Doctor My Eyes

Eye and ear appointments with mum today. She’d been complaining that she couldn’t see to read the newspaper and that her hearing aids weren’t working. The respective specialists had requested that I be present at both meetings to help explain what was happening. To the opticians at the hospital first (having left Chester thirty odd years ago, I’d forgotten what a hideous place the Countess of Chester is - and not really improved any by the rainbow sculpture erected after Covid). Once we’d actually established the reason for the appointment (to see if aids like magnifiers or different glasses were required) mum then confounded the optician by reading lines on the board that were only one above what I could manage and I was sitting two feet closer! She could also read print smaller than a phone book - as long as light was shining on it. Bingo! The problem is not lack of vision, it is a lack of light. All she needs to do is get a separate light for when she wants to read.
Back home and a meeting with the hearing aid specialist. It soon transpired that the reason he wanted me there was so he could show me how to charge and clean her hearing aids as, every time she has been shown in the past, she had forgotten the procedure within a day or two, necessitating another (unnecessary!) appointment to go through it all again. I got the distinct impression that it’s over to us now to keep her hearing aids working and to only call the man out in a dire emergency. Not sure how that’s going to work when I live a hundred miles away, but I guess I can have a crack at talking her through it over the phone, now I know what’s involved.
Visits to the doctors and the clinic tomorrow to sort out prescriptions and change dressings. By the time this week is out, mum will have had the equivalent of 100,000 mile service. Let’s hope it will keep her going for a while longer!