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It took three AIDS to get my eighty-eight-year-old mother safely through a shower.
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Three.
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For one shower.
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Apparently, rehab had turned bathing into a team building exercise.
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And I was trying to bring her home.
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I was looking for a house, researching equipment, and organizing appointments.
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I was doing everything I could to make bringing mom home work.
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And I thought that if I planned carefully enough, I could handle it.
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Then I heard about that shower.
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And suddenly I had a question I couldn't answer with a shopping list, a spreadsheet, or another phone call.
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Could I actually take care of her?
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For the past few weeks, we'd been making slow, steady progress.
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Six weeks after surgery, mom was finally putting weight on her leg.
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And I mean finally.
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She was standing between the parallel bars in rehab, putting weight on that broken leg and taking tiny little steps.
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Baby steps.
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Literally.
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And it wasn't easy.
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It was hard work.
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And it hurt.
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But she was doing it.
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And after everything she'd been through, mom was standing on that leg again.
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After an accident, two surgeries, aspiration, a respirator, the ICU, and weeks of rehab, my eighty-eight-year-old mother was walking again.
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Well, sort of.
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But we're counting it.
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I was thrilled.
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I was ready to throw her a parade.
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Mom was getting stronger.
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And I was focused on getting her home.
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I just hadn't realized how many other things I was going to have to figure out before I could do that.
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But while I was celebrating those three steps, there was another problem I needed to understand.
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Because apparently getting your mother back on her feet isn't enough.
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You also need to become an amateur cardiologist.
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Which brings me to AFib.
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Atrial fibrillation.
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I'd never even heard of it.
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Back in the hospital, mom's heart rate suddenly shot up to 189 beats per minute.
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Her heart was basically trying to leave the building without her.
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That's when they diagnosed her with aphib.
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It's an irregular heart rhythm that can increase the risk of blood clots and stroke.
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And apparently everybody has apib.
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Okay, not literally everybody.
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But once mom was diagnosed, I started mentioning it to people.
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And suddenly it seemed like seventy-five percent of her friends and neighbors had it.
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Most were taking medications to manage it, which was reassuring and slightly horrifying.
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Od made it this far into adulthood without knowing much about AFib.
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Now it was one more thing I needed to understand and make sure someone was dealing with it.
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Welcome to Caregiving.
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You don't know what you don't know until suddenly you really, really need to know it.
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After mom aspirated, we weren't aware of any more AFib episodes.
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But that didn't necessarily mean that stopped.
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Mom hadn't felt any different during the earlier episodes.
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So how would we know if it happened again?
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Back in the hospital, she was on a heart monitor.
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They could see what her heart was doing.
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But mom had been in rehab for about three weeks, and she was not on a heart monitor anymore.
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So how exactly were we supposed to know what her heart was doing?
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We didn't.
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And I couldn't assume everything was fine because nobody had told me otherwise.
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That was becoming a theme in my life.
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If I didn't ask the question, I might not get the answer.
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And if I didn't follow up, I couldn't be sure anybody else was going to.
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Now I'm not saying nobody was doing their job.
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Rehab was helping mom recover, and they were great about scheduling some of her follow-ups.
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Some.
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Others, not so much.
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Why?
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Who knows?
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Which meant I was going through six weeks of medical history.
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It was like a medical maze, except every wrong turn came up with another doctor to follow up with.
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So while I was trying to make sure mom's medical care was on track, I was also trying to solve a completely different problem.
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Where were we going to live?
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I
Load full transcript
needed a house that would work for mom, and I still didn't have one.
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And my realtor was not exactly going to put the housing search on hold while I sorted out cardiology.
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So there I was, reviewing mom's medical history and figuring out which doctor needed to see her next when the realtor would call.
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Can you be there in an hour?
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Of course I could.
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I'd ask when it would be available.
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Because the answer was often different from what we'd been told when our realtor scheduled the showing.
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And I'd mentally run through everything else I still needed to do.
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Had I called the cardiologist?
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Had Rehab scheduled that other appointment?
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What was I forgetting?
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That's the thing about caregiving.
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You're never doing just one thing.
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You're doing one thing while mentally keeping track of twelve others.
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Even when you're sitting still, your brain is running around like an unpaid intern who's just been told the entire company is about to be audited.
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I couldn't afford to let something important fall through the cracks.
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I was afraid I might not find out until it was too late.
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So I made an appointment with mom's cardiologist myself.
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He recommended an implantable loop recorder to monitor her heart rhythm.
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No, not a tape recorder.
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Apparently we're not bringing back the eighties.
