To The Moon

I am kind of peeved.  My schedule has been thrown out the window because Baby Sister Itty Bitty is sick again….which means I don’t get fed on time, walked on time, cuddled on time.  The list goes on and on and on.

 

Now I know, it sounds selfish (who, me?) but I have always been upfront about not wanting to share. I get it, I get it, Itty Bitty doesn’t choose her lot in life but still I want her to consider, how like a pebble, thrown in the lake, she creates tiny waves in the ocean of life that turn in to tsunamis, sweeping us all along like driftwood.

In any case, you know Momma.  She is all about sharing, especially good stories and wherever she goes (quite often the wrong way down a one way street) she always sees, hears, feels stories to bring home to me that even I am sceptical if they ever happened. She tries to stick to the truth, especially since there is never a need to exaggerate Itty Bitty’s health but it is the fringe stories that leave me wondering.

Like Itty Bitty was assigned to SAZ – say what, she asked the nurse?  Why, the Streamline Assessment Zone.  Like what does that mean, Momma?  If you weren’t in a car accident, a bar fight, did not get caught up in drive by shooting, did not have a fever, a heart attack but there was just something odd about you, suffering from hypothermia (but you had not been outside), can’t string words together, can remember what happened yesterday but today was a write off, apparently you need a zone, a streamlined assessment zone.  Momma loved the nurse assigned to Itty Bitty, a true Florence Nightingale, (although knowing today’s youth, she probably wouldn’t know who that was, but Beyoncé, or Adele she’d know, guaranteed). Who cares? She was great.

Itty Bitty was seen by a legion of doctors, interns, doctors in training,  and specialists, all crowded in to a small cubicle, anxious to see the results of a juvenile diabetic with low kidney function, who had been subjected to heart attacks, stents, open heart surgery, strokes.  You name it, not one of her body parts function normally for a person of her age. So she needed blood tests, ECG, X-rays, CT Scans and of course, a MRI, the one that Momma waits at least six months for but not Itty Bitty, she always moves to the front of the line.

Once the results trickled in, Itty Bitty was moved to the Neurology Floor and literally, not to a room but to the floor.  Her bed was positioned right in front of the nurse’s station. It is worth noting that at school the teachers positioned her right in front of their desks, to keep an eye on her – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Momma claims she saw things she longs to forget – like the 50ish woman, who was wailing her son was dying and no one would help.  No, they were too busy staring at her.  She wore low rider tight jeans on her ample butt – only problem was, she had a mid drift sweater so the full moon was rising.  No one knew if she even had a son….

One patient needed his own Security Guard….a young, handsome Incredible Hulk…he hugged the male attendants but loved the nurses (he said) and picked them up off their feet while the poor skinny Security guy begged him to let the nurses alone…Momma is guessing brain damage has changed this patient’s realities. Lucky, Momma, sitting in front of the Nurse’s station, had a front row view. Although she tried to avert her eyes, she couldn’t.  She was as helpless as a rubber necker at the scene of tragic accident.  Then all of a sudden, the party got too friendly. Three of the Hospital’s guards came running with the Head of Security, in hot pursuit, to put the fire out.   Who know what even goes on in our own normal brain? All in day of the life of Momma…..

Momma claims she had a little talk with Itty Bitty, who has trouble stringing words but can nod her head.  She asked did Itty Bitty think she was collecting Frequent Flyer points, the amount of times she has admitted in the hospital in the past year.  If that was the case, Itty Bitty could stop anytime because she probably already had enough points to fly to the moon and back….but you know Itty Bitty, she is all about the points.