Swollen and diabetic feet are all the rage, yet, it is very difficult to find socks and shoes to fit them. There are a few places with wide shoes or even a couple of pairs of double-wide tennis shoes in stock. However, it is next to impossible to find double and triple wide shoes at local main stream stores.
We gallivanted about in swollen feet donning bright red Christmas slippers to main stream stores throughout the NW. In search of triple wide shoes to places such as Sears, JC Penny’s, and Fred Meyer. We finally came up with some wide and unbinding socks at Fred Meyer, but still no shoes. I even checked out some of the larger specialty shoe stores, but to no avail. J.C. Penney’s did have a catalogue I could order from, but that would mean sloshing about in the puddles in bright red fuzzy Christmas slippers for 3 - 5 more days waiting for a pair of shoes which may or may not fit. Although people said my mother was cute in her bright red slippers, you try going out in your bright red Christmas slippers and see if people think you are cute. Do we suddenly become cute-as-a-pope (picture Andy Rooney in bright red Christmas slippers hiding behind his desk) after 80?
We still have an over-priced pair of shoes from a small specialty shoe store that the sales person insisted they could stretch to fit, yet they never quite stretched far enough, very expensive paper weights.
After a visit to my mothers hair dresser (where I learn a lot about this sort of thing) the other ladies told us they had gone to a small obscure shoe store. There we found a few double and triple wide shoes to choose from as well as that tight compression stocking hose thing to wear (so much to look forward to) to keep the fluid from seeping into the feet and ankles (another attractive and cumbersome item to wear along with the hearing aids).
If medicine can’t figure out how to “fix” our flaws and pump the fluid from our swollen appendages before I get there, I hope the University’s can pump out some decent ergonomic designers who can make a good fitting shoe which is also attractive, should I be so lucky to live that long. Do the manufacturers of these “bricks” think that ladies no longer care about what they look like once their feet are the size of bratwurst sausages?
We have now traded the cute-as-a-pope bright red $10.00 Christmas slippers for a pair of $100+ black bricks and a pair of ted hose (hmmmm maybe cute isn’t so bad). I am sure these shoes will wear like iron and last a “life-time”. Maybe cute-as-a-pope slippers should be the hot fashion trend.
It is all the rage to have diabetic and swollen feet – you would think that stores would want to accommodate the millions of people who need them and are willing to spend e-gads amount of money for them. When you need them, you need them. You don’t want to take days prancing about the NW in your cute-as-a-pope fuzzy bright red Christmas slippers sloshing about in mud puddles in search of them. It is time for main stream stores to accommodate this fast growing fashion trend. This is not mere kindness, just good business sense.
By the time you roll up the compression hose, strap the triple wide bricks onto your feet, figure out how to find the hidden trap door for the hearing aid battery, and figure out where you left your walker, BINGO is over anyway.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
Mayhem with Meds...
It is important that people know that if a loved one should live long enough to go to the home (or any where they may receive help with their medications) Be sure to follow-up once they check in and even a week later as well as periodically. Sometimes directions with medications are misconstrued.
My mother once decided to try assisted living. She started to pass out quite regularly in the mornings. I would receive calls at work that my mother was on her way to the Emergency Room. One morning when I rushed to the assisted living center, the young nurse said that she thought my mother was having seizures. I told her that she is 82 and has never had a seizure prior to entering their establishment.
My mother did not feel well during her months in the home and decided she had had enough. For many reasons this place was not all it was cracked-up (to be). When I went to retrieve her plethera of medications. I found that instead of giving her blood pressure pills in divided doses as prescribed by the Dr., the nurses were giving her all of her many, many BP medications all at once each morning causing her to pass out on a regular basis.
Rx -- make sure that you follow things up carefully where ever you go... this is not the first time that she has survived such mis-haps with meds.
My mother once decided to try assisted living. She started to pass out quite regularly in the mornings. I would receive calls at work that my mother was on her way to the Emergency Room. One morning when I rushed to the assisted living center, the young nurse said that she thought my mother was having seizures. I told her that she is 82 and has never had a seizure prior to entering their establishment.
My mother did not feel well during her months in the home and decided she had had enough. For many reasons this place was not all it was cracked-up (to be). When I went to retrieve her plethera of medications. I found that instead of giving her blood pressure pills in divided doses as prescribed by the Dr., the nurses were giving her all of her many, many BP medications all at once each morning causing her to pass out on a regular basis.
Rx -- make sure that you follow things up carefully where ever you go... this is not the first time that she has survived such mis-haps with meds.
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