through a drive-through to pick up a little lunch and Chick insisted I had to come in first and eat it while it was hot. She had a voicemail waiting from Dex’s dr’s office responding to her call the day before about the probability that Dex has some baby GERD (the doc had listed out the symptoms to watch for, which we could apply backwards and analyze). They wanted the name/number of our pharmacy so they could call in his Rx. When she called them back, the service told her that they wouldn’t be back until after 2.

So, we ate and waited; I had agreed to pick up the Rx while I was out and needed to know when it would be called in. I got sucked into a book that is hugely compelling and could barely lift my eyes from it as I turned page after page of the building mystery. Then I thought I should use the time to look online at the websites for Lowe’s and Home Depot to assure which was more likely to have more of what I was searching for. I found that neither carried the part to fix the shelf in the freezer (plastic piece that broke from having ingredients wedged in, BUT I was able to narrow in finally on what I needed to fix it, different from what I thought, and found that I could order it online from a couple of sources for $6-8 dollars).

The exchange of information had been made about the pharmacy (we loves ya’, Walgreens!), so knowing the order was in process, I headed out. I had to get to the bank before 4 to deposit the check from my first depletion of the 401-k (less the 20% the fund manager had to send to the government), then to the cat food specialty store and the vet for the 2 different kinds of cat food I need for my tribe), then on to Lowe’s to do most of my hunting. Between the vet’s and Lowe’s, the threatening storm had finally begun and I got pelted with some pretty heavy drops as I raced from the car to the entrance.

Inside, I stuck pretty strictly to following the order of  the list even though it had me marching back and forth, up and down looking and looking. I was fortunate that when I couldn’t find things on my own I was able to get direction and advice from the great sales folks. That doesn’t always happen everywhere.  

I could not resist also getting some lengthening chains and sparkly pulls to put on Dex’s “best friend, Mr. Ceiling Fan” to bring it closer to his eye view. He spends lots and lots of times looking up at the one in the den with his arms reaching out to it, gazing at it, cooing to it. I couldn’t help getting the enhancements to give him more to marvel over.

I had heard the storm really revving up while inside. The thunder boomed and the downpour hit the roof with quite a clatter. As I headed outside after checking out, it was pretty much torrential. I had been lucky enough to get a parking space not terribly far away, and I grabbed my bag, the 2 blinds boxes, and the plastic gas can tucked in to me and headed into the wet.

Halfway across the driveway I felt the loss of my balance and had no control as I went down, hard, onto my knees and hands on the hard pavement. “OWWWWWW!” I yelled out involuntarily. I couldn’t make my limbs work to get up. In the next nanosecond I had a flash of fear that a car might be coming down the drive and wouldn’t notice me. I flinched and felt a tiny bit of expectation and anticipated embarrassment that people would be rushing out to help me. 

No cars. No people. I lay folded there in the roadway getting soaked and feeling the burning pain in my knees. What a metaphor, I thought. I almost had to chuckle at that. I sighed and begin trying to rock from side to side until I could get something going with my hands and legs and finally get up and limp over to the car.

“Ow ow ow ow ow,” I chanted. “This sucks.” But I got things stowed away, got in the car and shut the door and pulled my pants legs up to examine my knees. I feared gashes rips, and dripping blood, but it was only the soaked water rolling down my shins. The damage was thankfully not ‘external’ other than a bit of redness. The shock was to the innards, especially the one I broke and had surgery on about 6 years ago (the horse-shower story). I sat and breathed for a few minutes to get my nerves calmed back down.

Damned MS. This is how it chooses to manifest when it wants to remind me that I am not free of it even with long periods of only the invisible symptoms in play (the fatigue and such). But when it wants to give me a kick in the pants, it gives me a kick in the pants — causing me to fall out (and down) at Wells, England, as I was on my journey to Glastonbury Tor, in the parking lot of a Birmingham hotel where I’d gone for a CLE seminar, at the top of the MARTA station in Atlanta, walking in our neighborhood with Chick in Tuscaloosa. 

Now, here we were again, my sneaky ‘buddy’ and me. Oy.

When I was breathing normally again (I really had freaked about the sense of a car coming at me, but was another mind trick), I cranked up and headed to finish the errands — picking up Dex’s 1st ever Rx, getting gas for the car and putting a couple of gallons in the new gas can so I can use it to operate the pressure washer (at some point, when it stops raining for days on end!).

Chick and Dex and Charlie welcomed me home (the tribe, too, when I took the new stock-up of kitty food in to them). Chick was concerned with my fall and urged me to take some faux-tylenol. I did and just had to sit  down and wait for the aches and pains to develop and join me. They were not shy, and here I am today, feeling the effects of the smashed knees and the jarring of my bones. I will be fine, given time. That’s just the way it goes.