Chapter 167 - Changing Plans

I had intended we travel north to Cane Toad Land for my mother's 88th birthday due soon. We are both rather concerned about the Pig Flu scare, unwarranted I'm sure, yet we are neither keen to travel. She fears any sort of ill health that will upset the stability of her medication and I am simply not enthusiastic anymore. We had intended to stay in motels rather than the van which needs some maintenance before we use it again so I procrastinate. Then a couple of days ago I was disabled with a gut problem, I suspect, from handling garden fertiliser (the stuff full of excrement from cloven hoofed & feathered beasts). I tell myself that I did not retire to garden so it's my own fault. Then while embroidering an image of Emerald Lake, BC, Canada, I recalled memories of a painful, stressful, less than satisfactory train trip across Canada in 2004 (when the photo of Emerald Lake was taken). That was the trip on which we discovered panic attacks, beginning our first night in Vancouver. I now appreciate, now that she is no longer plagued with those symptoms (well, not quite so noticeably perhaps yet her stress threshold has difficulties coping even now) how she may have felt, forever being driven to meet tour schedules and seeing breath-taking sites when her mind and body must have ached to crawl into a dark warm space away from crowds and vehicles. That morning at Emerald Lake I remember encouraging her to walk with me a short distance from the coach along a path near the lake, just for the exercise, and I took some pictures, one being the rowing boat with the lake & mountains as backdrop that I embroidered this week. And I remembered all those other times when travelling, that Canada trip as well as all the others, when she felt miserable and I nagged her to show interest in views, scenes and whatever. So I am now discouraged and depressed.

Early in the week while having a toe job done she drew the attention of the chiropodist to a small black mark beneath the nail of her index toe (if we have "index fingers" why not toes?) on her right foot. He suggested she keep an eye on it for no more than a month by which time, if only a mark, it will have moved forward, otherwise, to have it checked by her doctor. When we arrived home I took macro close-ups of the mark so that her Caring Physician can see it better when she sees him next week (was meant to be last Thursday but she was bumped). And of course, she searched the Big-Library-in-the-Sky to discover that it is common for people with a history of melanoma to have more appear beneath finger & toe nails. I have not researched the matter so can only say "Why the hell should that happen?"

Long time friends of ours passed through early in the week on their way to the recent big water in the Centre and other places north & west. Yesterday a message on the answering machine that other friends had just returned from Ireland. She expresses little interest.

Had I mentioned that the ladies at her KYB group had changed the meeting time from morning to afternoon so that she could attend when she is more able to cope? Last Tuesday the time clashed with the toe job and I noticed her struggling with those dogmatic questions a few nights ago. Just more stress.

In the previous chapter I forgot to mention her stress at Central. The toilets on the country concourse are being re-conditioned (as they were on our last visit) so we had to go to the lower suburban concourse. She was happy to use the escalator rather than go back through the ticket gates to the lift. When I stepped onto the escalator to guide her I found it travelling several times normal speed, she froze at the top, refused to step on. Fortunately her cousin remained with her. An attendant guided them around to the lift, which was out of order, so she had to be assisted down another escalator.

She remains keen on Wii Fit which after about 60 days has turned into a bit of a chore for me. We bought a hula hoop to help her learn how to rotate her hips for that exercise but since I am unable to make the real thing rotate in order to show her how to do it, we wasted $9.