Feeling Like a Tomato Queen: No Glory

Ain't this the truth. The mom does ALL of the grunt work and gets none of the glory. This is totally the case for my mom, Carol. I am a total lucky duck, because it is like I have my own home health nurse, except I don't have to pay her! She actually pays to fly down and take care of me for weeks on end! If you didn't already know, my mom is a retired nurse and at one time was an oncology nurse and herself a breast cancer patient. So she gets it. Maybe even a little too much. For instance, one time we went to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays because I had a gift card, a coupon, and I was Kodiak crushing on a steak from my 'roid rage. (Bags of steroids that make me eat like a Kodiak Bear.) Anyhoosikins, just as I was handing our waitress the coupon and getting ready to order the salad bar --with the best croutons in the universe-- in addition to my meat platter, ol' CB put the kabosh on that apparently bacteria infested salad plan. No salad bar for me with my white blood cell count! I wanted to argue. I wanted to pull the "I'm 40 years old and can eat what I want" card. But I knew it was no use. It's impossible to win a healthcare argument with someone who quotes the Center for Disease Control on a daily basis. Seriously, when brother Kurt and I were tots, she referred to pooping as a "bowel movement." To preschoolers. But what I heard was "bow-moo-men." So we referred to turds as "bowmoomens." Till the neighbor kids said "WTF are you talking about?" Except not the WTF part. Because our neighbors were the Klines. And they are very Catholic. And the Brubakers. Not nearly as Catholic, but they had a Kool and the Gang record with the song "Celebration" on it and dancing in their living room to it was almost better than watching the "Dukes of Hazzard." And none of those kids knew what a "bowmoomen" was.

So I have grown up with my mother's medical jargon my whole life. And if you ever had a medical professional for a parent, you never got to skip school. Because you were "just fine" to go to school. None of this "making a doctor's appointment" business. No fooling them with fake sore throats and heart palpitations. Because they would do a strep swab or an EKG in your family room. And then say "you're fine." Go to school.

The good news is that when your mother is a nurse with a career spanning through four different decades, you get all of your medical needs met. Even before you know you are going to need them. For example, my mom told me that she went to get her hair done and Desiree, her stylist, gave her a monetary donation to send my way for all of this cancer razzmatazz. So instead of giving me the money, she went out and bought me things like Gas X, stool (bowmoomen) softener, eye drops, Biotene, and nostril spray amongst other stuff. I didn't know I was going to end up being desperate for these items, but slap my a$$ and call me Sally, I sho' nuff did! I'm telling you, these things were lifesavers! And reading teachers don't know anything about chemotherapy messing with your bowmoomens. Good thing my madre did. So thanks Desiree and mom for "keeping things moving!"

Nurse moms are really good at serving others. It's been mostly my dad the past forty some years. True story, I once was facetiming my parents and caught my mom seasoning my dad's food that she brought to him on a silver platter while he sat in his lazy boy watching airplane shows. Uhhh, 1955 called and they want June Cleaver back.... But the past few months it has been me getting the silver platter treatment. She not only serves me food in bed and in my recliner, she follows it up with massages to my arms, legs, and feet with Aquaphor and this really awesome smelling oil spray my friend Kelli bought for me. And she does it for a really long time and is better than the Vietnamese nail techs at Pretty Nails! Way better than my kids who make me pay them a quarter for rubbing my feet. They only last about 7 seconds. And they suck at it. I'm telling you, they would never make it as Vietnamese nail techs. Neither would my husband. He rubs my feet when I ask him, but he squeezes them so hard that my metatarsals and phalanges clack together. My mom however, does it perfect. She also is the world's best back scratcher. She even drives all the way through Cape Coral dodging snow birds and canals to pick me up Steak Gorgonzola from Olive Garden when that is the only thing I could possibly stomach eating.

Not only is she taking care of me, she is also helping to take care of the Triple Threat. If you read my other blog, www.cjklausingfamily.blogspot.com , you know that building a life size replica of the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks is an easier task. She takes them to school, daycare, the park, and Culvers for ice cream. All the things I couldn't do most of April, May, and June, when I was too sick to get out of bed. I want to publicly thank my mom for doing tons of work with no glory. Heck, I don't even have many pictures of her here during those months. And I LOVE documenting our lives. So here are pictures of when my parents came down and took the kids to the beach. I need to thank my Dad too. His post is coming, but lets face it, my dad has gotten a lot of attention lately with his First Federal Bank marketing campaign! He can wait a smidge.