My poor Mother had the unfortunate event of catching a cold. She woke up yesterday much more confused, barely shuffling her feet along and with a slight fever.  Because of her age and inability to properly communicate her maladies, I took the day off work and our daytime caregiver and I took mom to the doctors for blood work, xrays , etc.  I thought no harm in being proactive as this type of congestion can turn into pneumonia very quickly.

Mom was her typical uncooperative self every step of the way. The day was peppered with her constant insistence of nothing being wrong with her, to claims that I was lying  or trying to trick her when I said we were just going to the doctor to check out her cold. Needless to say the day couldn’t be over fast enough for me and I capped it with more than a little bit of wine!

So this morning I was slow to get up and face the day without a caregiver, knowing mom would be ours to manage with her illness. Gratefully Kathy got mom settled with her newspaper and morning coffee. When I finally wandered into the living room to start the day mom looked up from her chair with an expression of horror. She said to me, in a voice reminiscent of Morgan Freeman, “Something happened to my head! Listen to me!” and proceeded to demonstrate how she did indeed sound like an old man talking in a very low voice.

I have no earthly idea why this stuck me as hysterically funny. Maybe it was the frustrations of the previous day needing a release. But as she was looking to me for an explanation for this horrible new voice she was unable to change, I burst out in laughter. I laughed so hard I started to cry and had to sit down on the footstool at the end of her chair to try and contain myself.

As I was bent over in laughter I could hear Kathy teasing me in the background “You are going to hell Monica Flynn”, but for what seemed too long for good manners, I could not contain myself.  When I was finally able to look at mom she gratefully was smiling and said with good humor, “Well I am glad you are laughing.” I apologized to her as I regained my compose and pointed out to mom that she just had a very bad cold.

Mom’s response was that she was not cold and insisted “Something is wrong in my mouth!” Well, that threw me into another fit of hysterics with Kathy shaking her head at me and patiently reassuring mom she would have her other voice back in a few days. Mom seemed to take it in that this was going to be her new voice for awhile and exclaimed, “No one is going to want to talk to me!” Then, anticipating having to explain her man voice, she said to no one in particular, “Yes, my name IS Marion I’m sorry to tell you.”

And I started in with the laughter all over again, and thankfully this time Mom joined me!