I’ve already mentioned what satisfaction it gave me
last week for my landlady to ask for my opinion on what I thought she should
wear for the day. (I’m still dumfounded that she did! Only surprised because she
is SO classy!) So when, through this past week, she learned she was going to
have to have a steroid injection in her back and was required to have a
companion with her during her hospital stay, and asked if I would be the one to
accompany her on this journey, I was delighted – that she asked in the first
place, and then that I would be able to give service to someone I admired, especially
in what potentially could be a touchy and intimate situation. I found it such a
privilege that she felt so comfortable around me that she would choose me – her
short-term acquaintance – over her multitude of lifelong friends.
Had my first ride in a taxi this morning – the driver
was Asian, as I had expected he would be. Myfanwy and I left the house around
7:30a in order to get her check into the Royal Orthopaedic (gotta get
that British spelling in there; another interesting difference is that while in
America we say anesthesiologist, in England you say anesthetist, and it’s the
same thing) Hospital by 7:50a, according to their prescribed methods. Myfanwy
was in good spirits. We jokingly compared coming to the hospital for day
surgery as similar to arriving early at the airport in the advance of your
flight – hurry up and get there so you can hurry up and wait! Myfanwy got all
checked in, paperwork-wise, and then we sat in chairs in the Day Unit facility,
in her little sheet-partitioned, curtain-drawn cubby, T4, – with a hospital bed
between us that no one needed, or used, for then anyway – chatting away for
several hours until it was her turn for her particular brand of torture – just kidding.
Myfanwy limped away for her procedure around eleven with the hopes that the injection
would help assuage the serious pain she has been dealing with since late
spring. (I’ve got to think that this whole situation is virtually identical to
what grandma has endured a number of times in the past.) She was gone about 20
minutes, and then the great thing was that she came wheeled back in, lying in
the bed, with a big grin on her face. Now that was encouraging!
Then there was more waiting, as she was able to
sit up more and more, to make sure her blood pressure was behaving itself. (That
was one thing I learned: that the reason you are not supposed to drive after
surgery is NOT because of the effects of anesthesia, as I had always assumed {because
Myfanwy only had local anesthesia before they began probing her spine with the
epidural}, but has more to do with the potential of your blood pressure
suddenly dropping while driving, in which case you may lose consciousness and
what happens after that would not be good – for anyone!) Following a good
report, we were good to go, with Myfanwy hobbling out with her two sticks, as
she calls her canes (like mom, never having expected to be using anything like
that previously – agile and active prior to this occurrence), to the waiting
taxi, none the worse for wear. Home by 12:30p, with everything having gone
perfectly smooth – making Myfanwy very happy. And me, too!
Got a little British comedy,‘Keeping Up
Appearances' thing, going on here – it is all centers around the pronunciation
of another neighborhood of Birmingham, located just next to our corner of Selly
Oak (actually, to be more exact, we are in the even smaller subdivide of Selly
Oak known as Selly Park, I am told) – Edgbaston. Now Leah, and most people I
have heard, say it just the way you would imagine, with a similar sound as
‘Martin Aston,’ luxury British sports car. It took several times of my hearing Myfanwy say it her way (have
heard no one else say it this way - but
she is more of the old school) before I could even understand that she was
saying the same word: edg’-bə-stən as opposed to the way most everyone else says it, or edg-bas’-tən. It is a humorous thing, especially as
Myfanwy admits that perhaps there may be some sort of class thing associated
with the different ways of saying it. Ready, put your nose up - now try it!
Myfanwy didn’t really need me today, but she said
it honestly helped her by the mere fact that I was there – physically and
emotionally, making it worth every bit of the time it required on my part. We
had had the time for some warm, confidential dialogue. (For one thing, Myfanwy
told me that her father always told her that her Celtic name meant ‘maid of the
morning,’ but felt through her growing up years that that definition never
really suited her as she considered herself more of a ‘maid of the middle of
the night” kind of girl. She also told me that her husband called her Mif or Miffy
- that is very sweet. I may tell you more of her adult life at a later time, if
the occasion presents itself.) Two stimulating conversationalists – one working
on it and the other already there!
Photo_
the infamous London taxi (in name only, as it is not
limited to London alone, just the name it has come to be known by) – and NOT the kind of cab
we were in today either, coming NOR going!
