Affirmation

Yesterday I had a doctors appointment. Standard routine stuff. The boy scout camp where I work in the summer as the medic requires that I have a clean bill of health before camp starts. This will be my fourth summer at camp. Sometimes it makes me a feel a bit like a dog getting a health certificate to be allowed on a plane, but on the whole no big deal. Also I think I'm developing a problem with acid reflux or esophogeal spasms and wanted to have that checked before we had a serious problem.

Lastly, Nana and I share doctors and I wanted to have a chance to discuss hip replacement and Nana's options with the physician while Nana wasn't with us so that I could get all my questions answered. Nana being a former nurse and 82 already seems to know so much about this stuff and mostly she talks at her doctor appointments and often, now I am not even with her, Lindsey is, so, I wanted some time for me to get answers.

Our doctor is wonderful. She's from India and very friendly. The nurses are always very sweet to us too, they often fight over who gets to write up my or Nana's chart because apparently we are funny to listen to.

Anyway, I was reading an article in SELF about a girl my age raising both her grandmother and her toddler daughter. It was about the issues she deals with as acare giver and also finding her own life as a young mother. I'm not a mother, but I got it. Then in the doc's office discussing Nana I found myself crying. I see that I am often afraid I'm not doing enough or that she could be slipping and I don't see it and I'm worried about going to camp and her being okay with me as a remote caretaker, even though we've done this twice before already.

The doc let me cry, she squeezed my arm and told me the truth. Nana is doing very well, she is healthy, happy, lucid and well cared for and I am doing a good job.

Today I am thankful for the affirmation and the strength to believe what she told me. I am thankful for a good doctor who cares enough to let me cry, to be honest with me, to let me ask questions, and who gave me affirmation that my mother should have last week.

(On a note, my Dad did make me feel better, and he said a lot of similar things, but he's my dad and he doesn't take care of and see Nana regularly like the doc does. I was harboring a lot of concern after Nana fell on Friday, even though I had convinced myself I was okay. The article really brought all the stuff I wasn't saying out, luckily just in time for my appointment.)