My mother has seen 83 years on this earth and this Kushner of a year does not really faze her. I guess growing up in Great Britain after the war (and I mean THE war) gives you a little perspective. Don’t get me wrong, 2020 hasn’t exactly been a peach pie for her either. In fact, mom will see YOUR 2020 and raise you a wee smidge of cancer. Throw on top of it that her daily routine now includes Ensure protein shakes and I think we can all agree we can quit bitchin about OUR 2020.
The latest episode of Nana vs. The Year includes her home caregiver getting exposed to Covid a few days before the sitter’s (last-for-a-while!) shift with my mom two weeks ago. What an impossible situation. A twenty-something caregiver who is probably taking all sorts of reasonable precautions except for just being twenty-something. I don’t, at this point, see how someone in their twenties doesn’t just assume every single friend is a super spreader. I mean…read the news. Forget “Millennial”. this generation is going to be known as Gen Pandem.
Seriously, mom’s caregiver got exposed on Saturday, got notified of the exposure on Friday and started showing symptoms on Sunday, putting mom’s Thursday afternoon visit smack dab in the middle of the Covid superhighway. Which means my poor grey-haired mother just earned herself a stiff Q-tip to the brain.
When my sister Nic took her to the urgent care, they initially didn’t want to test mom because she’s apparently been showing symptoms of Covid since 2015. Trouble breathing? Check. Fatigue? Check. Body aches? Check. I guess “chronic symptomatic” is the same thing as “asymptomatic” and it seems like either way, we should just do the goddamn test. Somehow my sister managed to talk them into it….maybe when she told them all about the terribly productive smokers’ cough mom suffered in the exam room just before the doctor entered.
Luckily, my oldest sister and I were on a constant text string with Nic as all this was going down. Nic went first and we could tell by the curse words her test was complete. Nic’s next text said “now it’s mom’s turn and it’s not going well”. And then we didn’t hear another word for 56 minutes.
Based on the prolonged silence, I was pretty sure my mother had Burnt. That. Place. To. The. Ground. Did it go so poorly that mom had to be admitted to the hospital before they could finish the test?? Or more likely... did the person on the other end of that Q-tip require hospitalization? I would not bet against my mother, even with a Q-tip up her nose.
Fortunately, my sister did eventually text to tell us mom was enjoying her post-testing McNuggets. I guess when you can’t feel your throat anyway you might as well dump some chicken-like substance down it. I really don’t know how those doctors convinced my mom to let them stick that q-tip up her nose. Nic can barely get a blood pressure cuff on her. And while I'm sure a cuff can get a tad bit uncomfortable, I am nonetheless certain that a bit of pressure on your arm is a damn spot less invasive than a q-tip the size of a conductor’s baton going up your nose.
Of course, I can only joke about it now because mom’s test came back negative. Which makes me think that either that caregiver may not be giving ALL that much care to my mom or compared to my mother, Gen Pandems are a bunch of snowflakes.
When I asked mom how her test went she said…”Oh it was fine. But Nic really fussed a lot about hers.”
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