It’s Tuesday night and I needed my beauty sleep.  I wasn’t going to work the next morning but I was taking Mom to the doctor’s office for her skin cancer surgery.  Usually I hear Jake if he whines but not at two something in the morning, it takes quite a commotion to wake me up, I’m in my REM sleep, sleeping, soundly.  A commotion is just what I got.  I went from sweet slumber to hyper alert hysteria in the blink of a once sleeping eye.  It was Randy, “Becky! Jake’s whining!!.”  Realizing there was no earthquake or home  invasion going on, I slid out of bed and mechanically shuffled to the bathroom to fill up the dog bowl so Jake could have his drink that he had snubbed before bed.  It’s always a drink he wants during the night, nothing else seems to be important enough to raise his head from the blanket.

As I made it back to the crate and sat the bowl down and Jake began lapping, agitation set in.  “Don’t be yelling at me!” I yelled to my husband lying motionless in the bed, undisturbed.  Once Jake was satisfied and ready for me to get the bowl out of his way so he could get some sleep, I thought I better make my nightly trip to the bathroom even though it usually occurs much later in the night.  Coming back to bed the agitation hadn’t worn off yet.  “You could try waking me up without startling the crap out of  me!”  I guess I thought if I sounded mean and hateful enough it would make me sleep better.  Randy muttered something in response but I couldn’t make it out.  I didn’t ask him to repeat it, he might have done a better job at being mean and hateful than me and I wasn’t having any of that.

By morning I was over the night’s events, glad to have them behind me.  I got up at 6 with Randy, tended to all of Jake’s needs, kissed my man and headed out to pick up Mom, coffee mug in hand.  Mom strolled out the back door looking fairly alert but I noticed her shirt was only half buttoned.  I sighed and smiled.  My mom is so cute.  As soon as she opened the door to get in beside me I said in my best sweet and patient, daughterly tone “Mom, did you know your shirt isn’t buttoned?”  She answered very quick and nonchalant-like.  “Oh yea! I always wait til the last minute to put this shirt on so I don’t spill anything on it!  I thought I would just finish buttoning it in here!”  Ok, so much for my willingness to doubt my mother’s cognitive skills, she will probably still  be playing along with the Jeopardy contestants long after I’m in the wing for patients with dementia!

The Oklahoma Cancer Specialists are located close to Bass Pro Shop.  After surviving morning rush hour traffic, we pulled into the parking lot with time to spare.  The receptionist took Mom’s name and she was quickly called back.  We learned that the doctor would take off a layer of the area on her nose and forehead with the cancer, test it in the lab, and continue the process until there were no more cancer cells.  With each layer testing I could go back with her while she waited.   After the usual Q&A with the nurse and picture taking of the spots to be worked on she told me it was about time to start and I left with Mom’s purse.

With very little time spent on my grooming regimen before I left the house, I went straight from the waiting room to the women’s restroom by the fourth floor elevators to put on a little more makeup and have a look at my hair.  Closing the door, I looked around for a hook to hang Mom’s tiny purse on.  No hook.  I knew my mom would not want me to set her purse on the floor so I eyed the sink, it was nice and dry, perfect!  I sat it down; the next few seconds were a flurry of chaos.

Eager to unload some of the baggage I was carrying including my purse with my tablet in it, I hadn’t noticed the sink had an automatic faucet and it gushed water out as soon as I sat the purse down in it.  In my panic I dropped my purse on the floor, yelled something, I don’t remember what exactly, but it started with “OH NO!”, and I scrambled to get Mom’s trapped little purse out from under the waterfall.  Suddenly I was a little girl again and I could see I was headed for a scolding and a spanking after this!  I had to get her phone and key fob out and fast!  The electronic dispenser could not roll the paper towels out fast enough.  Once the phone and key fob were snatched out and inspected my panic eased a bit and I laid them aside since they appeared dry.  Thank God.  After I got the dispenser to give up a few more towels I spread them on the floor and dumped the contents of the purse onto them.  And then I spotted the familiar looking bank envelopes, yes envelopes, pleural, there were more than one.  That could only mean one thing, cash.   Who carries wads of cash anymore?!  Mom, that’s who!  Oh no, surely this wasn’t happening to me!  While I was peeling the soaked bills out and layering them in between even more towels someone tried to get into the bathroom two separate times; I’m sure with the towel dispenser running nonstop they quickly walked away fearing what might be inside.

The book of checks only had a wet corner, whew.  Finally I had most of the water sopped up leaving only the paper things and the phone case wet.  By the time I left the restroom her little purse looked like a gift bag with tissue paper sticking out of it because I had stuffed so many paper towels in it so it they would soak up the remaining moisture.  I skulked back to the waiting room wondering how I was going to explain the happenings to Mom.  I was also wishing I had had a pair of Depends on before entering the restroom and facing the ambush.

Mom was a real sport, she even thought the whole thing was funny!  No scolding, no spanking!  She’s the best mom ever.  She stopped by the restroom on the ground floor while I went to get the car.  I urged caution against using the robotic sink for anything other than washing her hands.

The nice doctor and nurses awarded Mom’s endurance of the super painful deadening shots with a huge bandage on her nose and forehead and a little ice pack.  The pack was still hard so we found a pharmacy store and I got her some of those instant ice packs.  As we were leaving she pulled down the visor to get a gander at herself while figuring out how to strategically place the pack in the right spot.  She said she looked like a hawk with a big beak.  Luckily it would be coming off in two days.

On virtually every trip we take to the Tulsa area, Zoe’s Kitchen and the Goodwill store in Glenpool are must dos but Mom wasn’t feeling it so we left the big city and retreated back to our rural surroundings.  Back at her house we had a sandwich with John and she expressed to him her dislike of the whole hawk beak thing.  He told her it was better to have the beak than to have kept what was underneath.  She didn’t seem to take a whole lot of comfort in that.  I had a feeling it was going to be a long two days.  Since my brother Danny and his wife Carol will be doing the return trip with her to get the bandages removed, I probably should warn them of the trap awaiting them should they need to go to the restroom.

 

Mom’s after picture.