Operation Pinocchio III: Mom's Excellent Adventure

So, I took Mom to the dermatologist today. The process began last evening.

"Remember, you're going to the doctor tomorrow."

"I am?"

"Yes. We're going back to have your stitches removed."

"I have stitches?"

"Yes. Four of them. In your nose."

"Really? Why?"

"Because last week the doctor removed a small tumor from your nose and stitched up the wound and now we have to go get them taken out. Why do you think I've been changing the bandage on your nose every day?"

"Well, I was wondering about that."

So, after a variation on this conversation this morning, and again in the car, we arrived at the doctor's office a few minutes early. After a short wait Mom was being taken back to the surgery room when we all heard an explosion outside and the power went out. It was heavily overcast and had rained earlier so the first assumption was lightning blowing out a transformer. A little later presumptive blame shifted to the construction site behind the building we were in.

Actually, only most of the power went out. Some of the lights remained on (including the ones in the room we needed) but all the computers and the air conditioning went out. As did the elevator. We were on the third floor.

The nurse (the same one who freaked out last week) removed (most) of the stitches and the doctor came in to check her work and remove the one she missed. Total time elapsed: five minutes. While she was working, the nurse assured us the doctor would help me get Mom onto her walker (which can double as a wheelchair in a pinch) and help manhandle her down stairs since the elevator was stuck with people trapped in it and nobody knew how long it would take to free them. The doctor assured me absolutely none of that would ever happen and we should just sit in the reception area until the elevator was repaired. Mom and I agreed that was the better option.

Meanwhile, the people trapped in the elevator had used the emergency phone to contact the fire department which arrived just about the time we made it out to the waiting room. Whereupon I had my brilliant idea for the day. I went downstairs and asked the firemen if they could help me get Mom out.

They could. They'd be happy to. They, in fact, had a "stair chair," a purpose-built contraption designed for this very eventuality. They just didn't have it with them in their truck. But the EMTs had one in their ambulance. Which the firemen were happy to call to the scene. They were a happy bunch of guys.

When the ambulance arrived, we all trooped back up the stairs (which are on the outside of the building accessible from a wraparound balcony) lugging the stair chair with them into the office where they strapped Mom in with a belt across her waist and crossed belts across her chest and the only thing keeping it from looking like an official straight jacket was the lack of arm restraints. They told her to keep her arms inside the chair and wheeled her out to the landing.

In addition to the wheels, a stair chair has a kind of thin, narrow tank tread device, long enough to cover at least two stair treads, that swings down from the back under the chair and acts as a slide so the chair doesn't bump its way down. It also acts, according to the firemen, as a kind of brake to keep the chair from descending too fast. With one fireman on the down side and one on the up side, two EMTs watching and me trailing behind with Mom's walker they eased her down four half-flights of stairs, around three landings and right out to my car.

Mom was delighted and thrilled and told my brother the whole story in detail when we got home. "Never rode in one of those, before!" she said. No matter how old you are, there's always the chance something new will happen every day.