I seem to be home…

...after a long, stress-filled absence. I’ve lost track of the days. Possibly this is Wednesday.

In the upstate New York home of my sweetie baby Helen, recovery is a happening thing. She’ll be discharged today from Albany Med Center Hospital to a rehab joint closer to home. YEA!

On the mega annoying end of the spectrum, her soon to be ex husband – a misogynistic alky who can’t manage to hold a job is back to blustering over custody. 
Couple things:

A) he doesn’t actually WANT custody of his female progeny and he’d do a disgustingly heinous job of caring for them.
B) what he wants is the child support money which I imagine, he views as winning the lottery. Ya know, FREE MONEY!

Added to this are the relatives, who don’t live nearby, who have BIG opinions on what’s best for Helen. They've been attempting to impose their well intentioned yet radically misconceived and uninformed will. Unsuccessfully, thank Bast!

There’s nothing like hard times to bring into STRONG focus who you can and can’t rely on for good, smart assistance and who you need to keep at a distance.

Are all families like this? Rilly, I wanna know. I'm starting to feel like I parachuted into a white trash zombie nightmare.

AND THEN I was in Western Pennsylvania to take Daddy to an optometry appointment. Simple thing right? Not when the Walmart Vision Center's involved. I should have been braced for incompetence. It’s Walmart after all.

Pop's very competent nursing home staff made the appointment for him (a month ago), told Walmart that Daddy's in a wheelchair and then transported us over in the wheelchair van. Pop was nauseous from the ride over and hurled a bit but it passed AND Jen cleaned him up (Jen’s a hero!). After this the optometrist walked up to us and blithely announced that they couldn't examine him because they were "not set up for wheelchairs.”

I suspect their unwillingness to perform the exam had WAY more to do with Daddy having spewed a bit. The delicate optometrists being too ultra squicked to deal with ***EEK*** a patient in need. We’re optometrists, not doctors, ya know – we don’t do empathy or deal with any icky, smelly stuff.

I gave the staff a stern, yet calm (honest!), piece of my mind.

Back at Indian Haven, the pro nursing home staff found another optometrist who, amazingly, could see Daddy that very afternoon. We had to head back to the airport though. My understanding was that a family member has to accompany patients to off site appointments. Yes, true BUT this was a special case (also, the staff loves him…OF COURSE). Beth, the wonderful van driving lady, said she'd go into Pop's appointment with him.

I just love happy endings!

On the way back to the airport, Jen and I stopped at our fave Mexican restaurant for a much deserved, celebratory margarita, They have THE best art on the walls.

So, I’m home now and completely exhausted.