Mom was in hospital for a week with a bad case of pneumonia. I probably should have been in the bed next to hers, but my English stubbornness kicked in and I insisted that I just had the flu and I would be right as rain the next day. I walked to the hospital and back every day to visit Mom until the weather and my cough turned bad, then she insisted that I stay in. I amused myself by watching the Commonwealth Games on the telly.
Aunty Rose arrived home on the 19th. She is such a lovely lady. I thought I would be a bit uncomfortable around her because I’m not religious and she’s a Catholic nun. That was not the case at all – we even had a very interesting chat about faith. She believes that some people are given more faith than others and there should be no blame attached to non-belief. I explained to her that while I may lack faith, I have a good healthy dose of morals and values and that I feel I live a more “Christian” life than many Christians.
Mom was dischared on the 20th and said she was feeling well enough to take the train into Wellington on the 21st, so that’s what we did. Unfortunately Mom’s leg played up and she could only walk about ½ a block before she had to stop and rest. (Mom normally walks 2 hours a day, but when she came down with pneumonia she also developed a weakness in her leg and extreme leg pain.) We headed back to Aunty Rose’s place and Mom collapsed into a chair. After dinner she started to complain of stomach pain, and during the night she started to pass blood.
Mom and Aunty Rose, with birthday balloons from Valentine's:
At 7am we were in a cab headed back to the Hutt Hospital. Mom had more blood tests and x-rays, which all came back inconclusive. They released her at 2pm and we went back to Aunty Rose’s. Mom went to bed and I watched more of the Commonwealth Games. When Aunty Rose got home from work we had a chat to discuss what we should do: continue to the South Island or retreat to New Plymouth? Rose suggested that we go back to New Plymouth until we were both feeling ready to travel again. Hers was the voice of reason, so we got on the phone to Christine and Peter to ask if we could stay with them again. No problem, they said.
The next decision we had to make was how we would get back to New Plymouth. I thought that we could either (a) rent a car, (b) catch the bus, or (c) Simone and Bruce could drive down and pick us up. Bruce vetoed all of the suggestions and insisted we fly. Again, his was the voice of reason. I wasn’t feeling very well, so Aunty Rose got on the phone and asked Sister Meryl to book a flight for us, which she did.
The next morning we caught a cab to the Queensgate Mall, where we caught shuttle to the Wellington Airport. Mom’s leg was acting up and she could barely climb onto the shuttle but no one got up to give her a seat by the door. I carried the two large pieces of luggage on and struggled to get them into the racks. A man was sitting right in front of the rack and didn’t offer assistance, even just steading the bag as I lifted it into the rack. The next bag was a bit more challenging because I couldn’t fit both bags onto the same rack. There was a second rack but a very well-dressed lady had put her pretty pink handbag and pink jacket into the rack. I lifted the jacket and asked if she would mind shifting it off the rack. I was concerned that the bag would rub up against the jacket and get it dirty. She, however, was offended and grudgingly moved her jacket. I shoved the bag into the rack and said “Thank you very much!” quite loudly.
A few stops on, a couple with a young baby boarded the shuttle. They had two large bags, a large backpack, three small backpacks, a box, and a pram. Again, no one offered them any assistance. I went up (I was sitting toward the back of the bus) and offered to shift our bags so they could put their bags into the racks, but they said it was okay and just stacked their luggage in the aisle and in another rack. People getting on and off the shuttle seemed very put out about the bags, which was when we realized that a lot of people were just commuting into Wellington and had no plan to travel to the airport.
When we arrived at the airport everyone got off the bus, and again no one offered to help us with our bags. I grabbed one of the couple’s bags and off-loaded it, and they grabbed one of ours. Within a couple of minutes we had all of our bags in a big communal pile. Mom and I grabbed two carts and started loading our bags onto the carts. By the time the couple got their little baby into the pram I had loaded their luggage onto the cart. We stopped and shared our dismay at people’s reluctance to offer help. Then we thanked each other and went our separate ways.
The flight from Wellington to New Plymouth was pleasant, but I was in agony from a bad sinus infection. It felt like my head was going to explode. The pain actually radiated from my eye, through the sinus and cheek, and into the jaw and teeth. When we arrived at Christine and Peter’s I gobbled a couple of Tylenol then put some ice cubes into a plastic bag and just sat in silence with the ice cubes pressed against my head, trying not to cry.
That night Christine, Peter, Bruce, and Simone went out for dinner. Mom and I stayed in and watched TV. Neither of us was hungry so we had some cup-o-soup. I felt a bit peckish and opened a package of ham and made a sandwich. I shared it with Mom and she liked it so much that she made another sandwich.
I had a bad sleep that night because I was in so much pain but in the morning the pain was slightly reduced. I took some more Tylenol and used some nasal spray to relieve the pressure in my sinus. Bruce, Simone, and Christine were heading off to the Tawhiti Museum and asked if I’d like to join them. I wasn’t feeling great but went anyway.
It was a fantastic museum – privately owned , too! – with hundreds of carefully crafted miniatures and dioramas as well as life-sized figures arranged into realistic scenes with antiques and artifacts. It was pretty damned cold in the museum, though, so I snuck across the lane to Mr. Badger’s Café and enjoyed a pot of tea and a slice of quiche. There were small dioramas from The Wind in the Willows along the walls, hence the name of the café. Simone, Bruce, and Christine joined me shortly afterwards, as well as the café cat. It jumped up on Simone’s lap and promptly fell asleep. We didn’t want to shift it but we had to leave, so Simone picked it up and tried to put it down, but it refused to go. She walked over to the fireplace to put it down there, but the cat gave in and jumped down. Then it walked over to an English couple, jumped up on the woman’s lap, and promptly went to sleep again.
We had a quiet dinner at home then watched some rugby and Commonwealth Games on telly. We were all in bed by 9pm. I slept better and the pain in my sinus was tolerable this morning. At least my teeth don’t hurt any more!
No comments:
Post a Comment