Dear medical folks:
Thank you for fixing my mom’s broken hip and for being so kind to her. She’s 88 and while not quite as with it as she once was, she’s a human being who deserves the best care, and she got it.
I have just one tiny request for your support staff, however: Having an elderly parent means you must be flexible enough to deal with whatever comes next, but it does not mean that you can abandon your job or your life.
Having a roadmap of what comes next is helpful. For instance, if insurance says it will pay for two weeks in a convalescent hospital and you do the math and then base decisions on that date — decisions about when family members should buy a plane ticket and come and help with home care and such — it would be good to know that the hospital got permission from insurance to extend the stay. It’s especially good to know you got permission to extend the stay before the day it’s thought she’s being discharged. Especially if you knew it two days before that and never bothered to say anything. Especially if her daughter has been asking and asking you when this will happen. Especially if her other daughters have already bought their plane tickets.
Her hip is healing, but your communication is broken. I hope you’ll give as much attention to fixing that as you did to repairing the damage from her fall. We’ll all feel better.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
My Father's Parting Gift
I inherited my father’s temperament, which is to say I don’t wait well in lines, don’t suffer fools gladly and don’t like to be told what to do.
But as my father grew older, I found his behavior increasingly unattractive and worked hard to get my own temper under control. I centered myself with a combination of prayer, music and the occasional glass of whatever had been fermented for my drinking pleasure.
As his health grew worse, I was well-prepared to understand that his death would be the normal progression of things. He would get sick and he would die and we would miss him and life would go on.
All of this eventually happened, but not in the way I envisioned. Plagued by heart trouble since the age of 48, he would, I surely thought, have a final heart attack and die. But just as in his own life, nothing ever went quite as planned.
Instead, he caught a cold. The cold turned into pneumonia. The pneumonia turned life-threatening, and he needed to be hospitalized so he could be on a respirator. For reasons that are unclear to me this day, his doctor, sedating this frail little 73-year-old man, put him too far under, sending him into a coma from which he could not be aroused.
A day went by. Then two. Then my mother called and told me to come home but things were looking grim. I got on a plane and was there quickly, and when I saw him, I knew he would never wake up again. The doctors knew it too, but because he showed some brain activity, they couldn’t just turn off his respirator because there was no advanced directive for health care.
And so we waited. Day after day, we sat by his bedside—first my mother, then my sister, then I. It finally became clear to me that I needed to do something—anything—besides hector the doctors so I decided to plan his funeral. I called the funeral home and started putting things in place, but there was one piece of documentation I couldn’t find: his naval discharge papers.
When I asked my mother, she looked blank and said she thought they were in the safe deposit box.
Easy enough. I was listed on the box and would have no trouble gaining access. If only she remembered where she put the key. She didn’t, and I had no idea where it might be. So I marched down to the bank to ask them to drill through the box. It was at that moment that I knew my father’s legacy to me may have been prayed and sung and drunk into submission but that this was but temporary.
I approached the teller, a doe-eyed young woman whose name was Tiffany and Heather or Bambi or one of those unfortunate names that followed doe eyes into the business world where they either wanted to be taken seriously or taken away, somehow, whether by a handsome, rich prince or a pharmaceutical.
This Tiffany or Heather or Bambi clearly fell into the latter group. I approached her and told her that I needed to get in the safe deposit box but that I did not have the key. She sighed. “It will cost you $50 to have it drilled through.” I was fine with that, I told her. “We’ll have to call someone to come and do it. It will take three days.” I was fine with that too, I told her. She sighed deeply and tsked slightly. She asked who were the signatories. My mother, my father and me, I replied. “Don’t they know where the key is?” she asked with a slight whine in her voice. “My mother can’t find it,” I said, tipping toward that line that I didn’t want to cross. I waited a beat, hoping T or H or B would close out our proceedings.
