Back in Tucson
I’m back in Tucson, and have been since the seventeenth. It turns out that my mother, Angela, will get to come home sooner than expected.
Phone consultations with my mom’s Wichita-based allergist, and with the interior environment specialist who examined our house, revealed some stark disagreements with “Dr. Erickson’s” assertion that the house would never be habitable for her again. According to the allergist, Erickson’s is an extremist viewpoint that leaves her with virtually no options; according to the environment specialist, all that remained to be done was replacement of the carpet in the formerly-leaky loft.
When I returned to Kansas in late September, Angela was healthier than I’d seen her in years. Over the three and a half weeks that she was on her own, however, the burden of doing all her own shopping and errands — along with searching for an apartment1, buying a car to save money over renting one2, and getting exposed to pesticide when the bushes outside the hospitality house were sprayed — had caused her to deteriorate almost to her previous level of ill health.
Shortly after I came back, she started taking oil of oregano and olive leaf extract. Both were recommended by a Tucsonite she’d befriended who knows a great deal about natural medicine. She started to cough up a lot of the remaining crap in her lungs, which turned out to be a mixed blessing. This was apparently one of those “it gets worse before it gets better” things, and there were a couple of very scary episodes. Now, however, she’s breathing much better. I’m hopeful that this will continue to be the case.
The current plan is to take the new car (a 5-door Chevy Aveo) back to Kansas on Thursday. We’ll be heading north to Flagstaff, then taking I-40 east through Albuquerque and Arlington to Oklahoma City. At Oklahoma City, we take I-35 north back to Kansas. It’s a two-day trip; we’re currently looking for hotels in Albuquerque with Evergreen rooms, where my mom can stay the night without setting off her allergies.
This whole Tucson adventure has been a mixed blessing (a phrase that’s been cropping up a lot in my life recently). It was frustratingly difficult to get her in to see any of the medical specialists we’d hoped for her to visit. Tucson is growing very rapidly, and specialized physicians are in short supply. The waiting lists are literally months long. When you call the doctor’s office, the recording says, “If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911.” She was able to see a young internist the Wednesday after I arrived, and he was more helpful than the two specialists she’d managed to wheedle appointments with3. He ordered a slew of blood work and chest x-rays, both of which have yielded some informative results that I don’t have the energy to go into right now. Not a total loss on the medicine front, then, but a disappointment nonetheless.
On the other hand, Angela’s health is greatly improved over where she was before she left Kansas. She had a safe place to stay while repairs were done to the house that have (hopefully) made it safe for her again. Moreover, Angela and I both have both made connections that could further our future careers — she as a consultant combining her experience in both psychology and business, I as a professional web developer (more on this later).
So where does that leave us? Big changes, and hope for the future. Bill has given away his beloved cats — Sophia and Bat-Kitty — in order to create a friendlier environment for his highly-allergic wife. The trip back will no doubt be hard on her, but my mother also has more opportunities for her future than she has in years. We’re going back to a home that’s cleaner than anyplace we’ve lived in over a decade, and her health can’t help but improve as a result. There are even more changes on the horizon, and more risks, and more opportunities. I’ll elaborate in future posts, when I have more time.
Finally, we’re also left with a boatload of debt. If you have any money left over after donating to help the victims of this year’s hurricane season, please consider pitching in a little cash to help dig us out of the hole. Barring that, wish us luck. I think we may be in for better days.
1 We originally thought that Angela would have to stay in Tucson at least until we’d sold the house — possibly as long as several months. While the hospitality house is a great deal ($35/night, no fee for extra occupants) compared to most decent hotels, it’s still too expensive for long-term habitation. Rent for a good studio or one-bedroom apartment in Tucson is about $500-650/month, compared to $1,000/month to keep staying at Hotel Schmotel.
2 Again, this was done because we thought she’d be staying for months. Renting a car long-term is ridiculously expensive. It was costing us over $800/month to provide my mom with transportation. She got a great deal on the Aveo, and the payments and insurance combined are only about $250/month. According to Angela, there were beads of sweat forming on the salesman’s forehead by the time she got through negotiating with him. Way to use those old real estate skills, mom. 
The new car is ugly-cute, like the product of a one night stand between a Ford Focus and a Chrysler minivan. With Bill’s car paid off, and his insurance premiums ridiculously low, it’ll end up making a good vehicle for shopping trips to Wichita and other trips out of town.
3 I’m aware that an internist is also a kind of specialist, but they tend to practice a more generalized kind of medicine than, say, a pulmonologist or endocrinologist does.
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