Categories: uncategorized
Date: 13 August 2004 00:46:25
I said goodbye to my houseguests this morning -- they'd been with me off & on for three weeks, I will miss them! --
Then I went to hang about with an older, bedridden churchlady friend for the day. Her contractor husband is basically retired, but he goes several hours most days to work on the little retirement home he's building for the two of them.
Bless her, she's had a hard road -- breast cancer, mastectomy, and persistent infection after that, refusing to heal, needing plastic surgery. She ended up hospitalized or in nursing homes for months, often unconscious. She had her shoulders pulled out of joint by the various staffs moving her during that time. She was quite heavy, and not able to help herself at all during the unconsciousness and weakness. Ended up needing surgery to make the shoulder joints behave. Now, she has limited mobility in her arms. She can write a letter or use a TV remote, she can feed herself, apply make-up... And she is grateful for that much. At first, when she started to recover more than decline a few months ago, she couldn't do anything at all.
So now, she's on a catheter, and uses adult diapers when she hasn't anyone big and strong around to help her with toileting. One nice thing about such a devastating illness is, she's dropped some of her mass. That cannot hurt, now, and maybe it was a good thing back then. Maybe all that reserve body mass that helped her survive the debilitating illnesses she's wrestled with for so long.
I brought along red beans and rice for lunch. She liked that, "home cooking". She can't cook any more, and hubby just barely manages the microwave. Fortunately, she has more churchladies than just me visiting her. We have some of the best cooks I know amongst us. Probably that's why so few in our church are thin.
We talked and talked. She is a bright thing, not a chore to assist at all. I know it's hard for her, being reduced to a bed and a wheelchair. She ran an office for years that had something to do with the United Way and community-based disaster relief. She is still "all there" mentally -- and really, these days, early 70's isn't old. She needs a job she can do from her bed :). Heck, I want a job I can do from my bed. Don't you?
We watched some game shows, and I watched some sci-fi while she napped. I got her lunch for her, and washed up our few dishes, adjusted pillows, stuff like that.
Then I went on home, when her husband was expected home within the half-hour.
I think everyone ought to go serve someone who needs help, from time to time. It's good for you. Makes you appreciate what you have. And it's always nice when the serve-ee, despite those human foibles we all have, is such a congenial person.