But she didn’t. “Why,” she said with that slight whine, “don’t you just ask your father?” All the rage—the rage at him for getting sick, the rage at the doctors for making a mistake that now held all of us hostage, the rage at myself for not being failing to fix any of it—came boiling over.
T or H or B never knew what hit her. “You idiot!” I screamed. “Don’t you think I’d ask him if I could? My father is in a coma. In the hospital. And I need to get into that box so I can plan his funeral. So if it’s not too much much trouble, how about you call the locksmith and get that box open for me?”
All of this, of course, was punctuated with profanity--any noun that could be modified, any verb that could be intensified.
Life in the bank stopped. People stared. Mothers with their children turned away. Tellers froze. Tears welled up in T or H or B’s eyes. I didn't care. I turned, shouting over my shoulder as I left, “I’ll back at 3 on Friday. Have the box ready.” I slammed out of the bank.
I got in the car and sat, shaking and purple with rage. I peeled out of the bank and drove home, setting a land speed record for the short trip.
Throwing the car in park, I grabbed the keys and opened the front door, where my mother greeted me. She was smiling for the first time in days.
“Guess what?” she said. “I found the key to the safe deposit box.”
I was stunned. And now I faced this terrible choice: Would I wait the three days, spend the money and get the box opened that way? Or would I crawl back and say how sorry I was?
In the end, practicality won out, and I crawled back, apologizing. I don't remember now what H or T or B said to me—indeed, even if she was in the bank when I returned.
Looking back, I now believe, maybe because it's easier or maybe because I want to, that he didn't like that part of himself either. But in any case, it was his parting gift to me. I am better for it. I think the world may be too.
But as my father grew older, I found his behavior increasingly unattractive and worked hard to get my own temper under control. I centered myself with a combination of prayer, music and the occasional glass of whatever had been fermented for my drinking pleasure.
As his health grew worse, I was well-prepared to understand that his death would be the normal progression of things. He would get sick and he would die and we would miss him and life would go on.
All of this eventually happened, but not in the way I envisioned. Plagued by heart trouble since the age of 48, he would, I surely thought, have a final heart attack and die. But just as in his own life, nothing ever went quite as planned.
Instead, he caught a cold. The cold turned into pneumonia. The pneumonia turned life-threatening, and he needed to be hospitalized so he could be on a respirator. For reasons that are unclear to me this day, his doctor, sedating this frail little 73-year-old man, put him too far under, sending him into a coma from which he could not be aroused.
A day went by. Then two. Then my mother called and told me to come home but things were looking grim. I got on a plane and was there quickly, and when I saw him, I knew he would never wake up again. The doctors knew it too, but because he showed some brain activity, they couldn’t just turn off his respirator because there was no advanced directive for health care.
And so we waited. Day after day, we sat by his bedside—first my mother, then my sister, then I. It finally became clear to me that I needed to do something—anything—besides hector the doctors so I decided to plan his funeral. I called the funeral home and started putting things in place, but there was one piece of documentation I couldn’t find: his naval discharge papers.
When I asked my mother, she looked blank and said she thought they were in the safe deposit box.
Easy enough. I was listed on the box and would have no trouble gaining access. If only she remembered where she put the key. She didn’t, and I had no idea where it might be. So I marched down to the bank to ask them to drill through the box. It was at that moment that I knew my father’s legacy to me may have been prayed and sung and drunk into submission but that this was but temporary.
I approached the teller, a doe-eyed young woman whose name was Tiffany and Heather or Bambi or one of those unfortunate names that followed doe eyes into the business world where they either wanted to be taken seriously or taken away, somehow, whether by a handsome, rich prince or a pharmaceutical.
This Tiffany or Heather or Bambi clearly fell into the latter group. I approached her and told her that I needed to get in the safe deposit box but that I did not have the key. She sighed. “It will cost you $50 to have it drilled through.” I was fine with that, I told her. “We’ll have to call someone to come and do it. It will take three days.” I was fine with that too, I told her. She sighed deeply and tsked slightly. She asked who were the signatories. My mother, my father and me, I replied. “Don’t they know where the key is?” she asked with a slight whine in her voice. “My mother can’t find it,” I said, tipping toward that line that I didn’t want to cross. I waited a beat, hoping T or H or B would close out our proceedings.
