It has been a bit busy lately. Caring for an elderly parent is both expensive and time-consuming, and mom can be a handful. Add to that her regular doctor was on extended vacation and left a substitute that turned out to be Old School I am God-I Know It all who could not understand that I might know more about my mother’s condition than his 5 minute perusal over her files would ever do. But when your mother is not covered by any insurance, you cannot be too choosy.

Seriously, why do doctors have such a difficult time absorbing the concept of quality of life? Mom is 86 years old  and had transient ischemic attack last September 2 weeks before Hurricane Maria. She was taken to a hospital,  checked up and down and she was OK. But her blood pressure although very much down from the original TMI attack, would not come down to what the doctor’s wanted. When I heard the docs wanting to keep her another day, I warned the doctors that even she looked calm, mom hates anything medical and hospitals and that was what was keeping her BP high.  We finally won the battle and she was allowed to go home where I proceeded to check her BP: a 15 drive dropped her numbers 20 points. Almost 2 weeks later, Hurricane Maria graced us with her presence and even with that fucking monster threatening us, mom’s BP did not spike.  She is happy and calm at home.

This last doctor? She let him have it. When he asked about having her do a colonoscopy, she ripped him a new one reminding him that those things are very uncomfortable and that the last one she had left her in pain for weeks. And there is no way that she would ever do one again. She closed with “I feel good and I just wanna die in peace.” I looked at the doctor , smiled and told him we would sign a waiver so he would be off the hook.

On the way back home, Mom spent at least 10 minutes criticizing the substitute doc and although she did not use salty language (OK, she did use “pendejo”) the poor guy’s ears must have been on fire. Damn, this woman on Twitter would give a lot of people a run for their money.

So we finished having some coffee (Decaf espresso for her) and now she is watching the Hispanic TV shows that are a mix of Jude Judy and Divorce Court and Maury.

And she is safe and  content which is about the only thing as a son I can give her.