Bed of Roses

I think I'm exhausted.  I must be.  But why?  How?  All I have done for the last 24 hours is sit, albeit in uncomfortable chairs.  A room away sits my journal.  In that journal is yesterday's writings about what I experienced in the hospital.  All I need do is get up, walk a few yards, pull it from the commuter bag, and read it.  That is all.  But I'm too wiped out to do it.  Fatigued.  Done for.  

And the day has yet to begin.  

"Oh, man. . . you sure do whine, piss, bitch, and moan about things, don't you?"

Yup.  

The world outside is turning a pre-dawn grey.  It is beginning again.  

Here's the non-researched tale.  At some point, I'll surely retrieve the journal and feel the need to re-write.  But in my fagged and detestable brain, I can only tell the tale now as I remember it, probably chronologically.  Chronology, of course, is something postmodern critics detested.  Postmodern writers, in an effort to "make it new" (or perhaps only to please the critics), tried for chronological disorder.  I find most of it unreadable.  

In the morning, as I entered the E.R., I was met by hospital security.  I had to show my driver's license and have my photo taken and pasted to my chest to enter.  

The picture was not at all flattering.  

I was directed down a hallway and told to make a left at the third intersection.  Room 44.  I walked past open doors of misery, men and women, mostly old, lying atop ambulance gurneys, attached to machines keeping track of their vitals, some yelling out in pain, others simply for nurses.  On the weekend, the hospital seems severely understaffed, at least in my experience.  I've had a lot of that of late.  

I found room 44.  The door was closed.  Timidly, uncertain, I slid the door open a bit to peak in.  A nurse with her back to the door turned around.  Beyond her was my mother.  The nurse was a young Black woman, pretty and polite.  She was asking my mother questions about her medical history.  

"She can't hear very well," I said.  "Do you want me to translate for you?"

"Are you her son?"

At least she didn't ask me if I was her boyfriend.

"Yes."

As the nurse asked the mandatory questions, my mother stared wide-eyed through pupils made opaque by cataracts, mouth agape, head swiveling from nurse to son as the questions were asked and answered.  When she could hear, or imagined she could, she would nod her head in agreement.  

"Has she been given anything for pain?" I asked when the query was done.  She named a drug I didn't know.  A drip line ran from a bag above my mother's head to her arm.  

"She's on a Tylenol drip now," the nurse said.  

Just then, the machine monitoring my mother's pulse, blood pressure, O2 levels, etc. began to beep.  I've sat in rooms with beeping machines losing my mind for too long too many times now, so I asked, "Which of the buttons do I push to stop that."

To my surprise, she pointed to the left-most, yellow button.  She was a practical person, I decided.  I liked her.  

When the nurse left the room, she slid the big door closed.  I sat down in one of the two chairs beside my mother.  

"How are you doing?"

She just shook her head.  "I need my head raised," she said.  She was on the transport gurney they had brought her in on from the ambulance.  "In on from?"  I can't seem to structure that sentence with my muddled morning mind, but I know you do not want to use three prepositions in a row.  

On which they had transported her from ambulance to room.  

Something like that.  

To wit: there were no controls.  It was all manual, and I didn't know how to move it.  

"I'll have to get the nurse," I said.  

I opened the door and stood halfway into the corridor.  The nurse was attending to the man in the room next to my mother's.  I stood without saying anything.  When she was done, she asked, "Do you need anything?"

"Yes. . . my mother wants her head raised, but I don't know how to adjust the gurney."

She came into the room and showed me how, then she adjusted the bed to my mother's liking.  Again, that she would show me how to do this. . . I felt like I was getting on the job training.  Yes, I liked this nurse a lot.  

When she left, the machine monitoring my mother began to beep.  Tenuously, I pushed the yellow button.  The beeping ceased.  Bingo!  

I went back to the chair beside my mother.  I was sitting next to the open bathroom door.  This was an emergency room room with a bathroom.  Yea. . . I know. . . "room, room, bathroom."  I'm just not clicking right now.  

As I sat, I kept getting faint whiffs of shit.  Just slightly.  I closed the bathroom door.  The machine began to beep again.  I got up and pressed the yellow button.  I sat back down.  The faint odor continued.  