But she didn’t. “Why,” she said with that slight whine, “don’t you just ask your father?” All the rage—the rage at him for getting sick, the rage at the doctors for making a mistake that now held all of us hostage, the rage at myself for not being failing to fix any of it—came boiling over.
T or H or B never knew what hit her. “You idiot!” I screamed. “Don’t you think I’d ask him if I could? My father is in a coma. In the hospital. And I need to get into that box so I can plan his funeral. So if it’s not too much much trouble, how about you call the locksmith and get that box open for me?”
All of this, of course, was punctuated with profanity--any noun that could be modified, any verb that could be intensified.
Life in the bank stopped. People stared. Mothers with their children turned away. Tellers froze. Tears welled up in T or H or B’s eyes. I didn't care. I turned, shouting over my shoulder as I left, “I’ll back at 3 on Friday. Have the box ready.” I slammed out of the bank.
I got in the car and sat, shaking and purple with rage. I peeled out of the bank and drove home, setting a land speed record for the short trip.
Throwing the car in park, I grabbed the keys and opened the front door, where my mother greeted me. She was smiling for the first time in days.
“Guess what?” she said. “I found the key to the safe deposit box.”
I was stunned. And now I faced this terrible choice: Would I wait the three days, spend the money and get the box opened that way? Or would I crawl back and say how sorry I was?
In the end, practicality won out, and I crawled back, apologizing. I don't remember now what H or T or B said to me—indeed, even if she was in the bank when I returned.
Looking back, I now believe, maybe because it's easier or maybe because I want to, that he didn't like that part of himself either. But in any case, it was his parting gift to me. I am better for it. I think the world may be too.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Sometimes All Your Mondays Don't End on Monday
So Carl calls about 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday and he is slurring his words and I ask him why and he says his tongue is swelling and his lips are swelling. So I insist that he call the advice nurse at Kaiser who says he needs to be seen immediately, which is, of course, what I told him. He calls me back at 1:15; I am in the middle of an interview with an MIT professor--which, of course, has been impossibly hard to schedule--and I say, "Sorry, must go, ta-ta and all."
I fly home and we go and when Kaiser ascertains that his throat has not swelled shut, they let us sit for eons. But in the middle of this, I need to pick up Blue, our lovable but incredibly dumb dog, from the vet, where I have taken her to have her get a shot for the pinched nerve in her neck (she now needs cortisone every eight weeks). I figure I can get her groomed too and have all her shots. So I go to pick her up and she's still damp (and groggy because they have to sedate her to give her the bath--we know this) and they say, "Here, just let us blow dry her," whereupon she immediately has a seizure and turns into Cujo.
Meanwhile, back at the ER, Carl is about to die--of boredom. And they finally call his name, and this other man (who earlier told the security guard that he was "f---ing ugly" and that he would not be "ordered around by someone who looks like a terrorist") jumps up and says, "Yes, I'm Carl Skolnik." Thus begins the lightning round of "To Tell the Truth" as the real Carl Skolnik stands up and says, "No, I'm Carl Skolnik." The real Carl Skolnik finally proves who he is and the fake Carl is vanquished back to the waiting room.
Meanwhile back at the vet, the real Blue emerges and we wipe the strings of saliva from her mouth and I lift her into the car, whereupon we have a total transfer of evidence to my black slacks and burgundy angora blend sweater. I look like Santa has shaved over me.
Then I drive back across town (five miles, 45 minutes) to the ER; Carl is now in Room 11, where, they say, "Gosh, the swelling seems to have gone down." Of course it has. It's been five hours. They say that it might be the result of the antibiotic he's been on for the last three weeks or it could be his blood pressure medication that he's been taking for three years but that he needs to see his regular doctor immediately and they'll get him an appointment. Which they do. For Jan. 20, first available. And he kindly points out that he has had both a heart attack and a stroke and it probably isn't a good idea for him not to be taking blood pressure medication and they say, "Yes, well, good luck with that."
