Four Eyes, page 15
“We’ve all tried talking with him, and he just keeps saying, ‘I’m fine.’” Mat exhaled loudly.
“I know! I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’ll call him again at lunch and see if I can convince him to talk to someone,” he said.
“Thanks, that’d be great,” I said. My dad usually listened when Mat was insistent about something. And the more people who could talk with him about what he needed, the better. “I’ll call you later with any updates.”
“Thanks,” he said, and we hung up.
I was enjoying talking with my brother more during this whole fiasco, a nice change from the past few years, when his family life and my school life had taken us down different paths. It was nice to reconnect.
Aunt Patti and I went to the hospital a few hours after my dad did and walked into my mom’s room after putting on our Smurf uniforms. My dad was asleep in a chair, snoring very loudly, the arms crossed over his chest matching his crossed feet resting on the edge of my mom’s bed.
I looked at Aunt Patti. “I don’t know what’s going on with him,” I said, “but I’m worried.” She nodded.
My mom vaguely nodded at us through her dopey haze of pain medication, and I could only imagine how much pain she was in from the bedsore. I kept praying that she wouldn’t remember any of this.
Marni, another of our favorite nurses, walked in, and we caught up as Aunt Patti tended to my mom and deciphered her various sound effects. I followed Marni out of the room when she left, and quietly told her of my worries about my dad. She agreed. I asked flippantly what to do if he had a heart attack, and we made wide eyes at each other just at the thought before laughing.
“Can you even imagine?” I asked.
“In all seriousness,” she said, “don’t let him convince you to drive him here. Call an ambulance so they can start treatment on the way. Just in case.”
I thanked her, feeling slightly better.
“Of course,” she said, patting my shoulder and uttering an empathic grunt. I trusted Marni and her opinion immensely.
I took a small walk around the circular ICU and went to the bathrooms just outside the metal fire double doors enclosing the unit. It felt like a bit of a break. I took the long way back around the circle then grabbed another blue paper gown, unfolded it, put my arms through the holes, and tied it around my back. The gloves were offered in different sizes, and I alternated between medium and large, depending on how long I felt like wrestling with them. It was an uncomfortable getup, and it made my trips in and out of my mom’s room more intentional than usual.
Suiting up, I could hear voices and then some stifled laughter. I smiled, excited for some levity. But when I walked in, I realized I had misread what I’d heard.
My mom was crying and begging my dad to get her back to the hospital. “Butch, please! We have to get out of here! They will be back soon, and they’ll keep me here. Take me back! I don’t want to stay in Mexico!”
I looked at my Aunt Patti. She was coughing to stifle a laugh while hiding her simultaneous worry.
“Sweetheart, you are in the hospital. I promise. The doctors didn’t kidnap you. You are in Colorado, not Mexico. You are okay.” My dad was also stifling a laugh while trying to calm her down.
None of us knew how to react, whether it was best to jump into a hallucination with her or try to talk her out of it.
Aunt Patti took a turn. “Sher, it’s okay; you’re not in Mexico. It’s me, Patti, your sister. I came to visit you in Colorado.”
My mom’s eyes relaxed a bit as she tried to process this information.
My dad looked at me and said, “She thinks the doctors kidnapped her and took her to Mexico.”
“I gathered,” I replied, equal parts concerned and curious. “I’d be scared too if I were kidnapped.” My poor mom. Pain meds were truly something else. I wondered how long it took to officially become addicted to opioids. She had to be close, if she wasn’t already completely hooked. I was so glad she wasn’t in her right mind to remember much, if any, of this. Her previous doctors had told us that the amount of pain medication she was on would most likely leave holes in her memory. It sounded like a blessing—and a curse.
She stopped cry-talking with my aunt, and within minutes was asleep again.
My dad went to sit back in his chair and assumed the sleep position. I couldn’t contain my worry anymore.
“Dad, are you okay?” I tried.
“Yep,” came his curt answer.