I tried talking to my mother, but she just shook her head no.  I had to yell for her to hear.  And so, by and large, we fell into silence.  She would look toward the door then turn her face to me and stare.  It was unnerving.  She would turn her head back to the door, then back to me again.  I'd look at her and she would just shake her head.  The machine began to beep.  I got up and hit the yellow button.  I was tired of being stared at.  I slid the door to the corridor open and stood there for a bit.  One of the nurses asked me if I needed anything.  "No," I said.  "Thank you."  In the hallway was another man, perhaps my age, perhaps a bit younger.  I spied the paper badge like mine on his oversized t-shirt.  His shorts were long and baggy.  

"It is like a uniform for the retired working class aged," I thought.  "It defines us.  We all look the same."

I went back inside and sat and watched my mother.  Her hands were never still.  She kept playing with the gadget on her finger measuring her temperature.  The machine began to beep.  

"You need to quit fidgeting with the finger thing," I said as I got up to push the yellow button.  

"Oh," she said.  

I sat back down.  

"Are you farting?"  

"No."

"I think you must be and don't know it.  The room smells like shit."

"I am not!"

Hours passed.  The nurse came in.  

"Can my mother have anything to eat or drink?"

She looked at my mother's chart on the big computer she had rolled in on a cart.  I watched her click through the menus.

"No.  We're just waiting for the CT scan and bloodwork to come back.  I'm not sure. . . I can give her some ice chips."

I bobbed my head and asked her how to get to the cafeteria.  It was nearing one.  

The walk was long.  My hips, back, and knees hurt.  Up the stairs, down the hall, corridor after corridor, then into the grand lobby like an upscale hotel or museum, past all the incoming visitors, into another corridor, then, finally, one more left.  The cafeteria was enormous.  This was nothing like the other, smaller hospital.  It seemed lunchtime for doctors, nurses, and staff who walked around the room from food station to food station--a deli making sandwiches, a fresh pizza stall, a hot lunch bar serving fajitas and other Mexican fare. . . a sushi bar.  A sushi bar?!

A sushi chef was arranging and refilling the bins.  There was a big salad bar and another cooler with prepared foods.  Just before the rows of cashiers there was the desert and coffee station.  

I looked around for the beer cooler.  I figured the surgeons would like that.  

The pizza looked good and the slices were huge.  Veggie pizza and a Dr. Pepper.  No shit.  I hadn't had a Dr. Pepper for decades.  Literally.  It was a perfect combo.  I sat in the giant dining hall and looked at the huge wall of connected video screens where tropical fish swam in crystal clear water on a beautiful coral reef.  All around, people huddled over their food.  

When I got back to my mother's room, there was a woman asking my mother questions.  She was being admitted.  

"Hi," I said.  And once again, I asked if I could translate.  She was a young, pretty woman with curly blonde hair.  I've noted that hospitals are staffed largely by young people who are very, very friendly.  In my week in the hospital (in May?), I had only one older nurse.  She had a work ethic to be envied, but she was not so very pleasant nor friendly.  The rest were young women not yet into their thirties.  Maybe nurses burn out at an early age, or perhaps they all help older doctors get divorced.  It happens.  

A lot. 

My mother was admitted, but that didn't mean she had a room.  When the admitting person left, my mother came and sat in the chair next to me.  We stared at the open door to the hallway.  I tried to comment on the personnel, but my mother couldn't hear my lowered voice.  I leaned close to her to tell her that it wasn't something I could yell.  

"You are farting!" I said.  

"No I'm not."  

"Then you need a bath."

"I showered yesterday."

"Not well.  Did you use soap?"

She looked taken aback.  

"They say old people take on an odor," she said meekly.  

"Who says?"

"I read an article on it."

"Bullshit," I said reaching for my phone.  I Googled "Do old people smell bad?"

Holy shit!  Lots and lots of medical articles popped up explaining that they do, that it is due to a changing chemistry on the skin.

"What the hell!" I said.  "It's true." 

My mother leaned over and sniffed me.  "You're going to smell, too."

"Bullshit."

"You will."

"No I'm not.  I am not going to live that long.  I don't plan on doing this shit."

She's heard me say it many times before.  

My phone rang.  It was Mr. Tree.  I didn't answer.  It rang again.  Then I got a text.  

"Are you home?  I need to talk to you today."

What the heck was up with that?  I texted back a picture of my mother in the hospital bed.  

"Oh, I'm sorry," he texted back.  "I can meet you at the hospital if that is alright."

What could be so urgent, I wondered?  He probably wanted money.

"Mom, I'm going to go outside and call this guy back."

