Is the name of my new sitcom, I think. I'll probably never finish it. That's one of the things my dad said to me a few weeks ago "You're like me, you start things but never finish them." He's constantly making things about him. It's how he relates to the world. I guess that's how many people relate?
Anyway, in that way, he's the opposite of my mother who was mostly empathetic, or pissy. When she got really mad she'd turn the wheel of the car, hit the gas and squeal around a corner. And then, if you apologize, she'd say the worst thing ever "You're just being yourself." A punishment for being an asshole.
It's January 7, 2021 and I'm currently sitting in a waiting room in Avon, Ohio, a permanent sub for my dead mom. My 78 year-old father is getting a patch of melanoma taking out of his right arm. Only on the drive here did I come to understand it was his right arm, and not his left. (So who's self-involved)?
He just went in to the outpatient surgical office, after chatting it up with everyone in our path.
Sitting in the waiting room, he was reading the New Yorker and I was trying to worm out of him his favorite restaurant (his birthday is Saturday). I looked up Macaroni on my laptop and slyly said "Is that your favorite restaurant?" and he replied "One of them" and I didn't get a chance to ask him more because and a fellow next to me said "Please don't talk about food, I'm waiting for my colonoscopy and I'm starving." My dad jumped on it saying "Oh, the worst part is over. Now's the good part--it'll be the best drug you've ever had". The fellow looked at me and I hopped into the ha ha parade saying "I guess we need to get him better drugs for home." Then he was called into the room, handed me his spare New Yorker, flip phone and wallet and went off.
So, sitting here, I'm forcing myself to look over at the hospital part of this facility. The site where my mom died. I can't see her room but I know it's there. My mom died on June 19, 2018. Even on the drive here I said "We can go visit mom in ICU" and our eyes filled with tears and Dad said "The most traumatic event our family ever went through". My eyes are filled with tears. Worry about my Dad's procedure, wondering why the hell I'm living in Elyria instead of LA, missing my mom and wanting her here right now as I'm a poor long-term sub. As my dad deals with his 5th round of cancer, we're all thinking: it was supposed to be him first, not Mom.
He was talking last night about a patient he met in a long-term nursing facility. He was having lunch with two patients, in his volunteer role as Ombudsman. One of the patients coughed and the other patient said "Don't let them hear you". Dad laughed at his own joke and then explained to me "They're stuck in there, it's like school. Eat at this time, sleep at this time. They know if they get a little bit sick, it's the kiss of death. That's when I want the 45." I said "Dad, you're going to die here, at home, with us taking care of you." He laughed and then got a bit teary-eyed.
The door to the procedure area opens again "Donald?" We all look up, trying to guess who Donald is. He's older, tall, thin and sprightly and as the nurse says "Hi, I'm Mara" he replies with a buoyant "HOWDY" and disappears to the same door my dad went through.
A lady to my right says "I like your purse, where did you get it?" I reply and worry that I sound really bougie "A little shop in Chicago, where you make custom purses. I think this was upholstery fabric." "I really like it". We are all a shared community: my Dad, hungry colonoscopy guy and my purse admirer.
I get up and wipe my tears: waiting rooms and hospitals make me very anxious. I take a quiz on facebook for a study with Carnegie Mellon predicting my likelihood of catching Covid. "Have you experienced any anxiety, depression in the last day?" I'm not sure what to say--last night the congress was counting votes after a bunch of idiots stormed the capital, I am trying to find a tenant for my apartment that's sitting empty in LA, I'm currently reading Obama's new book and I just cried when I looked over at the building where my mother died. I check "Not at all" because this is just baseline anxiety. "Have you been anxious if someone in your family will catch Covid" Um, yes. My dad has Melanoma and we are in a surgical outpatient clinic surely breathing in nothing but Covid air. Yes, I'm anxious. I'm a human and his technical ICE.
My eyes fill again as I think "Who's my ICE?" The emergency contact question always makes me cry. Everyone else puts down a husband or wife and I put down my best friend, or my father or my sister.
"Karen?"
My purse admirer pops up and I say "Good luck Karen" and she says "Thank you!" and my tears dry up.
I'm hungry. My dad barely eats and has lost some 60 pounds (on purpose). He's also like a little mouse: I'll open up a box of granola bars I bought and find only one in there. He's a late night binger and will eat any sweets in sight. My mom use to hide the cookies from him and this year I hid them in the oven and the next morning he said to me "Amateur hour. Your mother was much better than you." And so, the cookies were gone.
I don't like seeing my mom's stocking hanging empty, so I stuffed it with his favorite candies: Malt Balls from the local Chocolate shop run by a high school friend and AllSorts Licorice. He balked when he pulled them out "Who got me these?" and then two days later I went to eat a maltball and they were completely gone. "I had a real binge last night" he confessed.
I wore my one Christmas present from my dad to cheer him up: A mask from our church, St Mary's.
This purse is here in Elyria, because I gave it to mom and she used it as her chemo bag, filled with magazines and snacks as the poison poured into her veins. I went to one treatment--it's pretty boring, Dad read Hamilton and mom chatted with the nurses and patients around her. We were assured she'd survive. She did survive the cancer but not the chemo.
