The MS brains at work. . . again

[Guest guest]

So, yesterday, I was supposed to drive my nephew to

a medical appointment; it was too far to go by bicycle,

and his mother, my cousin, has MS and no longer drives.

So, I am the family taxicab and ambulance service, which

is fine with me. It gives my car, Marco Polo, a sense of

purpose.

Yesterday morning at about 11:00 a.m. I picked my nephew

up (he is 45) to take him from Berkeley to downtown Oakland

to a doctor appointment. My cousin was there, but we had no

prior arrangement for me to take her anywhere, and my nephew

said nothing about it, so off we went.

About three and one-half hours we returned only to find that

my cousin, who is quite mobility impaired--and like my friend,

Edna, does not use a computer, so is not in our group--that

my cousin was nowhere to be found.

Finally, I dropped my nephew off and we agreed to keep in

touch by phone. We did. For nearly five hours! Finally, he

called the Berkeley Police and they were about to send out

a state-wide alert, when my cousin, quite calmly, called from

the local Bay Area Rapid Transit station, BART, in North

Berkeley and asked her son whether he could call me to

come get her! He did call the Police and they called off

the alert!

I picked him up first and then we got her. She was sitting

calmly on a bench in front of the North Berkeley BART

station, smiling sweetly, as usual. We got her in the car.

The whole story made no sense; she had taken a bus

and then BART and then a special bus to Kaiser in Oakland.

Still, she could not seem to explain why.

O.K., so I felt that my nephew and I needed something to

sustain us, so I took us all out to dinner to Saul's Delica

tessen and Restaurant in Berkeley: http://www.saulsdeli.com/

Then I drove them home. Today I called my cousin and fi

nally got an explanation out of her. She had had an infection

in her foot; it had begun to spread up her leg. Did she call

to make an appointment with her doctor? No. Did she tell

her son, my nephew, that she needed to go to Kaiser to see

her doctor and why? No. So, she did it on her own! She

took the family cell phone with her, but could not figure out

how to make it work to leave a message on her own phone

for her own son!

Like my friend Edna, she has MS, also is diabetic and has

an adult son at home. So, as I have with Edna, we now have

an agreement: 1) She calls and makes an appointment at

Kaiser (both she and Edna have Kaiser in Oakland); 2)

she tells her son about it; 3) she PHONES ME and tells

me about it, so I can get her there. Like Edna, she has a

history of serious, life-threatening sepsis!

So, as my pulse slows, bp drops and I resume normal

breathing, I just hope that as I have the only car for these

two families, and both my cousin and Edna can barely

walk, that all will go back to the usual procedure--though

with these two, who knows?

So, I called Edna and told her about this, and she seemed

to have great difficulty understanding what was wrong with

what my cousin did! So, I went through the whole "think

ahead, plan ahead, even if by hours" bit. Edna agreed.

All is calm on the Western Front for now.

Love to you all from old, tired, MSed up,

n