“You look so tired. I am worried about you. What if you talked with Marni today? We’re in the Cardiac ICU, my goodness, and if anyone can help, they can,” I pled my case.
“I’m fine” was his slow response. His eyes were closed.
I was upset and felt some of his icy exterior walls go up as I continued.
“Dad,” my voice cracked. Then it all poured out: “Please, please, please, can you just talk with Marni? I don’t want another parent to have a heart attack, especially if we could do something now to help you feel better.”
He sighed but never opened his eyes. I stood my ground. My stubborn was showing.
Finally, he said, “Lish, I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday, okay? I’ll be fine until then. It’s my life, just let it be.”
I could no longer contain my anger or hurt at his dismissal of my concerns. “Fine,” I shouted. “Do what you want; it’s your life.” With that, I turned sharply on my heel and tried to storm out, but first I had to remove the gown and gloves and wash my hands according to protocol in order to not spread MRSA to anyone outside the room. I made a dramatic show of ripping off my gown, but it got stuck on my sleeves. I grabbed at the gloves, hurriedly trying to release them from my hands, but my hands were sweaty and stuck to the latex. My hopes for a grand exit that made my dad rethink his behavior were dashed. It was probably a minute before I had everything off and finally managed to storm out of the room. I looked back through the curtain to see him fast asleep. Highly effective.
I walked to the lobby and then wandered outside for a while until I calmed down. I was so anxious and didn’t know where to put all these feelings I had that things were not supposed to be this way. On my eventual way back up, I sat in one of the chairs overlooking the parking lot with a great view of the foothills and watched the clouds float by. I could feel my heart settle some as I began to entertain the idea that my dad might make the choice of not caring for himself as he needed to, and I had to be okay with that. It was an awful feeling, but one that settled in as a deep truth.
Back in my mom’s room, my dad came out with the keys as I was suiting back up, slightly embarrassed remembering my melodramatic exit.
“I’m going home to let Sniff out; you and Patti can stay for the late-afternoon shift,” he said, staring into a daze, totally unlike himself.
Resisting everything inside that wanted to continue trying to convince him to talk to someone, I simply replied, “Okay.”
The afternoon passed uneventfully, and for that I was grateful. My mom slept soundly through the whole afternoon. Aunt Patti and I drove home around dinnertime and settled on watching some Hallmark movies to focus on happier, lighter things. Hallmark ran in the family.
I parked the car in the garage, and as I was going up the two steps into the house, my anger at my dad returned. I wondered how we would interact. Inside, I heard the TV from the bedroom blaring ESPN, giving away my dad’s whereabouts. I relaxed a little.
Aunt Patti went to change as I created a veggie, cheese, and hummus plate for us to eat with our movie and settled into the buyer’s remorse couches. She returned shortly, and we started one of the interchangeably themed Hallmark movies where the owner of a muffin shop falls in love with a commercial bakery owner after almost being bought out by them. It was exactly what I needed.
My dad walked out from the bedroom with his Detroit Tigers pajama pants on and no shirt. He was a lifelong Tigers fan. He’d grown up across the street from Tiger Stadium and had been frequenting the stadium since he was a kid. He credited his infatuation with all thing’s baseball to this. He played baseball himself, coached high-school ball, coached some of my brother’s teams growing up, and, until recently, had been umpiring for the City of Loveland’s softball league.
He walked past us to the kitchen, saying, “A movie, huh? Good choice.”
Looking pale and uncomfortable, he grabbed a Coke and some peanuts before heading back to the bedroom.
“Yup, I said,” and, before I could stop it, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just tired. I’m going to take some of my sleeping pills tonight to really sleep.”
“Okay,” I said as I watched him meander back to the bedroom. I was still angry—and still worried.
The movie got to the part where the owner of the muffin shop discovered that the commercial bakery was owned by her love interest. The drama ensued both on screen and off as my dad walked out of the bedroom, gasping for air with his arms crossed over his bare chest, pale.
