By Cathe Carruthers-Hartung
I have a doctor appointment at one fifteen this afternoon. I feel the pressure as soon as I wake up. We can’t dally through breakfast. We have to hurry and get my daughter’s diaper changed and both of us dressed in our barn clothes as soon as we are finished eating. Then we hurry outside and I have to decide – do I leave her in the stroller while I quickly feed, grain, turn out horses and muck stalls or do I let her help me feed her ponies and then put her in the stroller while I finish up or do I just let her roam around while I do the chores.
The latter is the most enjoyable option for both of us but is not for mornings when there is a schedule to up hold. I elect to let her feed her ponies with my assistance and then I feed a couple of the easy horses in outside paddocks while she wanders around picking up rocks. I expedite things by putting her in her stroller while I feed the horses in the barn, grain and turn a couple of horses out to pasture for the day. I decide I don’t have enough time to clean stalls this morning so I save it for this evening which I hate doing. It really doesn’t matter but it always feels better to have all the chores done before I leave for Missoula.
I quickly feed the cats and am further hurried through chores by Cede’s impatient cry from the stroller – she complains as only a one year old can that she would much rather be wandering around picking up rocks, dragging baling twine around with half a dozen cats chasing behind her or throwing bits of hay to her ponies or my horse, Woody. I feel the stress of her impatience in my shoulders and I tell her that I understand she is frustrated and that I am hurrying so we can go take a shower. This buys me only a few seconds before she begins complaining again.
I get through chores, hurry back to the house jump in the shower with Cede in tow, get both of us mostly clean enough to go town, jump out, dry us, clean up the four places Cede pees on the floor before I can get her diaper on, dress both of us, stock up the diaper bag and my purse for the day and fill a sippy cup of water and ice to take along. I throw in a few snacks, a couple of books and toys for entertainment during my doctor appointment and then haul everything out to the pick-up. I put Cede in her car seat and we start off on our fifty mile drive to Missoula which takes us an hour. We aren’t ten miles from home when I hear a ding from the dashboard and see my fuel light illuminate. My husband has been changing pipe with my pick up and apparently used most of the quarter tank of fuel I had when I came home last time. Now I have to make it to Arlee which is the closest gas station that has diesel.
I don’t have time for this but if I hurry and only get enough fuel to get to town, I can still be on time. As I drive, I think irritably of the next conversation I am going to have with my husband. Am I going to be angry or understanding? I mull this over all the way to Arlee and through the fueling process. Now I am back on the road and feeling better about things when, just as I am leaving Arlee, I see on the side of the road an orange sign. They are re-painting the lines on the highway from Arlee to Evaro. Now I am going to be late. I get through the painting, to Missoula, to St. Pat’s and am lucky to find a parking space on Broadway that is big enough for my pick-up. I unpack my diaper bag, my purse and my daughter, pile them all on to the stroller and jog toward the building. The elevator takes forever to get to the fifth floor and I hurry to the reception desk. I am feeling pretty good because I am only ten minutes late after all of that. There is one person in front of me and it doesn’t take long for me to realize that she is a first time patient. I wait fifteen minutes for the receptionist to check her in. Finally it is my turn.
I give my name and the receptionist calls someone in the back. She tells me they can no longer take me. This appointment is the only reason I have come to town today. Usually I have a list of errands but today this was it. I can feel the tension in my shoulders and something happens that surprises me. I start to cry. The receptionist reminds me that I should have been here ten minutes prior to my appointment even after I have plead my case about the highway line painting and the fifty mile drive I have just made. I leave out the part about my pick-up being out of diesel, the pain of hurrying a one year old though breakfast and shower and the list of chores I had to do before I left. I spare her the details of packing the diaper bag for a day trip and lugging it all out to my pick-up and the scene it must have been cramming all of it along with my daughter onto my little tiny ten dollar town stroller. And the even better scene when I jogged down the side walk with its plastic wheels struggling to turn that fast and stay straight at the same time and how they got stuck in the elevator gap when I was trying to get in the elevator. I just stand there eyes welled up with tears in shock that I am crying, tired by the effort I have just made to get here and lost as to what to do now.
She offers to try to get me in with another doctor but I don’t want to see another doctor although I don’t know why. I helplessly ask about rescheduling and she points around the corner to the appointment desk. I push my stroller around the corner and there is another line. I wait a few minutes but my daughter is starting to become impatient again and I decide I will call later to reschedule. I come back around the corner and walk past the receptionist desk toward the elevator. The woman who was behind in the check-in line says she is sorry as I walk by. I thank her for her sentiment and she says it again with more feeling and adds “I have been there” as she looks at me and my daughter and my ridiculously overburdened stroller. I can feel in her energy that she has been there and while I am still teary, her offering has relieved some of my burden. I accept her effort to reach out to me and I take my daughter to my favorite sandwich shop downtown and then to the carousel for the afternoon.
We head home having finally gotten the gold ring after I don’t know how many rides. We get home in time to repeat the morning chores and clean stalls before dark all while Cede follows me around ‘helping’. As I settle in for the night and put my daughter to bed, I am thankful for this day and I think about the lady at the doctor’s office. What a lovely woman and what a lovely day she gave to me.
Cathe Carruthers-Hartung is a freelance writer who lives in the Moiese Valley. She and her husband raise beef cattle, wheat, corn and hay for a living. Her passions are being a mom to her one and half year old daughter, Mercedes, and riding dressage on the Thoroughbred and Lusitano horses she raises.
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It is so so true that one person can change everything. One encounter with a compassionate, kind person can set the tone for an entire day. And, of course, one encounter with a grumpy dweeb can do the same. What power we all have!
Good job, mama, hanging in there and enjoying the rest of the day. And, the gold ring!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao&feature=player_embedded
I agree with what Nicci said. The power we have to influence someone’s day is amazing.
When you have a few minutes, this is an excellent video on validation that a friend of mine found on youtube. I cried my eyes out!
ENJOY, and hang in there!
Rural Mama,
I love your stories. I live in Polson and although I do not have to run a ranch, I do understand the incredible effort it takes to make it on time to an errand or function in Missoula or Kalispell with the baby in tow. Especially when the hubby leaves the gas tank empty or forgets to tell me that we are out of windshield wiper fluid, and I find out twenty miles later when I can no longer see out of my windshield. And oh yes, the endless roadwork on 93 between here and Missoula is enough to sabotage whatever plans have been made for the day.
Thanks for writing!