More Than One Mama Bear Can Take

Here at The Asylum, it's been a bad week to be a Mom.

On Tuesday, I was answering emails when I received a call from Lulu on an outside line. I didn't even know she'd left. She was calling from the DG in town, looking for Benadryl. Her mom had called to tell her that her son, Mitch, had been stung by a bee while working outside and was swelling up like a balloon. Lulu grabbed the drugs and dropped them off with her mom and rushed back to work. A little later, when I went to ask how he was doing, she was gone again. I called Thelma to ask if Lulu'd left again, looked up and there she was, standing in my doorway. She'd been to the clinic and back.

Lulu's got mad ninja skizzles.

Mitch ended up at the Hee Haw clinic with Dr. Methuselah, 2 shots in his belly, one in his hip and 2 more.. I don't even want to know where. They said if he'd waited any longer he'd be dead.

The docs down at the Hee Haw clinic don't embrace the practice of "bedside manner."

Today, Mitch is doing fine, but Lulu is in sticker shock after finding out they wanted to charge $400 for epipens for him to carry. Mitch's income is so low, he doesn't even have to have Obamacare, so no insurance. Lulu called around and found someone with a sample pack so her youngun doesn't up and die, seeing how he cuts trees for a living and is bound to run across a bee or two again. In the mean time, I found a manufacturer that offers free pens to low income people, so she's got that for next time.

On Tuesday afternoon, after being holed up in her office all day with the door closed, leading to all sorts of speculation around the office of plant shut downs, mass firings... all kinda stuff.. Twatwaffle came to my office and shut the door.

"This is it.. I'm fired," I thought.

She leaned back against the door, muttering something about informing her top notch team, began shaking all over and hyperventilating.

With her 96 year old father-in-law in hospice and her mother facing surgery for the lifelong effects of rheumatoid arthritis, I assumed something really bad had happened to one of them. I walked over and put my arms around her.. anything to stop her from shaking. Between panting breaths, struggling to speak, she squeezed out the words, "Monday night.. my son... OD'd... on heroin."

I was flabbergasted. Her son, barely 21, had the world handed to him his whole life. TW has a daughter and three beautiful grand babies, but this boy, this was her baby.

"His... skin was gray... I.. I.. had to do.. CPR... on my baby boy."

That night, he'd come in late and asked her to make him something to eat. She told him no, she was tired, what with running to the assisted living place, taking her mom on doctor visits and running this place. She told him she was going to bed. He is grown after all, surely to gawd he can go make himself a friggen sandwich.

But then she felt guilty, as we all do and went back upstairs to toss some chicken in the fryer. She told herself it wouldn't take ten minutes, then she could sleep, guilt free. As she puttered around the kitchen, she heard him go in to the bathroom, but, after a reasonable amount of time, didn't hear him come out. She banged on the door, but he never answered. When she pushed her way through, she saw him there in the floor, not breathing, with the needle hanging out of his arm.

It would be traumatic enough if you knew your child was doing the hard stuff, but TW had no clue. I can not even begin to fathom what must have gone through her mind.

She yelled for the Bubbahubby to call 911 and began CPR, or at least, the best she could from what she'd seen them do on T.V. When the paramedics arrived, they popped him with a syringe of Narcan and hauled him to the E.R.

Today, TW's baby boy is doing ok, other than facing a court date for possession charges and ya know.. being a heroin addict. TW and her Bubbahubby on the other hand, are all to pieces. I think both their worlds have pretty much been blown to smithereens in the past week.

In the middle of all this feckin' Mama Drama, Thelma put her baby boy on a plane to Argen-fudgin-tina. He met a nice South American girl while working at a ski lodge in Colorado this past winter and decided to pack up his stuff and head way south of the border.

Thelma is nervous, but okay with it. Her Bubbahubby and her mother-in-law are not and are blaming Thelma for "letting" him do it.

The boy is 19. What's she supposed to do? Lock him in the basement?

Lulu said Thelma's brother-in-law even stood up in church last Sunday and asked for prayers for Thelma's baby boy to see the error in his ways, shaking his head and putting on a good floor show.. and embarrassing the beejeebus out of Thelma.

So while I feel lucky that back at my trailer, the worst thing I'm dealing with is The Amazon's swollen ankle and her lack of enthusiasm for helping with the dishes, I've still had my share of anxiety fueled chest pain this week.

As much as TW gets on my last nerve, I honestly do not think I could survive the week she's had. My heart aches for all three of them,

It's hard to be a Mama, yo. The struggle is real.

We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!