My boss asked me if I wanted to work from home the next day. Between Cujo and Carl and the workmen, I think being in the office, which on most days resembles the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, will be a welcome relief.
I fly home and we go and when Kaiser ascertains that his throat has not swelled shut, they let us sit for eons. But in the middle of this, I need to pick up Blue, our lovable but incredibly dumb dog, from the vet, where I have taken her to have her get a shot for the pinched nerve in her neck (she now needs cortisone every eight weeks). I figure I can get her groomed too and have all her shots. So I go to pick her up and she's still damp (and groggy because they have to sedate her to give her the bath--we know this) and they say, "Here, just let us blow dry her," whereupon she immediately has a seizure and turns into Cujo.
Meanwhile, back at the ER, Carl is about to die--of boredom. And they finally call his name, and this other man (who earlier told the security guard that he was "f---ing ugly" and that he would not be "ordered around by someone who looks like a terrorist") jumps up and says, "Yes, I'm Carl Skolnik." Thus begins the lightning round of "To Tell the Truth" as the real Carl Skolnik stands up and says, "No, I'm Carl Skolnik." The real Carl Skolnik finally proves who he is and the fake Carl is vanquished back to the waiting room.
Meanwhile back at the vet, the real Blue emerges and we wipe the strings of saliva from her mouth and I lift her into the car, whereupon we have a total transfer of evidence to my black slacks and burgundy angora blend sweater. I look like Santa has shaved over me.
Then I drive back across town (five miles, 45 minutes) to the ER; Carl is now in Room 11, where, they say, "Gosh, the swelling seems to have gone down." Of course it has. It's been five hours. They say that it might be the result of the antibiotic he's been on for the last three weeks or it could be his blood pressure medication that he's been taking for three years but that he needs to see his regular doctor immediately and they'll get him an appointment. Which they do. For Jan. 20, first available. And he kindly points out that he has had both a heart attack and a stroke and it probably isn't a good idea for him not to be taking blood pressure medication and they say, "Yes, well, good luck with that."
My boss asked me if I wanted to work from home the next day. Between Cujo and Carl and the workmen, I think being in the office, which on most days resembles the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, will be a welcome relief.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
All Hearts Can be Changed When You're Owned by a Cat
Some of you may have missed the very tense drama at our house on Tuesday when Beatriz, the Wonder Cat, became Beatriz, the Wander Cat. Carl was getting food for Blue and Bea shot out the door and was simply gone. After much recrimination (self and otherwise directed) and a frantic search, he went to get posters printed and I went to work, furious, upset and furious, because of course, the cardinal rule of the house: Do NOT let the cats out.
He distributed the posters. He talked to people in the neighborhood. He even had a tip from a Jehovah's Witness.
Nothing.
When I pulled in about he was standing on the front step scanning the neighborhood. My headlights caught a glimpse of a fluffy white butt under his car so I sprang from my car, grabbed her, and we both carried her inside, where one of us sobbed openly and one of us--the atheist in the family--openly admitted that he had been praying all day.
Now to put this in further perspective, I must tell you that Carl was NOT a cat person when he moved in after our marriage. He loved Bella, but she was easy to love, and even though he went with me when I got Bea, they hadn't really bonded.
Until baseball season.
That's when she began sprawling on his morning newspaper, flirting, begging for attention, charming him, twirling him around her paw, until one morning, I heard him say, "You have to move, hairbag. Daddy has to read the baseball box scores."
Daddy? Yes. And then, improbably, Dada, as in, "Dada will move you so you're comfy and he can read the box scores."
Carl is not a sentimental man, as many of you know, nor is he given to gushing or mushy stuff.
So that's all the more reason to look at the attached photo and smile…and know that all hearts can be moved.
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