I wandered down the hallway to a sitting area.  

"What's up?"

"Listen, I'm leaving for Cuba tomorrow.  I have a woman to help take care of you mother, but I need to meet with you and talk.  Will you be available any time today?"

I told him I'd meet with him at four at my house.  

I went back to my mother's room.  The nurse was there.  She said the doctor would be in soon.  We sat and waited for a few minutes, then the door slid open.  It was a man who said he was the something doctor, that he had some preliminary questions before the attending doctor came in.  He didn't seem to be very prepared.  I told him about my mother's hospital trip on June 13th, and I told him they would have an MRI from that time to compare to the one they were going to do today.  When he left, I said to my mother, "I don't think he was a doctor.  I think he was a P.A.  I think they are letting them call themselves doctors now.  It is awful." 

A few minutes later, the door slid open and the doctor walked in followed by the other "doctor."  

"I remember you," he said looking at my mother and me.  He had been the attending doctor who was on vacation when my mother was in the smaller, sister hospital in June.  He showed up the last day to release her.  

"You were in room 2024," he said.  

What?  Yea, he remembered that there were people in my mother's room when he came.  He remembered everything about that brief moment.  Amazing.  The rest, I figured, wasn't as amazing for he had it all on the charts.  They would admit my mother today.  They would do an MRI.  The CT scan showed a possible fracture of her L4 vertebra.  He seemed to think she might be having the same procedure she had a month ago on her L2.  But, of course, those doctors wouldn't be in until Monday.  

My mother launched into a melodramatic narrative of how they had injured her when they flipped her from her back to her belly in the last surgery, her hands waving frantically in the air, her voice mimicking the excruciating pain she had endured.  For all the melodrama, though, it certainly seemed possible.  

"She needs something for pain," I said.  

"I need a muscle relaxer," chimed in my mother.  

It was fine.  He would get them for her.  

"It seems clear she won't be having surgery today.  Can she eat?"

"Sure," he said.  "I've already put that on her chart. 

When he left, he said he'd see us tomorrow.  I got the nurse.  

"The doctor said my mother could eat and drink."

"We have some sandwiches here," she said.  "Would you like a sandwich?"

My mother stared with eyes that told me she hadn't heard.  

"What kind of sandwich would you like?" I yelled.  

"What do they have?"

The nurse said they had turkey.

"Turkey," I yelled.  "Is that alright?"

In a couple minutes, the nurse brought in two turkey sandwiches and some apple juice.

"The meal cart should be coming in a little while," she said.  

"What flavor?" asked my mother.  The nurse looked at her, confused.  

"What flavor what, mom?"

"Milkshake.  What flavor?"

The nurse laughed.  "Not milkshake.  Meal cart."

I could tell my mother still didn't understand, so I said, "Yes. . . thanks."

When the nurse was gone, my mother turned to me and say, "What did she say?"

"The meal cart will come later."

"The what?!"

"MEAL CART! MEAL CART!"

"Meal cart?  OH!  Meal cart."

I opened her sandwich and put on some mustard, then I opened her apple juice.  

"Do you need anything else?  I have to go meet Mr. Tree to see what he wants."

"No, I'm fine."

"I'll be back."

Mr. Tree showed up at 4:45.  He had a woman who could cook, clean. . . a wonderful woman.  She was a Christian, he said, honest, dependable.  

"You're going to get old and need someone to help you," he said.  "But I'm leaving for Cuba tomorrow and there is another couple who would like to have this woman.  But you are my brother, and I want you to have the first opportunity."

"I need her for my mother, not me."

"You will need her.  She's a very good person.  She does belly dancing.  Or she used to.  I think she still gives classes.  She's smart.  She has a degree in computer science.  She's from Venezuela and worked for an oil company until Chavez.  She moved to New York and worked there for awhile.  She does the accounting for my company.  She can manage your finances.  She needs a place to live."

"I have two bedrooms," I said.  One I sleep in.  The other is my study.  The only woman who is going to be living here will be sleeping in my bed.  I don't need her.  I'm trying to find someone for my mother."

Last night's scam was sleeping into my brain.

"You want to make some money?  My sister said she would pay you $100. . . ."

"I'm leaving tomorrow.  We need to call her now."

"I have to talk to my mother first to see if she wants this.  Give me her number and I will call her tomorrow."

I asked him how he was doing.

"How's your wife?  Does she like it here or does she miss Cuba?"