“Dad, are you okay?” I jumped up. “Come sit, breathe,” I said as Aunt Patti started asking him questions. He sat; he couldn’t answer many of her questions, but he did give me my long-awaited answer.
“No, I’m not okay,” he said, grabbing his chest with his left crossed arm.
Instantly, I ran for the phone. “I’m calling 9-1-1,” I said, Marni’s words playing loudly in my mind: “Don’t drive him here yourself, call an ambulance.”
The dispatcher answered, “9-1-1, what’s the emergency?”
“I think my dad is having a heart attack,” I said the words out loud in disbelief.
“Okay, I am dispatching an ambulance now and am going to stay on the phone with you to get some information about your dad.”
“Okay,” I agreed, not taking my eyes off my dad. He was focusing on his breathing, which was very labored.
“Is your dad conscious?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m right here next to him,” I said.
He was turning gray.
“Okay, tell me about what’s happening right now for him,” she coached.
“He’s pale, turning gray, not breathing well, holding his chest, sweating, not able to focus,” I said as he stood up.
“He’s getting up. Dad, what’s going on? Where are you going?” I asked, my voice panicky, waiting for him to pass out and fall over like in the movies.
“Puke,” was all he mustered as he made his way to the hallway bathroom and threw up profusely in the toilet.
“He’s throwing up. A lot.” I said into the phone.
“He’s throwing up?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, annoyed. Terrified. My dad was having a heart attack. He could die at any moment. There wasn’t time to repeat myself.
“Is he on any medications?” she asked.
“Yes, several,” I answered.
“Can you get them together in a bag for the paramedics?” she asked.
“Yes, I will,” I said, walking into my parents’ bedroom and gathering the couple that were on his nightstand. “Dad, where are the rest of your meds?” I called from the bedroom, walking to the bathroom.
Done throwing up, he was standing again.
“Dad, can you sit down, please?” I begged as he walked back into his room and pointed to his meds on the shelf in his walk-in closet.
“Got them,” I said to both him and the woman on the phone as I swiped them all into my sweatshirt with a one-arm sweep. My dad was gone when I turned around. I grabbed him a shirt from the closet.
“Great, the ambulance is almost there,” she said. “Would you like me to stay on the line?”
They were at the door. “They’re here,” I said. “And thank you.” I hung up the phone and ran to meet everyone at the door. My dad had wandered back into the living room, and the paramedics were suddenly inside with a gurney, trying to convince my dad to get on it.
He was confused, and not certain of his surroundings. This was not happening.
“Dad, sit down here and let these guys help,” I said, patting the gurney. Aunt Patti helped him sit on the edge, his legs dangling off the side. Instantly, the paramedics hooked him up to a portable EKG machine with circular sticky pads and printed out his heart rhythms. They gave him a nitroglycerine tablet to dissolve under his tongue as he lay back in pain. They confirmed that he was having a heart attack and asked for any medications he was on. I handed them the plastic grocery bag I had put them in as they placed an oxygen mask over his face. I handed him the shirt I had grabbed; he put his arms through and stopped to rest. The paramedics started to strap him into the gurney like that, and he didn’t care. I could feel my nervous system tornadoing around inside me as they loaded my dad into the ambulance. Aunt Patti and I grabbed our purses and phones and jumped in the car to follow them. Aunt Patti drove.
“You did really great on the phone, Lish. Are you okay?” my aunt comforted me.
“Thanks. I think so,” I said, looking down at my hands. They had started to shake. Here it comes, I thought. Maybe I wasn’t okay.
But before my body began shaking all over to process what had just happened, the ambulance flipped its lights and siren on and took off faster.
My body instantly stopped shaking; back in activation mode. Nothing about any of this was good.
CHAPTER 61
October 7, 2012, 11:30 A.M.
“WELL, IT LOOKS like we are going to adopt that teenager after all,” my dad said matter-of-factly. His eyes were closed, and though he knew he was talking to his wife, he had no idea from where, how long he had been here, or what was happening.
“What?!” I could hear my mom’s dazed confusion through the phone.