I'm wiping my eyes, embarassed and not sure what to do with my runny nose. Take the mask off?
I decide on action and get up to grab a tissue and check my dad's privacy identifier number on the board "Pre proced" in a yellow highlighted. My dad wasn't sure what the exact time of the procedure was, and I can't go back there with him because of Covid.
The door pops open and another doc comes through, on his phone, ppe on.
I need to distract myself so I get up and go to the board again. "In room"--now highlighted green.
My sister texts: "How's Dad?" I reply "Still waiting" and think, I've got to get it together, for when the doc comes out.
One time, my sisters and I were with my mom, while dad had another surgery at the downtown Cleveland Clinic. They teased my about my $200 dollar jeans (i got them through work, I'd never pay that for jeans" and how they don't fit because I keep tugging at them and none of us have an ass to hold them up.) We giggle about how we have my dad's ass and mom says "I always liked a good ass on a man."
I cry again and then a nurse comes out and says "Favio" and Favio gets up and the nurse says "My name is Carol, what's your birthdate?" and I go to check the board again for 4752525 and it's still "In Room" but not "In Procedure".
It's been 40 minutes since he went in, he's probably anxious and I send good thoughts his way. I wish my mom was here and we were talking about asses or reading our books or watching the home improvement show.
So, who's making it about themselves now?
I walk out to the atrium and find the art soothing. I walk back and look at the patient update board: still "In Room". The art here is Robert Mangold, silk screen prints. I plop down within view of the update board and decide I better read instead of thinking about my dead mom's room. She liked the view of trees.
Another man next to me wears an Ohio State jacket and his head dips and sways as the doc comes out and updates him. "She's in recovery, she may need to stay overnight." The man reaches up with his hand, fingers twisted, head swaying on it's stem "So, two weeks?" The doc replies "A few weeks". They are the star--we all watch and track their movements. Where is this man's daughter? How will he care for his wife? Am I being judgey? When Mom was in the hospital, one of us was there all the time except at night. In ICU, the nurses said "A lot of these patients don't have any visitors". We had to make a list of who was allowed in, because too many would keep mom from resting.
I glance at the board: "In room". A notice pops up on my laptop: "Kim Kardashian waiting...". This is part of the current news cycle: Kim is going to divorce Kanye. I love Kanye--his honesty, brashness and how much he loved his mom and Kim. I hope they can figure it out. I'm cheering for them.
The swaying man pulls out his paper and I think "Good idea, good distraction". Why do I always cry in waiting rooms?
I look through his wallet...ids, list of phone numbers, list of surgeries, list of meds, his United credit card (he loves to fly to Cali, and get early and hang in the United Lounge, something my mother never would have done).
OK, thank god the procedure started. We've been here almost an hour and a half. Good thing I took work off today, I'm a mess.
That's what my mom said to my dad when he lost it at the hospital room when she had her procedure to check for cancer in her chest. "You're a mess". So he pulled it together.
I pull it together and pull out my book, "A promised Land". I scan the room as a new patient comes in, looks kind of my age, cute, beard, nice manner with the receptionist. 440 area code--local boy. I can't see a ring and he doesn't seem to have an ICE with him. I type away and try to look charmingly engaged with my thoughts.
Swaying guy gets a phone call--so maybe he does have some kids who care.
Cute guy wipes hand sanitizer and I don't see a ring. Why is he in his 40s, and not be married? I'm not. The receptionist says something about "If she sees that number calling" and I think ok there's a she. He sits far away so no go there.
Good distraction.
Dad's number on the board is now "In Phase II", highlighted in blue. I've been in this waiting room for two hours. How long does it take to scrape off a patch of skin? Is he bleeding from his blood thinners?
The door pops open "I'm looking for Kevin". It's the cutey patootey, who has been laboring at the vending machine for the last 2 minutes, as I've been keeping an eye on his left hand. "That's me, hey!" he exclaims as a frumpy lady meets him halfway across the room and he hands her the coke he just bought. "Hey, what are you doing with that soda?" the nurse asks Kevin (I know his name now!). He hands the soda to frumpy lady and says "It's for her" and they laugh and he goes back into the procedure aread.
The last waiting room I've waited in was for Andy's surgery. Same thing---I was upset, alone and worried. And with Andy, he had complications with his bladder and so what should have been a quicky recovery was all day and almost the night. The main surgery was successful but man, he struggled when his bladder wouldn't "Wake up". That was a long night, helping him with his cath, and checking on his color. It was two months after my mom had died. I shouldn't have been there. But, who else? Andy's my ICE.
The next day, another friend came over to relieve me so I could do my grief group intake meeting. Andy had never had surgery and didn't know about the brat diet, so was planning to order chicken curry something. I recommended he not do that "What you put in comes out the other end" I said and pointed to his catheter, right next to his surgery site. I think that upset the friend--that person hasn't talked to me much since. Later, I came back and had gotten the brat foods and he chowed on those.
I look at the board again, and dad's number isn't on there anymore. The door opens and I look up--no doc. My eyes are dry because I'm mad again about my mom. Not sad, MAD.
He's out!
"How you feel dad?" "Great! They were great back there. Wonderful job. It was FUN! There's my doctor, nice guy!"
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