“What did you give me?!” Gramma exclaimed in question at lunch today as she heartily ate her salad.
She doesn’t care for salad, but she was leaving the meat alone (fried chicken – her favorite) to concentrate on her salad.
Okay, let me back up. How did we get here, where Gramma is eating a salad with such voracity, and asking what in the world I gave her? What in the world have I done to her?
Two days ago she sat down to lunch and said, “I know what causes these things,” while indicated the small rash-like bumps she gets on her face at times. For two years or more all I have heard is how she has no idea what causes those bumps.
“What?” I asked.
“Constipation. A doctor told me that,” she said as if she’d just spoken to a doctor yesterday on the subject.
As she has never once mentioned this before and has suffered from constipation her entire adult life, I had to file this information under “google it” to check its veracity.\
For the next few days she see-sawed between eating little of her meals and saying she was hungry. Just as soon as the meal was over, with her plate still in sight, she would lament over being hungry. I have never suffered from constipation (knock on wood) so I could not justify being hungry incessantly and then eating little of what you’re given to eat.
Then, last night, as I was dressing her for bed she mentioned the bumps again. “I know what causes these,” she said, rubbing the raised part of her cheek. And then it left her. “Oh…oh…you know what I mean.”
“Constipation is what you said the other day,” I told her.
“Yes!” she said.
“Have you gone since then?”
“No,” she answered. “I know what the problem is, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
“What’s that?”
“Vegetables.”
“I made you a salad yesterday and the day before for that very reason, but you wouldn’t eat it,” I told her.
“I know,” she relented.
“Well, I’ll put some Metamucil in your coffee tomorrow.”
“Yeah, that’ll be good.”
“Okay. Just remind me to do that.”
LAUGHTER
All tucked in, Gramma went to sleep quickly and I went to the computer to google what I should have googled two days before: Constipation and facial rash. Well, imagine my surprise when in fact there appeared many links to support the notion that facial rashes are caused by constipation. Well, well, well…who would ever make that link. But, the body God gave us is an amazing thing, and it reacts (gives signs) to problems or concerns in amazing ways. A slight facial rash is beautifully nonintrusive way to give evidence of constipation. Gramma has known that for years that the bumps on her face are a sign of constipation. And, but for a moment a few days ago when she was certain, it is something she has forgotten she knew. But, in that moment of clarity, she gave that information to me.
This morning I fixed her breakfast for her while she was in the bathroom. Bran Flakes with half a banana cut into it, coffee, water to take her pills, and her pills. I got the Metamucil out of the cupboard and looked at its directions, ingredients etc. Orange flavor, it was. Putting it in the coffee is not good. She doesn’t drink all the coffee all the time, and adding an orange flavor is not a good surprise. So, instead, I leveled out a teaspoon and stirred it into the water se uses to take her pills. She doesn’t always drink all of it either, but, hey, I told her I would give it to her.
After breakfast, when I came to wash her, she said, “I ate all of it,” and motioned to the kitchen table. All the cereal gone. All the coffee, gone. All the water with the Metamucil gone. I smiled.
Lunch prepared (chicken, lettuce salad, and a cucumber and tomato combo) I called Gramma to the table. She attacked the salad and the cucumbers and tomatoes like I’ve never seen her do before. And left the chicken for last. In the middle of the meal, as I too was eating my salad with chicken, she exclaimed in question, “What did you give me?!”
I admit I was a little shocked, and completely unsure of what she meant. And then she said, “My bowels moved already.”
“Oh,” I said. “I put Metamucil in your water.”
“I’ve tried that before,” she said. “I’ve tried everything.”
I shrugged. And, as she continued eating her salad and chicken eagerly I thought to myself, “ Yeah, but you never tried a Not-only can- I- not-I remind-you-but-I’ll-forget-you-told-me-you-were-going to-slip-me a-Meti-in-the-first-place Plan. :)
