[208/366] oh mom...
Jul. 26th, 2020 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistSkyped my parents this evening.
They talked about the weather (I was sitting outside, so Mom asked "Is this the first nice day you've had there?" and I had no idea what to say to that but I think maybe I complain about Manchester's weather too much, or else her memories of it as a place she expects to be exactly the same as where she left and, since they visit in the spring and summer, this means she never packs warm enough clothes despite me having learned to warn her several times; she always says she knows but then she shivers her way through her vacations here) and all kinds of other small-talk boring stuff before she mentioned what soudned like just another:
"I did something to my knee a couple weeks ago, and then I think I aggravated it last weekend," and I'm maintaining a look of polite interest but then she says "and on Thursday I guess something snapped in it..." And, all out of order, she tells me a story about visiting her friend B and when "something snapped" in her knee she fell and couldn't stand and drove the hour home ("luckily it's my left knee, so I could drive!" she said to my increasing horror) after calling my dad to say she was leaving early and they had to go to the hospital when she got back (his response was apparently "What did you did this time?" heh; it's exactly two years since she broke her ankle...), she still can't walk at all and has to use a wheelcahir even around the house, and at the end she just casually said they're going to have to do surgery on it once they find out what exactly is wrong since she can't get an MRI done on it until tomorrow...
My mom is the best at burying health news but sheesh this is a pretty impressive effort even for her.
They talked about the weather (I was sitting outside, so Mom asked "Is this the first nice day you've had there?" and I had no idea what to say to that but I think maybe I complain about Manchester's weather too much, or else her memories of it as a place she expects to be exactly the same as where she left and, since they visit in the spring and summer, this means she never packs warm enough clothes despite me having learned to warn her several times; she always says she knows but then she shivers her way through her vacations here) and all kinds of other small-talk boring stuff before she mentioned what soudned like just another:
"I did something to my knee a couple weeks ago, and then I think I aggravated it last weekend," and I'm maintaining a look of polite interest but then she says "and on Thursday I guess something snapped in it..." And, all out of order, she tells me a story about visiting her friend B and when "something snapped" in her knee she fell and couldn't stand and drove the hour home ("luckily it's my left knee, so I could drive!" she said to my increasing horror) after calling my dad to say she was leaving early and they had to go to the hospital when she got back (his response was apparently "What did you did this time?" heh; it's exactly two years since she broke her ankle...), she still can't walk at all and has to use a wheelcahir even around the house, and at the end she just casually said they're going to have to do surgery on it once they find out what exactly is wrong since she can't get an MRI done on it until tomorrow...
My mom is the best at burying health news but sheesh this is a pretty impressive effort even for her.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-27 01:08 pm (UTC)This makes a lot of sense; I sometimes wonder how people react to temporary illness or injury in a way that's so bafflingly counter-productive or unkind...and then I remember they don't have the benefit of knowing all the disabled people I know, all the different ways to think about things and do things.
Even what feel to me like simple things, like "being in as much pain as you can possibly tolerate is draining all your energy," which I learned from crip friends, would make such a diffrence to my mom who thinks of herself as a person who recovers slowly but also is encouraged every time she's prescribed prescription pain meds (like, oh, after almost dying and having a tumorous kidney removed) not to take them and to feel like a failure if she does.
Some of the small-talk stuff was about the visit to B before my mom's knee snapped and it's really sad to hear her talk about her old friend like she is. B had bone marrow cancer, was in a coma after treatment, nearly died, and a few weeks out of hospital my mom is criticizing her for not doing things like cooking or walking around more than necessary, that my mom insists she can do. And I mean it's possible that her friend is a layabout, but my instinct these days is always to give people much more benefit of the doubt than my parents do when they tell me about what other ill/disabled people can or can't do.
I still think of my dad criticizing my grandma who doesn't like to go out for meals since she lost most of her sight, because she worries that she makes a mess eating, and he said (not to her, luckily, but to me which is bad enough I think) "you don't need to see your mouth to eat!" There's just no understanding there, no attempt to address the problems my grandma (or my mom's friend, or anyone) might actually be having. Especially if these problems include emotions, which my family and their whole culture are terrible at. But of course my grandma is going to feel self-conscious, of course my mom's friend B is going to be scared or wary of doing things after nearly dying, when she isn't getting a lot of support from her family (and of course none from the goernment becasue the U.S. is a nightmare country).
But I can't make my parents see this, so I just do lots of non-commital nods and making "mmm" noises that they will take as me agreeing with them when they talk like this.