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It's a tiny device placed just under the skin of the chest that monitors the heart's rhythm and records abnormal activity.
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A small device by mom's bedside would transmit the information to the cardiologist's office every night.
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Finally, a way to keep an eye on what her heart was doing.
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I was relieved.
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I didn't want to wait until Mom was discharged to start figuring this stuff out.
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We were trying to get her walking, find a house, arrange her care, and prepare for a discharge that was getting closer.
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I wanted to know what was happening with her heart before we brought her home.
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One more thing checked off the list.
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Well, sort of.
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Because the list never actually ends.
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Of course, in caregiving, the minute you get one thing under control, something else comes along.
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And this time, it was a shower.
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After two months of sponge baths, mom was absolutely thrilled to finally get a real shower.
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And honestly, I couldn't blame her.
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At that point, a proper shower probably felt like a luxury resort experience.
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But there was one little problem.
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The shower chair.
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At rehab, it wasn't anything like the one she had at home.
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This one had a hole in the middle, and it was clearly too big for mom.
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And mom is tiny.
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So getting her position safely without slipping or sliding into that opening was apparently quite an operation.
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It took three AIDS.
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Three to get one little woman safely situated on a shower chair.
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Now, I wasn't there to witness any of this.
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I was hearing about it afterward, which meant my imagination was free to fill in the blanks.
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And all I can think was how exactly am I supposed to manage this at home?
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I was trying to find a house that would work for mom, researching equipment, and figuring out everything would need.
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I thought I could make it work if I planned carefully enough.
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But hearing that it took three AIDS to get mom safely through a shower made me stop and think about what would happen when it was just me.
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No rehab staff, no extra hands, just me.
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Could I actually take care of her?
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And if you're sitting there thinking, yep, this is my life too, that's exactly why I created this podcast.
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Because there are plenty of places to find information about caring for an aging parent.
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But sometimes you don't need another checklist.
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You just need to know somebody else gets it.
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If the wicked daughter has become that place for you, hit follow so you don't miss the next episode.
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And if you want to help me keep making these episodes, you can support the show through Buy Me a Coffee.
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There's a link right in the podcast description.
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And if you can't or don't want to contribute financially, that's completely okay.
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Sharing an episode or telling another caregiver about the show helps more than you know.
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Okay, back to the story.
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Of course I wanted mom home.
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Desperately.
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I
wanted her out of rehab and somewhere where she can feel comfortable and safe.
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But wanting something badly doesn't automatically mean you can make it work.
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And I was starting to understand that love wasn't the only thing I'd need.
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I'd need to help her move safely, get her in and out of the shower, manage medications, get her to appointments, and deal with whatever came up next.
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I'd need to think about what would happen if she fell, or needed more physical help than I could safely give her.
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And I needed to be honest about what I could actually manage.
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That was a lot harder than saying, I'll figure it out.
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Because here's the thing about being a daughter you love her.
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She's your mother.
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Of course you'll do whatever it takes.
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Of course you'll figure it out.
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At least that's what you tell yourself.
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And when you start wondering whether you actually can do it all, that little voice in your head starts whispering that maybe you're not doing enough.
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Maybe you should be able to handle this.
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Maybe a good daughter wouldn't be questioning whether she could take care of her own mother.
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And suddenly you're feeling guilty.
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Not because you don't want to do it, but because you were afraid you might not be able to do it all yourself.
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That's the wicked daughter part.
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Not that you don't love your mother, not that you don't want her home.
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It's that awful feeling that admitting you have limits somehow makes you less of a daughter.
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But what if being a good daughter doesn't mean doing absolutely everything yourself?
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What if it means being honest about what you can handle and what you can't?
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I still wanted mom home.
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That hadn't changed.
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I could organize medical records, schedule appointments, research equipment, and find a house with the right layup.
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But I was beginning to understand that making a plan and knowing what it would actually take to carry it out were two different things.
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I had to figure out what mom's care would require and what I could safely manage.
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So while mom was learning how to put weight on that leg, I was starting to learn something too.
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Getting mom home wasn't the finish line.
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I had to figure out whether I can actually make home work.
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And I didn't have that answer yet.
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I was just going to have to figure it out one step at a time.
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Just like mom.
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Until next time, take care of yourself too.
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Um the wicked daughter, caring for my aging parent, one meltdown at a time.
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When your friends say cherish this time, you smile while you're losing your mind.
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Was it the pharmacy line or the rush our doctor drive?
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So you swallow that glare with a laugh and a sigh and say, Don't fret, dear.
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We're having the time of our lives.
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Oh, we're having the time.
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The time of our lives.
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Wicked daughter.