I lost another 4 lbs.! Amazing, - but true! I attribute it to the pain and suffering that I endured last week from gout, as well as to a certain belly malady that we don't mention in the polite company. The medicine, that a doctor at Kaiser swore, would help with pain, cost me exorbitant $ 30 and helped me only to ... how do I say it?... develop new skills in reaching bathroom in record time! Phew, I didn't think I could get out of this one!
My foot is almost entirely healed, though. I am happy: now Mary, who's been also in a "glum", and I can go to the pool. We missed last week or so. I think that, only exercising we can reach our lasting goals in loosing weight.
This morning, as I lay blissfully sleeping, Taka asked (he doesn't usually wait for me to wake up before he starts talking to me): "Do you and Roberta have an appointment? She said, she is waiting for you!"
Now what?! I jumped and ran to my charge's room. She sat on her bed fully clothed. "Well, - she said - I am back!"
"Back?" - I stuttered - "Back from where?" She had a gallbladder surgery and came back home a couple of days ago.
- "That man held me captive! I told him that I don't want to stay with him, and he took me to some place at night!" She referred to her common law husband, a Korean man named Park. My knees gave way and I sat on Roberta's wheelchair.
- "There was a Korean woman with a couple of kids and her husband there. I didn't know, what they were jabbering about. Park yelled at me and made me sleep on a mattress on the floor. Then he just brought me back here and left!"
I began to think that I was, finally, rid of Park's unpleasant presence in my house. If you are interested to know, how he managed to make me so hostile to him, read my posts from about September of last year.
- "He asked, if I would leave him, and I said 'Yes'!"
The detail that convinced me that, this story could be true was that, at that time of the morning, Park, usually, would have been bustling in the kitchen, making breakfast for Roberta and himself. He is totally irrational: I am paid to take care of her, but he would not let me do it, like I didn't work for her the whole year before he showed up! Now he was conspicuously absent.
I ventured to ask: "So, he left you here and went away?"
- "Yes, and he didn't even bring me to the door! He dropped me off at the store!"
And, just like that, my hopes were dashed, as well as confidence in Roberta's mental stability.
My mind still reeling, I blurted: "You dreamed it all! The two nearest stores are located too far and at a foot of a very steep hill. There is no way you could make it with your walker!" Then, weakly, in an attempt to deflect her attention: "How about some breakfast?"
The thing is, I was just thinking that she didn't seem to have a common for many elderly people reaction to having had a surgery. A few of them that I worked with, also displayed this "going off their rocker" symptoms, when they could swear that something fantastic happened to them. The most interesting case in my experience was a woman, who was my mom's neighbor in a hospital room.
- "Can your children swim?!" - she asked in agitation, as I walked into the room with Hanah and Sonny. "Um, um, yes, they can..." - was my answer. Hanah and Sonny just blinked at her in open-moouthed astonishment at such greeting.
- "Good, because water is coming in fast" - she continued pointing at the shiny dry floor - "and they could drown!"
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