CindyM
Moderator emeritus
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2006
- Messages
- 3,556
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Country
- US
- State
- New England
- City
- Anytown
My body has taken on a mind of its own. This makes even the most mundane task interesting, to say the least. Hands and feet that once obeyed commands effortlessly now agree to cooperate, only to fumble the job, sometimes to the point of negligence.
This is never more evident than when I am visiting my daughter and her family, who live in the Denver area. I think the thin air and the fact that I usually take the cheap (read: red-eye) flights have something to do with it. At any rate, taking our grandchildren on a tour of the candy factory was an adventure. I was in charge of the two year old and the stroller, which means I spent a lot of energy getting him in and out of the thing whenever he wanted to look through the big picture windows to see the factory in operation. By the time we got to the factory store, I was maneuvering the stroller right into fellow customers and/or fragile displays of ribbon candy.
I have decided that one should go home at that point. A person really should get some rest when she starts becoming a nuisance. But this is Christmas, I was in Denver with the babies, and I didn’t want to rest. So off we went to a mall.
Once again they put me in charge of the toddler and his stroller, except that now the little boy wanted to walk. One does not reason with a tired two year old. So I took his hand, grabbed the stroller with my free hand, and proceeded to march. Did I mention that walking is a bit more complicated these days? I must remember to pick up my right foot high enough so that my toe does not drag, I must remember to make sure my thigh muscles will accept my weight when I ask them to, and now I was doing all this while negotiating my precious grandson through a mall parking lot a week before Christmas.
And I was asking my weakest hand to the heavier work of pushing the stroller, thinking that if I lost control of anything in the middle of a busy parking lot, that thing had better be something replaceable, as opposed to my pride and joy.
The poor stroller. I rammed it into a couple of light poles and the side of at least one store, and when my daughter noticed that fellow shoppers were at risk she lost patience just a little bit.
“Mom!” She exclaimed, “You almost walked right into that lady!”
I looked around at the stream of foot traffic and said, “Well, why can’t they watch out for me?” Then I hit upon both the reason for this and a solution: they didn’t expect to have to steer clear of me! They had no clue how risky it is to be around me these days.
“I know what I need,” I declared, “I need some sort of tee shirt with a warning printed on it. It could say something like: beware! Confused elderly person ambulating. Proceed at your own risk.”
Jen is a warm and funny woman, and she didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’ll get you a shirt with writing on it, all right,” she vowed. “I won’t say what it will be, but rest assured everyone will notice you!”
Now that is how to handle an ALS incident!
This is never more evident than when I am visiting my daughter and her family, who live in the Denver area. I think the thin air and the fact that I usually take the cheap (read: red-eye) flights have something to do with it. At any rate, taking our grandchildren on a tour of the candy factory was an adventure. I was in charge of the two year old and the stroller, which means I spent a lot of energy getting him in and out of the thing whenever he wanted to look through the big picture windows to see the factory in operation. By the time we got to the factory store, I was maneuvering the stroller right into fellow customers and/or fragile displays of ribbon candy.
I have decided that one should go home at that point. A person really should get some rest when she starts becoming a nuisance. But this is Christmas, I was in Denver with the babies, and I didn’t want to rest. So off we went to a mall.
Once again they put me in charge of the toddler and his stroller, except that now the little boy wanted to walk. One does not reason with a tired two year old. So I took his hand, grabbed the stroller with my free hand, and proceeded to march. Did I mention that walking is a bit more complicated these days? I must remember to pick up my right foot high enough so that my toe does not drag, I must remember to make sure my thigh muscles will accept my weight when I ask them to, and now I was doing all this while negotiating my precious grandson through a mall parking lot a week before Christmas.
And I was asking my weakest hand to the heavier work of pushing the stroller, thinking that if I lost control of anything in the middle of a busy parking lot, that thing had better be something replaceable, as opposed to my pride and joy.
The poor stroller. I rammed it into a couple of light poles and the side of at least one store, and when my daughter noticed that fellow shoppers were at risk she lost patience just a little bit.
“Mom!” She exclaimed, “You almost walked right into that lady!”
I looked around at the stream of foot traffic and said, “Well, why can’t they watch out for me?” Then I hit upon both the reason for this and a solution: they didn’t expect to have to steer clear of me! They had no clue how risky it is to be around me these days.
“I know what I need,” I declared, “I need some sort of tee shirt with a warning printed on it. It could say something like: beware! Confused elderly person ambulating. Proceed at your own risk.”
Jen is a warm and funny woman, and she didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’ll get you a shirt with writing on it, all right,” she vowed. “I won’t say what it will be, but rest assured everyone will notice you!”
Now that is how to handle an ALS incident!
