Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Dropped

It was like a miracle.
Seriously.
I can't overstate how much the thought of driving a standard in England was freaking me out.
When I first started chatting with James about the possibility of us swapping homes LAST AUGUST, my first question to him (after how many bedrooms and are your toilets reliable) was PLEASE TELL ME YOUR VEHICLE IS AUTOMATIC.

It wasn't.
And I started praying.
Because people? I'm an old dog. And the thought of new tricks gives me high blood pressure.
And trust me. I have tried to wrangle out of driving that eurovan for months. It was kinda sucking the joy out of planning our day to day activities. (I have NOT, by the way, preplanned every single day's itinerary. Of the 22 days we're there, I have left 10 days totally free to be spontaneous. TEN. That's like almost half. So. There. I'm not the control-vacation-nazi that some of you might think I am.)

Anyways.
My blood pressure is probably still high. I'm seeing my doctor next week about the meds. In the meantime, I'm not going to self-check it at Shoppers because just the act of doing it makes it increase I think. Just thinking about high blood pressure gives you high blood pressure.

So I think about other things. Like how can I get out of learning how to drive standard? Which kindof makes my head pound.

And this makes my mom worry that I'm heading for a stroke.
And my mom, being like all moms everywhere in the whole entire world, wants to fix things and make them all better so her children do not suffer from sadness or strokes.

So she calls me tonight to talk about my high blood pressure. And she says, "would it help if I gave you my air miles so that you could rent an automatic car when you get there?"

And Whhoooossshhhhh. Just like that I could breath again. And my head stopped pounding. And maybe I smiled.
"I want you to enjoy yourself and have a great trip. If this is all it takes to make a difference in your holiday, oh my goodness, just take the airmiles, rent a car you're comfortable driving, and have fun."

So then as my blood pressure dropped 16 points (or 600. I don't know how it works) my other release valve let go and I bawled.

Seriously. Best mom ever.

Three things I'm thankful for:
1. Duh. My mom.
2. My neighbourhood- love going for late evening walks around here.
3. DQ Treatza Pizza

5 comments:

Tricia said...

There is a good book about high blood pressure; "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension,"
by Mark Houston MD.
It tells you about the different meds and things you can do to help lower your bp.

raych said...

I am so delighted for you. Things of that nature AND ALSO that exact thing would throw a cloud of unpleasantness over a vacation for me, and I would be spending every minute thinking about the next time I had to get into that car. Enjoy your rented, automatic beauty.

valerie said...

WOW and YIPPEE all at the same time. You have done a fantastic job of planning for the trip and it will be awesome. John is VERY excited for it and so am I. An automatic car = great.

Anonymous said...

Yay for moms!
I am so glad for you! I think I was as nervous for you as you were for yourself.
Enjoy that lowered BP!

Kim

Felice said...

10 unplanned days...I'm impressed. But will that cause your blood pressure to go up....or down?