The Funny Business of ALS

Obviously, having ALS in of itself is not that funny. Every day is a challenge and things just don't get any easier. However, I've been finding that it has put me in some situations that I just can't help but look back on after the fact, and shake my head in disbelief and giggle about it.

At the moment I get a lot of social worker help coming through the house for various reasons and a also see a lot of professionals who try to help out with advice or find solutions. For the most part they are generally very good. But every once in a while I'll see a new person who isn't quite as on the ball as the rest and something odd comes out of the conversation. When I look back on those situations, I can't help but roll my eyes and chuckle.

I thought long and hard about posting some of these here, but I figured a little levity would do this blog some good. Just for the record, I'm not complaining. I very much do appreciate the services…

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Pass the Salt…

Every couple weeks I get the social worker to come to the house to help me prepare some large meals which are then freeze for reheating until the next visit. The way this works is the helper essentially acts as my hands and follow my instructions, with my recipes. This usually works out really quite well.

On this particular day, I had a Haitian lady to help me out who was very nice and I've gradually learns that the Haitians tend to do things a little bit differently in the kitchen, which is fine. 

This lady in particular was washing everything quite fanatically. For example she would wash and canned goods before opening them and any of the utensils we might need. Even though they were coming out of my clean drawer.

Anyway, as the cooking progresses and I'm not really saying anything about her cleaning habits as after all it's better to be safe than sorry we get to the point where we need to add a teaspoon of salt to the recipe. Now personally I prefer to use sea salt, which generated the following conversation:

• me: "now please add 1 teaspoon of salt it's in the bowl beside the stove."
• helper lady picks up the the salt and takes a teaspoon out and stares at it for a second. She then asks: "do I need to wash the salt?"
• me: "no, you do not need to wash the salt… But feel free to try"

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No More Soap…

We were also provided with a cleaning lady every couple weeks to help take off some of the pressure of managing the home. This lady in particular did an okay job. Not great, just okay.

One day she's cleaning the bathroom upstairs and she calls me up. When I get there after navigating the hazards of the stairwell, she proceeds to explain to me how she cannot wash the bathtub because we do not have any more of the vim soap in the spray bottle…

• cleaning lady: "I'm sorry, I don't think I'll be able to finish the bathroom. There is no more spray soap in the bottle, so I can't spray the tub before scrubbing it."
  She then reaches for nearly full bottle of liquid vim soap on the counter.
  "I only found this under the sink, and I can't spray it"
• me: I stare at her for probably 2 seconds and I'm pretty sure I had my mouth hanging open in disbelief.
  "So why don't you put this up on the sponge first and then scrub the tub?"
• cleaning lady: pauses for a second and then says "yeah, I suppose I can do that…"
• Me: I leave shaking my head before she sees me do the double face Palm