“Yeah, it looks like we’re going to be parents again,” he continued.
“Butch, what are you talking about? I don’t want any more kids,” she replied as her pitch rose in panic.
I started laughing out loud, but he didn’t hear me.
“We make great parents, hon; we’re going to have a baby!”
My mom whimpered. “Are you okay? Where are you?” My mom’s questions hung in the air, suspending reality.
I heard my mom begin to cry from the next room through the wall. Sniff picked up her head from the corner and looked at me. I shrugged at her and laughed again. My dad’s eyes were still closed, and his limbs were attached with soft ties to the bed rails so as not to disturb the balloon pump that had been inserted into his heart after surgery.
“Dad, I think she gets it. Let’s just say goodbye for now,” I said as I reached for the phone with the curly cord that reminded me of our house phone growing up. “Just tell her you love her and will see her soon.”
“Okay,” he said. “I love you, my love. I’m excited for this kid!”
My mom’s confusion had turned to upset, and I heard my Aunt Patti grab the phone from her and begin to hang up at the same time I hung up my dad’s phone. My aunt soothed my mom’s mind that she was not getting or having another kid, and she seemed to calm down.
I looked at my dad. He was snoring again. I couldn’t help but laugh and think, I have to write this down to tell them about later.
Last night’s lights-and-siren ambulance show were the result of my dad’s cardiac rhythms getting worse as the ride progressed. Mat met Aunt Patti and me at the emergency room. We sat with my dad for a second. After being given another nitro tablet, he was taken to the catheter lab, where a stent was inserted into one of his blocked arteries. It had been the “widow maker,” and the doctors told us that if he hadn’t come in when he did, he would have been dead within an hour.
By the time he was out of surgery, it was almost 4:00 a.m. Around 3:00 a.m. we ran into Nurse Ryan, who had been called in to help with another ICU admission. We shared a dumbfounded moment when she realized the admission was my dad.
He was rolled out of surgery into the room adjacent to my mom’s. They now shared a corner. He slept soundly through the night in his anesthesia and pain-medication haze. It was eerily similar to my mom’s situation, especially with the balloon pump helping his heart pump more strongly. Marni wasn’t going to believe this. I couldn’t believe this.
My parents on drugs was a very strange sight. Neither was coherent, neither was present, and both believed just about anything told to them. It was both jarring and sad as I was confronted with the truths that my parents were (a) human after all and (b) perhaps more fragile than I knew. However, the deep sadness also came with the deep joy that they were both still alive and providing golden nugget moments like the one that had just happened, preparing me for the new sibling I was apparently going to receive from my sixty- and sixty-one-year-old parents.
My aunt came into my dad’s room. We shared a knowing smile, and I went next door to help further calm my mom down. My mom was nervous that my dad was not where she had last seen him. We assured her he was okay, nearby, and that he was just catching up on some sleep. She finally exhaled fully, grateful to know his whereabouts.
“Oh, good. He needs that,” she said. “He has that big game coming up.”
My aunt and I exchanged giggles. “Yep, he sure does.” I said just as Sniff entered the room. She took to her corner, lay down, and exhaled a big sigh.
“You can say that again, girl,” I said. “You can say that again.”
CHAPTER 62
October 7, 2012, 11:31 P.M.
THIS WAS ABSURD. I had been trying to sleep for more than an hour, but my thoughts were not on the same page. They continued to dance around my mind, sparking new “what ifs?” by the second. Guilt and Individuation were no exception. Both my parents were now in the hospital, next-door neighbors, after having heart attacks. What were the chances of this ever happening? It did not compute.
My dad had become a friend in this process, a constant “other” to experience this uncertain time with, the only other who knew what those twelve-hour days were really like in the hospital, always wondering what was coming—if my mom would ever get better, or if we were increasing her suffering by allowing all the testing and poking and prodding and surgeries to continue. He had become my rock, and we could depend on each other to “get it” when it was difficult to explain things to the world outside this medical bubble in which we’d been existing.
