Summer, Revisited

Los Angeles, California

Awhile back, I stopped using the term middle-aged to describe myself after Billy uttered the infamous line: How many people do you know who live to 104? It was a rude upbraid, as it was sad but true. The good news was that in moving on to that next, awkward stage of life (too old to be middle-aged and too young to be a senior citizen), I now had an excuse for my faltering short-term memory. But I cannot blame my memory issues on the fact that I have fallen short of my contract with myself to write at least two blogposts a month. It is now long past August, though I will ultimately post this for that month. Cheating? Yes. But, I mean really, what is a contract with yourself truly worth? To toy with the quote from Sam Goldwyn: It is probably not worth the the paper it is written upon.

After the trip to Glenbrook I settled back down to summer as I know it. The Dodgers were continuing to do well, breaking records while they streaked from last place to first. I enjoyed the warm summer nights that I have always loved since I was a child. It was now time to dance salsa outside at The Autry Museum -- something that comes each summer through the months of July and August. I hosted a Las Chicas Pool day with DG and LOL.  And I visited my mom frequently, now at her new board and care facility.


My mom's careworkers and her home health nurse reported to me that she was having headaches and earaches. There was a lot of postulating as to what was causing these. The facilitators thought she might have an ear infection or a wax build-up in her ears. But on one of my visits to her, I noticed that her pain was topical, not inside the ear nor inside her head. When you touched her skin, she jumped. Obviously, it hurt a lot. And that got me thinking.

While she had been in the skilled nursing facility, she had suddenly developed a rash on her face. It was on one side, on her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, and around onto her cheek, more or less circling her left eye. That is her good eye (she has only had 5% vision in her right eye since childhood, a result of what is called Lazy Eye Syndrome which had gone untreated). When I asked the charge nurse about the rash, she commented that it looked like bug bites. And being someone who tends to defer to authority, I accepted that.

But now, a month later, I reported my suspicions to the doctor. Could it have been shingles? I pointed out where you could still see redness from the lesions, which the doctor tapped. She levitated at the pain. At that point, he agreed that clinically it appeared that she had suffered from herpes zoster while in the facility.

Shortly after that, the caregivers reported that she was having vision problems so she was taken to her ophthalmologist, who in turn sent her to a retinal specialist who diagnosed inflammation in the eye. I told him about the shingles, and he immediately put her on steroid eyedrops, and the antiviral medication, Valtrex. I did my usual response to that. I take Valtrex, I exclaimed. Then I immediately pointed to my lower lip and added, for cold sores!!! Somehow I have never been quite able to master that TMI thing.

And after that, summer continued (the Dodgers continued to do well). We were now at about six weeks after her shingles outbreak, and all was mostly right with the world…Thank you coming back to read my blog!