Please Send Some Positive Thoughts For the Slaw Lady

I have a request today.

You know Val doesn't ask for much. A little song, a little dance...a little seltzer down her pants. WAIT! That was Chuckles the Clown from WJM. No, Val doesn't ask for much. An occasional comment about her Pulitzer-Prize-worthy journalism, educating the masses on new developments in the field of feces transplant research. An Emmy for her reports during sweeps month concerning the #1 Backroads crime of road-walking. A humanitarian award for her selfless devotion to the cast-offs of society, specifically three mailbox road cats and one tiny scrap of a canine that was being starved by Val's mom.

Which brings us to the issue: Val's mom.

Mom is having surgery at 7:30 a.m. Monday. If you could take a moment to send some positive thoughts her way, it would be greatly appreciated. She's a tough ol' gal, but the thought of facing a ride to the hospital at 4:00 a.m., and a five-hour surgery, and a night in the hospital are causing her to have a case of the nerves.

Mom will be spending the night with us so she can get an early start. Genius's bed is available, but Mom is a chair sleeper. So she gets the La-Z-Boy. It won't bother Hick. He goes to bed at 9:00. He will be the official chauffeur, because I don't drive in the city. Funny (peculiar, not ha-ha) how I did it for years when I worked by the Bevo Mill, but now my highway confidence has plummeted. My sister the ex-mayor's wife will meet them in Backroads Monday morning, and accompany Mom to the hospital. The ex-mayor is taking the day off work to care for their 9-month-old grandbaby, usually the task of my sister the ex-mayor's wife. I will be going to school as usual, since someone has to haul The Pony around morning and afternoon. Mom said she didn't want me to go, that it was bad enough that Hick and MSTEMW would be sitting around waiting all day. In fact, she had first wanted my sister not to go, and for Hick to leave as soon as they took her into surgery. I told her that was not happening. Listen to me. Such a great daughter, and not even going to be at the hospital with my mom. I daresay I might not be a Five-Dollar Daughter for a while.

Remember that growth on Mom's face that her doctor decided to lop off in the office, after forgetting to tell her to stop her blood-thinner, and then rescheduled? Well. He didn't get all of that growth. Which nobody knew until Mom told me way too after the fact that there was a place on her cheek that was bothering her after Doc did that office surgery. She always had her hair poofed down over that area, and I had not seen it since visiting her daily and cleaning the area until the stitches came out. Seriously. That European Space Agency's Rosetta satellite would have been able to see it FROM SPACE, had Rosetta not been so concerned with landing that probe Philae on comet 67P.

So I made mom get another appointment, which took a while, and then Doc referred her to a specialist at Barnes, but the office gals took so long getting that appointment that Mom called and asked for Doc himself, who got her an appointment within a week instead of six weeks, and then the specialist needed more tests, and those tests required further tests, and, well, this has gone on simply too long. In fact, Mom was supposed to have surgery LAST Monday, but no, a further test was ordered, and a different specialist visit, and now Mom is at her wit's end. I don't blame her. The forecast of up to five inches of snow for our area tonight is not making it any easier.

Anyhoo...I'm sure Mom will be fine. This surgeon says he does 35 of these operations a year. Mom is in good health for an recent octogenarian. She doesn't smoke or drink, has most of her faculties, and will NOT be requesting wine with her evening meal, or heroin. I can't vouch for slaw, though.

Yes. I'm sure she will be fine. It's not like she'll be wearing a peanut suit and a rogue elephant will be waiting in the operating room to shell her.