Patronising Patsy

…

Like any average, emotional episode, my mother arrived on the scene Saturday afternoon to check on her ailing mother, afflicted by a possessive bacteria lodging rent-free inside the lady bits.

Naturally, I was patronised.

“I’m not going to argue with you. We need to be on the same page. She needs energy. The body needs food for fuel. Her not eating enough is concerning. …Even my skinny self needs to eat…”

As if it wasn’t common knowledge. As if I wasn’t thoroughly aware that my grandmother was growing weaker with each passing day of debilitating appetite and inability to digest most foods coming into contact with her oral cavity.

Notwithstanding the fact that no argumentation was present. Introduction, middle or closing. I simply conveyed a simple truth of the matter being contingent on her digestive tract, a factor of which does not take emotion into account.

At least, not as far as general function is concerned.

I remarked under breath about it being for her stomach to decide.

Maybe you should tell her digestive system that.

However, I understood the meaning of mood behind her tone of voice. I sympathised with the warble of worry she was feeling.

As an underpaid nurse approaching middle age, a myriad of health complications stored in her pill box, I knew it was the stress speaking recklessly, if not unconsciously.

Still, I couldn’t let it slip past me. The neurosis couldn’t allow this to go unheeded. My intelligence, admittedly insecure, felt threatened. More accurately, it was logic that felt impressed with a merciless boot.

“Experts” were never trusted anymore than amateurs, hobbyists and idiot savants. They were still learning. No one – and I mean no one – can ever claim the title of master. The job was perpetually part-time.

As soon as one suspends their studies indefinitely or memory fails, mastery is no longer static, subject to switch places and change to a value decreased in constancy.

It’s the blood pressure medication.

It’s the antibiotics.

It’s the misinformation regarding urinary tract infections and women’s reproductive anatomy.

Fosinopril and Prochlorperazine.

The former for hypertension.

The latter for nausea and vomiting prevention.

Both effecting the same outcome of vomitus and subsequent indigestion moments after taking prescribed dosages.

It was the Nitrofurantoin that took a sharp U-turn, developing strange appetites for the friendly bacteria and, in essence, colluding with, or rather succumbing to, the enemy.

“She needs to be prepared for surgery. She needs strength.”

More haughty presumptions of cerebration.

Of course she’s going to necessitate all the strength she can reserve for her knife session.

Is that it?

I’m not expressing my behaviour in understandable terms.

Yes, that’s exactly it.

The pitfalls of communication in which solipsism is seated at the head for either party. Only one or neither party attempts to exchange perspective.

To consider language that differs from their own, all the while arriving to the same intersection.

In every pill slot, there is a placebo of varying sleep disorders.

After the first stage of loss in critical thinking, the victim’s emotional state becomes fragile.

Frangible bullets, forever aiming towards the wrong target…