His wife was a surgeon there, and I asked if she was going to try to get some kind of medical work here or was she going to do something else.

"She's studying," he said, "but she might start working as a surgeon in one of the islands, you know. . . a few days a week, then she would fly home on the weekends."

"Oh.  So everything is good."

He looked pensive for a moment.  

"You know. . . marriage isn't always a bed of roses. . . ." 

Holy mackerel!  That didn't take long.  

When he left, I made a Negroni, sat, and decompressed for a moment.  No matter what, I thought, life is a shit show for everybody.  Marriage isn't a bed of roses.  Ho!  

But I had my own troubles to think about.  At 5:30, I called my mom.  

"Do they have you in a room yet?"

I could hear a voice in the room with her.  They were just getting her settled.  She gave me the new room number.  

"I'm way up on the tenth floor," she said.  

"O.K.  I'll be there in a minute."

The room was nice.  That picture at the top is the view from her room, the west wall mostly window.  This was a hell of a hotel.  

Her new nurse came in, a pretty, young brunette.  I know, I know, but it is true.  She was young, mid twenties, perhaps, and people are truly beautiful at that age, by and large.  

"But why do you feel the need to comment on it?"

Well, sure. . . I can see your point.  It is just that I feel so poignantly the contrast.  

"Like you've said so many times before, never trust anyone using the word 'just'."

 Point taken.  Can I still say she was a very nice person?  She was.  They all treated my mother with care.  I wish all of life could be lived in such a way.  

I sat with my mother and watched the sky begin to grow dark and to see the lights come on in the buildings downtown.  Around 7:30, I told my mother I needed to get dinner.  They were going to take her down for her MRI in a minute.  The nurse had already gotten her into a gown.  

"I'll call you later," I said, "and see how you're doing."

I went to dinner on the patio of a little Greek place on the lake.  Saturday night was beginning to get loud.  The waitress was a young, pretty. . . oh, shit. . . a really nice person.  She brought me beer, Greek Slouvaki, and a good salad.  Just before dark, I drove home.  

During the day, I had some surprising texts.  I had texts from the Japan trip I didn't get to go with.  My friend from the midwest texted me pictures of her roadtrip as did C.C.   One friend texted to tell me he had shit his pants on a long walk, "probably because of the medicine I am taking."  The drummer from the old band texted for the first time in months.  He wanted to know how we were doing, me and my old college roommate, other guitar player in the band.  I sent back a picture of my mother in the hospital.  He asked how old she was.  93.  He wrote that his mother was 88.  Yea, I thought, but you live your life a continent away from your mother, she on he east coast, he on the west.  Then he sent a photo of himself in camouflage holding a rifle and kneeling over a dead turkey.  

"I had a stroke while I was cleaning it," he said.  "Then I had two more."

Holy crap!  

"Residuals," I asked?

His movement and speech were coming back.  He was on blood thinners.  

My roommate wrote back eventually.  "I've been on blood thinners for 15 years."

I dropped out as they compared notes.  

At nine I called my mother.  She was just back from her MRI.  

"Did you get dinner?"

"Oh, yes. . . this isn't at all like the other hospital.  I got baked fish and potatoes and vegetables and two types of fruit and some pudding.  It was good, but I couldn't eat it all."

"Oh, good.  And the MRI was OK?"

She had been fearful because she was in much pain.  

"They gave me something.  I was floating.  I wanted them to keep giving me that.  I liked it."

I think they had shot her up with liquid Valium.  Yea, I thought. . . they should keep her on that.  All drugs should be available, legal and free, for people over a certain age.  What's the point of not letting them have them?  I can't see any point at all.  

And so the day begins.  I will go back to the hospital in a minute and spend a couple hours.  I will leave and then go back.  Tomorrow, the carpenter comes, and I am supposed to help him.  They will decide then what to do with my mother.  The next days are going to be tricky.  I am scared to death about the repair.  This wall is the worst.  There is gas, electric, and water all coming into the house there.  There is a water heater, and there are breaker panels.  Of all the walls on the house. . . this one!  First, we have to take down a wooden fence.  This whole thing is going to be very, very hard.  

When I asked my mother about having the woman come to stay with her, she gave me a hard "No!"  

"But. . . "

The couple will hire her and then, in a few weeks, my mother will change her mind.  But it will be too late then, and we know who she really wants to move in. 

Life is a shit show.  It ain't no bed of roses.