Nothing like...

... being so busy with a patient that you don't notice the demented lady pull silently up to the doorway in her wheelchair, only to let out a blood-curdling scream directed at you.

"Excuse me, spare some Depends? Oh, and a couple wipes please. No. Not for her. For ME."

It was like that idiotic video floating around on the internet. You know, the one where you're supposed to watch the video and suddenly a scary face pops up and screams its head off at you.

Not all dementia patients are like a Starbucks redeye with a meth chaser. Some are better than a Hallmark card and flowers delivered to you at work, though. I went into the wrong room trying to locate a patient once and was greeted by the nicest little old Alzheimers patient I'd ever met. Her face lit up when she saw me walk in. She held both of my hands and told me she loved me "so much". Then she hugged me and rubbed my back. Being in the throes of PMS it was the nicest thing that had happened to me that week, and I truly didn't want to leave. I wanted to sit and hang out with this little old lady I'd never met before. Have her hug me and rub my back some more. Maybe have some tea and cookies.

I sure could use some tea and cookies today. Played softball for the first time this season, yesterday. That first inning at 3rd base was ugly, and captured on film no less. Notice none of them are posted. That is deliberate. However, I had a few good hits and made up for the first inning's fumbles. Today I'm so sore from head to toe that I am fully convinced that I could get myself beach-body ripped by merely throwing a ball and swinging a bat several times, followed by a couple short sprints. Either that or I'm getting old.

a little peek into my life

Sometimes motivation just falls right into your lap.

Remember a few posts ago, when I lamented my fluffiness and said I needed to start running again?

Motivation has rung my doorbell and left a flaming bag of poop at the doorstep.

We've found a IPMBA instructor to teach the certification course for our bike team. However, we'll have to pass a physical beforehand which includes body fat analysis and a treadmill stress test. My plan is to kick ass on both. I'm not bragging, but hey. I have to be truthful. I can kick anyone's ass at body fat right now. In fact, I've got some to spare in case one of the guys is underfat.

But seriously. I'm sure I could do passably on the treadmill test in my current condition. But since I'm going to win the body fat contest so handily, I figure I should kick everyone's ass at the treadmill test as well. Everyone. Even the 21 year old. Especially the 21 year old. I want that instructor to shake her head and say to herself, "Daaaaaaamn. The fat chick outran all of them!"
More importantly, I want the guys to all go home crying because a chunky 37 year old woman pwnd them on the stress test.

Hello motivation.

Change in physical status, huh?

We very commonly get calls for "change in mental status". Usually means someone is just not acting like themselves, for any number of reasons. Today, one of the nursing homes called with a "change in physical status". WTF? One of the responding crew asks the dispatcher if that was supposed to be a change in mental status. Nope. Change in physical status. Oh, and she's a liver patient. They arrive and find that the patient has indeed had a change in status. Celestial status to be exact. She's a hospice patient who died, and the nursing home wants the medic to pronounce her.

If they had used the euphemism "assuming room temperature" maybe we'd have understood each other.

On the one hand...

.. this isn't a blog about my mom.

On the other hand, she keeps popping back up in my life, through the memories of others who knew and loved her.

First, at a funeral for a very elderly woman, to whom I am not even distantly related. Or a friend of the family. I went as a professional courtesy for a member of our board of directors. So you'd expect me to be only vaguely acquainted with one person in that whole place - the board member. Lo and behold, who do I see across the room as soon as I step into the viewing area? (By the way, is that still called a "parlor"? As in funeral parlor?) Anyway. It's my aunt and uncle that I haven't seen for at least 20 years. Florida must be good to them, because they both look just the same. And apparently I look exactly like my mother when she was my age.
"You're just the very picture of your mother!", they all exclaimed. And I am. I've definitely got her eyes. And (thanks mom and grampap!) the familial thinning hair in the back. I still remember my mom, trying to see the back of her head with 2 mirrors, asking us "is my spot showing?". Mom could have definitely made good use of my 3-mirror vanity. Gives great back and side views. But I digress. This isn't about our shared thinning hair. Though I do still hold that against our gene pool.

Today I had to take an ambulance down to my personal mechanic to have them take a quick look at the a/c. My family has known the family that runs this garage for, well.. forever it seems. As I was getting ready to back the ambulance out one of the owners was telling me what I needed to do to test the a/c when I got back. He stopped smack in the middle of a sentence and just smiled at me. Then he apologized, and told me that when he looks at me he sees my mom, and I look so much like her with my brown eyes and shiny round apple cheeks. And that talking with me is so much like talking with her. He apologized again and continued with business.

Many people do that. Apologize when they remind me of her. As if I don't think of her all the time, anyway. So much of my personality is literally derived from her DNA. You couldn't separate us if you tried. And no apology is necessary. I am truly honored to hear from others how much I remind them of her. It sounds cliche, but she was the kind of person who was loved and admired by everyone who met her. The kind of person whose funeral viewing was so packed that there were people wall-to-wall, indoors and out. One woman with whom she had played and coached softball approached me at her funeral, eyes filled with tears. She could hardly speak, but the words she spoke said everything: "She was my hero."

Mine too.

*sigh*

I need to start running again. I haven't gained any weight since May, which is when I pretty much stopped running every other day. In fact, I've probably lost some. But I look much... fluffier. For lack of a better term. I don't know how the hell I was doing it, getting up at 5:30am and running every other day for 30-40 minutes, then going to work for 12 hours. But damn, I felt great and was looking much more toned. I need to find a way to get my ass out of bed in the mornings and get back into that routine.

My trip to the amusement park yesterday...

... just reinforces my beliefs posted previously.