Today was take Dad to the doctor in Springfield day. It’s one of my least favorite tasks. The day started a week or so ago when the doctor’s office called and reminded Dad of his appointment. He wrote the day down wrong (the 30th) and then later argued that his appointment was the next day. He stressed about which doctor and when. Then he wondered why I wanted to “go with” him. I wrote down the correct day and time for him but I neglected to remove his wrong date from the refrigerator, so although I reminded him last night, he later came downstairs to argue about when the appointment was. I have solved, I think, this problem by having the doctor’s office change the primary contact number to me. I never tell him until the day before.
This morning, I called him at 9:00 and reminded him of his appointment and asked him to change his clothes. I called him again at 11:00 and he said he needed 10 more minutes. Okay, we needed to leave by 11:30. I went up at 11:15 and found him not dressed as he had waited until the 11:00 to change his clothes. I managed to get him out of the house only 15 minutes late. And I yelled at him. Or, I spoke strongly rather, as he putzed around and wanted to sit and rest between putting on his shoes and getting in the car. And then he had to check for everything again and wanted to turn around and check again. I feel sorry for him but damn it gets tiring.
We got to Springfield an hour and a half later and he wanted to know why I pulled into the doctor’s office parking lot. Wasn’t he supposed to see the other doctor? He couldn’t check in by himself. He couldn’t find the right floor. When we got up on 5 he couldn’t check in there. Really, his functioning is getting much worse. Again, if he doesn’t have to do anything unusual, he does okay. But anything out of his usual routine really throws him.
Ah, but that wasn’t the whole of the day. No. Just out of town my “check gages” light came on. And the temperature gage started bouncing up and down between the 1/4 mark and the 3/4 mark. Since it was clear that the actual temperature wasn’t doing that I wasn’t too worried. I checked the coolant level when I got to Springfield and it was fine, so it’s probably the gage or some sensor.
But no. It doesn’t stop there. The dome light decided it wouldn’t go out. Not when the car was running, not when the car was turned off. And then the lock button on my door stopped working. Yeah. Three probably minor but really annoying things went wrong with the car in one day. It has been that kind of month. Or year.
After I got Dad home I drove back to the local auto shop where they pulled a fuse so it doesn’t run down the battery tonight. Back tomorrow to try and figure out what has gone wrong with the car now. I wish I could afford a new car.
At any rate, I’ve decided to laugh about all of this. Not really anything else I can do anyway.
I just hate, hate, hate those nagging small things that add to the large worries. It seems like we had a bunch of them last year while my husband was going through cancer treatment. I thought we weren’t supposed to get more than we could handle? Yeah, right. Hope the car is a simple fix.
It’s those little niggly things that make the hard stuff even harder isn’t it. On their own I’m sure they wouldn’t have been a problem but on top of everything else it’s the straw that could possibly break the camel’s back. Glad to hear you are still standing and just laughing about it. As you say, what else can you do. Best wishes.
Your father behaves very much like my FIL who has Alzheimer’s. It is incredibly difficult to be around him because of all the confusion. Every little thing is a tussle. Sorry that you’re going through this, but you seem to have a good handle on it.
And as for the car… well, that’s just stupid. Plain ‘ole annoyingly stupid. Sorry.
I wonder sometimes how a particular piece of music gets stuck in my head. Usually I can trace it to a commercial half listened to or a clip of music in a movie or something like that. Yesterday, a song by James Lee Stanley (from the Simpatico album – The Dancer) popped into my head and just won’t leave.
“In a downpour, who counts one more, among all the drops of rain?”
I like that word “niggly” – it’s just right.
Zaz, you are patience personified. Bless you for dealing with all this junk.
And, oh, when I was still driving I always had used cars that would die on the exit ramp or just stall on the street. And, of course, there was the “noise” that would mysteriously disappear as soon as I got to the repair place.