Just breathe

So I’m visiting my favorite curmudgeon.  I’m rearranging the furniture to make it more accessible for him.  I have practice at this.  Everything in my home sits at the height I can reach without bending or standing on tip-toes.  I also lived for eight or nine years with a man principally sitting down twenty-four/seven, so I understand from various viewpoints what it means to re-arrange a room to be more practical.

He’s letting me do it.  He’s sitting in his chair, watching the news, while I flit.  I unplug the CD player, move a little table, move the machine.  I throw away a bunch of clutter.  Mid-stride, though, my favorite curmudgeon suddenly says, “I’m not getting any oxygen.”

I have always been able to remain calm when someone else comes under attack.  Not so much if I’m at risk — that gives me the chills.  But on someone else’s behalf, I fall into my calm mode.  I check the tubing; I turn the machine off and on.  We press the button to summon help.  I try to switch to bottled oxygen but fumble.  I stride down to the elevator, across the lobby to the desk, and alert the staff.  Ten minutes later, a savior arrives and connects an oxygen bottle.  The machine supplier has also been alerted and a new one will be delivered.  Crisis handled.  He will be all right.  He can breathe.  Just breathe.

His son arrives to take over, to watch television with his father and oversee the installation of the new oxygen condenser.  And I go home, thankful for the staff at his care facility, for the nearness of the hospice caregivers, for the call from his daughter, and for another day with my favorite curmudgeon.

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Jay MacLaughlin with his cousin Anne Jones and her service dog, Katie.

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