13 July 2021
On Monday, Salwa the LVN returned to do Joyce's dressing. She had gone to Jordon to get her traditional Muslim wedding dress fitted.
When she texted Friday evening to confirm the appointment, I confirmed the time and cheekily asked her if the wedding was still. Definitely, she replied, with a few photos from the trip to prove it. The two of them looked very happy.
It's such a different place, she told us, when she arrived. From the traffic to the food to the culture. Not to mention the heat (107 degrees in the day and 99 at night). She couldn't live there but she enjoyed the visit, she said. It was her first time out of the country.
In one of the photos she was wearing a red carpet gown. What was that all about? She'd been told to bring her bridal dress to attend a wedding but it was all a ruse. Her new family threw them a surprise engagement party.
She had ordered a mid-range wedding dress for $2,000, she said. And they told her to get it three sizes too big so they could easily alter it closer to the event. She brought it back for the alterations thinking it would be $350 more but they wanted $1,400. The $350 was just for the bodice, they told her.
She felt a little fleeced.
But she had bigger things to worry about. Like getting furniture for their apartment, which they did this weekend. Ten pieces is about $10,000 now, she told us, because of the price of lumber. But a friend of a patient gave her a deal and spent $3,600 for everything but a sofa they bought somewhere else.
Fortunately, Salwa talks very quickly and she managed to get all this conveyed in 1:07 minutes.
Oh, Joyce's vitals were normal and the dressing change went fine.