July 22 – “Heart rates and walkers”

We took Mom to the doctor yesterday.  Well, actually we took her to the nurse practitioner in the doctor's office.  She's a lot more thorough than the doctor ever is anyway.  She ran some of the usual tests.  We are waiting on the results of those.  The only really significant thing was that her heart rate was somewhat elevated.  The idea is that maybe her heart is working so hard that it is causing her to be really tired all the time.  She already has high blood pressure, so they upped her blood pressure medicine to see if that would slow things down.    That meant Chris had to buy a blood pressure cuff to keep track of it every day.  The way it was worded, it sounded like they didn't want her to use one of the electronic ones.  Old school, I guess.  She used to have one of those from her nursing days, but we lost it in the storm.  She found a simple one over at WalMart.  They also prescribed a walker to replace Mom's cane.    For that we had to find the only medical supply place in Galveston.  We had been there before, but neither of us could remember exactly where it was.  I called Kel first.  He looked it up and gave us an address.  We got near there and realized that couldn't be it.  The address was now a restaurant.  Instead of calling him back, I called Nathan.  I wanted to see if he was the hero fire fighter with his picture in the paper for saving some dogs and cats from a fire.  It wasn't him, but he found a different address for the supply house.  It turned out to be the right one.    We looked at the walkers with a built-in seat, but they all had ten speed bicycle hand brakes and we didn't think mom could push them.  Also, there was no way to lock it while she sat down, so we could just imagine her flopping again.  When Chris went to WalMart she picked up some tennis balls to put on the bottom.  That way it would move more easily and Mom wouldn't scratch up the wood floors.   We grabbed some lunch at Shrimp n Stuff and got home in plenty of time for Mom to take a nap.  We'll see how she does now.    Today I get to go to the eye doctor in Houston for my yearly check after cataract surgery.  I just had it on one eye and he assured me I would have to have it in the other one as well some day.  Chris says that eye stays bloodshot all the time now.  Will this be the day?   Proverbs 20:5 says, "The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out."   Father, we don't understand why Mom is having the trouble she is.  Give us someone with understanding from you to draw out the reasons and discover what she needs to help her.  Amen.