First, some good news: My legs have been swollen for months, the left leg large, the right leg huge. Swollen legs were the beginning of the chain of events that ended with my wife’s death, and I don’t have health insurance, and I’m thoroughly irresponsible, so I ignored the swelling, even after the right leg’s skin was stretched to near-ripping and hurt like a sunburn.
The swelling is one of the reasons I’ve assumed my death is approaching, but then the strangest thing happened. Woke up a few mornings ago with two normal-sized legs. Not the ‘normal’ of the past few months, but the pre-swollen normal. My socks won’t stay up!
Now it’s three days in a row, with legs the size of legs. And the only reason I can come up with is, my vegan/vegetarian diet over the past month and a half. Which is, I think, going to be my menu for the rest of my life.
♦ ♦ ♦
Next, some bad news: Mom’s physical and mental state varies from day to day, but she’s been on an upward trajectory, so I’d been hoping to cut back from being at her house seven days a week to maybe 3-4. For the past week or so, though, she’s been shaky, and she fell both yesterday and the day before, and my 365-day duty continues.
She forgets that she can’t get to her feet from a chair without someone helping her up, so she tries, and sometimes she succeeds. Succeeding, though, reinforces in Mom’s mind that she can stand without help, so she does it again, and maybe again, and maybe she’s successful again, but pretty soon she’s on the floor and we’re dialing 9-1-1.
Worse, yesterday she went to the bathroom — which she’s been able to do unassisted for a month now — but when she finished, she forgot her walker. Simply left it in the bathroom and walked back to her room, without the walker’s support. Ker-plop, she went down again.
Katrina lacks the strength to lift Mom off the floor, and she’s never fallen while I’m there, but I’m pretty sure I lack the strength too, or maybe I’d accidentally rip Mom’s arms out of their sockets trying to pick her up. So Katrina called 9-1-1, and paramedics showed up as they often do, and they brought Mom to her feet, and checked her for bruises or broken bones.
There have been a dozen 9-1-1 calls in the past few months. Yesterday, Mom asked the paramedics, “Do I win a prize for being your most frequent call?”
They said no, lots of old folks fall and can’t get up, and Mom isn’t in their top ten most frequent fallers.
But still, one of these falls, she’ll break something, so it’s urgent that we get through to her, make her understand that things have changed.
Problem is, walking is a hard habit to break. You walk for years and years and decades and decades, and it becomes something you do, without thinking about it.
Mom’s a constant reader, always has either a book or a newspaper at her side, and she reads aloud the words that flash on the TV during commercials. “Hemorrhoids,” she’ll say. And then, “St Jude’s Hospital.” And then, “Save the Children.” All afternoon, she reads the commercials out loud.
So my bright idea is something for her to read: notes that say, “Mom! Please don’t stand up unassisted — it’s dangerous,” and, “Mom, please don’t walk without your walker — it’s dangerous.”
I’ve ordered a few plexiglass note-holders, and we’ll put one note & holder on the coffee table in front of the couch, one on the nightstand beside her bed, etc.
I’m optimistic that this’ll work. Mom’s not Evel Knievel, taking risks for the thrill of it. She honestly forgets.
♦ ♦ ♦
More good news: The rat traps in my room have been less and less productive. It’s been a week since even one rat corpse needed to be tossed off the porch and into the neighbor’s yard, but that’s because there are fewer and fewer rats in my room. Haven’t seen any in weeks.
In the wee hours of the night sometimes I’ve heard one, though — a scratchy sound coming from deep under the rubble of boxes and bags and empties in my room.
Judging by the noises, I’m pretty sure I’ve been sharing my room with only one rat. And when I came home from spending Sunday afternoon with Mom, that rat was waiting for me — belly up, dead in a trap.
Darkness seems to encourage rat activity, so I’ve been sleeping with the lights on, but that night the lights were clicked off. Even in darkness, no rat sounds. And again Monday night, darkness, silence, and sleep.
19 rats have died in my room over the past month or so, and most have been launched onto the neighbor’s lawn. None remain.
More rats might wander in, but the traps will stay out, and there are enough traps to keep the rats under control. Like President Trump, I’m declaring victory!
And also, yes, I’m making progress in cleaning the room.
♦ ♦ ♦
Last item of the day: Everyone in my family knows I don’t do telephones. Want to reach me? Text or email. Don’t call. I announced that four years ago, when I moved back to Seattle.
I’m required to add, yes, yes, of course this is weird of me. But so what? I’m weird. I hate phones. I don’t even check voice mail.
The point is, when someone says please don’t call, you don’t call, unless you’re a jackass. Everyone in my family has stopped calling, except two people.
Jackass #1 is my stoner nephew George — he keeps asking why I haven’t returned his calls, but having answered that question several times, now I don’t even answer his texts when that’s all he’s saying. He’s a sad case — smart kid when he was young, but hundreds of pounds of marijuana and years of always being high have addled his brain.
Jackass #2 is my brother Clay, which is harder for me to understand. I’ve told him many times, please don’t call, I don’t do phones, my ringer is off, etc, and he’s not high. He’s mentally alert. He’s not argumentative. We get along fine. We text several times daily, but once or twice a month, “Please call,” he texts, and I reply, “Why?” And he texts again, “Please call.”
For too long and too many times, I gave in, and Clay & I talked on the phone. Which was a big fat mistake, every time. Now he expects me to call. And why wouldn’t he? I’ve broken my own rule too many times.
A week or so ago, he texted me, “Please call. It’s important.” I sighed so loudly he could probably hear it at his home in Prairie Dog City, deep in the next county. But “it’s important,” he said, so maybe someone’s sick or dying?
I called, of course, and it wasn’t important, of course. He wanted to talk about the once-monthly movies we watch together, and nominate a few fresh titles, and wanted to invite me to watch a baseball game on TV at his house. Both subjects could’ve been handled via text.
Next time he says, “Please call,” the answer will be no, or no answer at all, even if “it’s important.”
6/23/2026
itsdougholland.com
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