I woke up with a migraine again this morning and thought, “Enough is enough!” Two or three days are normal for me, but when it goes longer than that, I take action.

I told Mom I wanted to go to Urgent Care. It was raining fairly hard when we pulled out of her garage and she put the pedal to the metal. I held onto the door for dear life and said, “Mom, slow down!” She was hitting the speed bumps so hard that I nearly bumped my head on the ceiling of her car. I said, “It’s a migraine, Mom, not a heart attack. Slow down!” She finally slowed down.

We got to the Urgent Care clinic and I showed them my insurance cards and they said, “We don’t take that kind of Medicare.” They gave me suggestions of three local Urgent Care clinics that did take it and said I could sit in their lobby and make a reservation at one of the other clinics if I wanted. I was doing an online appointment reservation for a local clinic and Mom said, “I want you to be seen here.” I said, “They don’t take my insurance,” and she said, “I’ll pay for it!” I tried to argue with her but she wouldn’t take my word for it. She went up to the reception desk and talked with them for a couple of minutes while I continued to do the online reservation and she finally came back defeated. The receptionist had told her she couldn’t pay for me to be seen.

We got out of there and I had an appointment set up at a different clinic for 9:18 (it was 8:45 when we headed out). Mom thought she knew of another place nearby so she drove there but couldn’t find it. I said, “Mom, I have an appointment at 9:18 at a clinic not far from here.” She said, “No, I’m going to take you home. I don’t want to go very far.”

I started using every form of manipulation I could to try to stop her. I’m not proud of that. She still said no, so in exasperation, I said, “Fine! Don’t take me then. Let me suffer in pain!” As we were getting closer to her house, she started to relent and she said, “I don’t know of any places near here.” I said, “The clinic gave me three places that are close by and I had an appointment at one of them, but it’s too late to go to that one now. There’s another one in this area and I can look it up on my GPS if you’ll take me there.” She finally agreed.

We got to the clinic and I went to the desk to register. The receptionist said that the next available appointment would be at 10:45. I took it and went back to where Mom was sitting and said, “They have an opening at 10:45.” She said, “But that’s an hour away!” I said, “I had an appointment at 9:18 and you wouldn’t take me to it!” She said, “If you ate something, you probably wouldn’t have had a headache.” I pointed across the parking lot to a Jimmy Johns and said I could get something there to eat while we were waiting. She followed me over and I got a sandwich. After I finished eating it, I went into the clinic and told the receptionist I was back and she told me they had had a cancellation and she could get me in sooner.

I asked Mom to come in with me and she said she’d hold my coat and purse and wait in the lobby. When I got into the examination room, they started asking me questions about what pharmacy they should send prescriptions to if one was required and I said, “I don’t know the area very well, but my mom uses a pharmacy in King City.” They said, “What’s the name of it?” I couldn’t think of the name, so I said, “Could you bring my mother back here?” When they brought her back, it took her a bit to remember the name and location of her pharmacy. She had brought my purse back to the room but had left my coat in the lobby. I had to ask the nurse to bring my coat back because I was freezing.

When we were alone in the room, I apologized to Mom for the things I said and she smiled sweetly and said, “That’s OK. I know people say things they don’t mean when they’re in pain!”

I love Mom dearly and we generally get along very well, but every once in a while, she gets a notion in her head and she’s like a dog with a bone. She will not let go! For her part, she hates going beyond a particular area around her house when she’s driving for fear she’ll get lost, so I know it wasn’t that she didn’t want to help me. I guess she didn’t trust my GPS to be able to get us there and she only wanted to go on streets she’s familiar with. At her age, that’s probably not unusual…that is, if anyone else is still driving at 94-and-a-half years of age!

We both rested for a bit when we got home and my headache seemed to get better. My neck, shoulders, and temples still feel a little tender to the touch, but hopefully, it will all be gone by tomorrow.

All has been forgiven. We played a couple of games of Scrabble before bedtime and parted as friends. Tomorrow is a new day with a clean slate. Thank God for clean slates!