The ICU Waiting Room

   I don't know if there's anything that makes you feel as old as sitting in a hospital waiting room while your dad is in Intensive Care. I live 400 miles away from my parents, and I was quite startled to hear that my mother had called an ambulance for my father.

   My parents aren't that old.
   I didn't jump in my car as soon as I heard Dad was in trouble. I waited until he had gone through his emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his leg. It wasn't until after his surgery that I learned he had been Med-Flighted from the small hospital in Fayetteville to a larger one in Huntsville. He needed a vascular surgeon, and Fayetteville didn't have one.

   I am a young professional, living a free life. I have no responsibilities other than myself. I love my career and I love my friends. I go to dinner parties every week. I travel as much as possible. I buy more books than I possibly have time to read. I sell Mary Kay. My parents aren't supposed to get sick.
   I canceled my classes when I heard my dad was going to need another surgery. It was Friday, so I'd have two days to travel without missing too much work. But of course it didn't work that way. I missed the visitation hours by the time I got into town Friday night. ICU patients only have four visitation windows throughout the day, and you can only stay 20 minutes. I drove to the hospital anyway, because my mom, my aunt, and my sister were still there. They were sitting in the break room, and they looked tired. Worn out. We sat and talked for a few hours more, and I slept at a friend's house that night. My aunt convinced my mom to stay at her house while she took on the duty of staying in the ICU waiting room until morning. Spend the night in a chair in a hospital waiting room? I didn't know people did that.
   My turn came soon enough. By day five of my father's stay in ICU, my aunt said she couldn't stay another night because she needed to get some sleep for work the next day. My mother looked like hell, so I couldn't leave her there and stay in my friend's comfy bed again. I told Mom I'd stay at the hospital, so she went home for the first time since the ambulance picked up my dad.
   The hospital clerk assigned a recliner and a locker to me. I was given a pillow and two blankets. There were large plasma TVs hanging in every corner of the large waiting room. A nice lady was assigned to a recliner across from me. We took our shoes off, washed our faces, wrapped our blankets around us, and talked for hours. Her name was Nancy and her mom was in ICU. Her dad had died about a year ago, and her mother's stomach was eaten up with ulcers, presumably from the blood thinners she had been taking for so many years. Nancy looked tired and very calm. She had stayed at the hospital for several nights already. People who are that worn tell the truth. She was worried that she didn't have any vacation or sick days saved up. She had used them all up when her father got sick and died. "I can't leave her," she said sincerely. Regardless of the consequences, she was staying in that damned waiting room as many nights and days as it took.
   There were a lot of good books and magazines in the waiting room. People had taken care to donate quality reading materials. The TVs stayed on, but the volume was turned down. The overhead lights stayed on, annoyingly. I saw three episodes of The Brady Bunch in a row. One had been enough! I found a recipe I wanted in a magazine, so I tried to quietly tear it out. Tick-tock, tick-tock. It was only 2 am. The first visitation wasn't until 10:30 in the morning. It was going to be a LONG night.
   My mom and my cousin Melvin showed up soon. I must've finally dozed off. I had pulled my hoodie over the top part of my face to shield out the lights. I was tired when my aunt came and sat beside me. Icky tired. I looked like crap, but so did everyone in the waiting room. People don't wear make-up when they sleep at the hospital. I walked over to the gift store and bought some hot coffee for me and Nancy. She tried to pay me back for it but I refused.
We had all grown accustomed to lining up in front of the ICU double-doors during visitation hours. We herded ourselves like cattle, entering two at a time. Sometimes we pushed our luck and the nurses let three of us stay in Dad's room during the allotted 20 minutes.
   The man next to Dad had died that morning. The family were 7th Day Adventists, and they came in to sing after his passing. My father, who is NOT a 7th Day Adventist, was sure he was in a psychiatric ward. The morphine he was taking did not help the situation.
   He tried to free himself a couple of times. He was not able to stand or walk on his own, but he began pulling out his IV and removing the oxygen mask from his face. The nurses had to tie him down for a while.
   As I left my dad's room, I saw Nancy in her mom's room. She was wearing a hospital smock and she was walking over to her mom. I don't know what she was doing because I thought it would be impolite to watch.
   My dad had been asking for the new Dan Brown book, but he couldn't concentrate long enough to read it. I bought him a portable CD player and the Dan Brown book on CD so he could listen to it. He had asked my sister to sit and read his book to him, but that's not the way of ICU. I wanted him to think about something other than his surgical wounds and oxygen mask ("I can't drink my damn coffee," he'd say, because the mask was in the way.)
   My family and I sat and talked for a while. I saw Nancy come out of ICU and she asked me if I was staying the night again. Dad was scheduled to move to a regular room that day, so I said probably not. She said to me, "It was nice talking with you," and she looked at me for a long time. I looked back at her and smiled.
   Dad got better and moved to the vascular floor. I stayed at my family's farm that night, then came back around noon to check on him and Mom. Mom looked tired. Dad looked like a real person again. He was watching CNN and picking at his lunch tray.
   I stopped by the ICU waiting room and looked for Nancy, but she wasn't in there.
   I still don't know what happened to her mom.

Art for Art's Sake

I bought this painting from an artist friend today. Isn't it gorgeous?

The Three Wise Men of Dardanelle

   Whenever I travel to Dardanelle, I like to stop at the Hobby Shop on Front Street. I go in there to visit the three old Republican coots who run the place.
There are signs posted on the wall that warn, " Shoplifters Will be Killed and Eaten." 

   Maybe you can see why I like these men?
   They usually have a small television on in the background broadcasting the news. Today was Ted Kennedy's funeral, so I couldn't resist from asking these men if they were sad.
   "I don't feel any different," said the tallest man. "I don't feel one way or the other."
   The retired pilot, sitting behind his computer, was shaking his head in a disapproving manner. "I'm old enough to remember Chappaquiddick," he said. "And they just kept re-electing him," he said in disbelief.

   I knew what the ex-pilot was talking about. I'm not old enough to remember Chappaquiddick, but it has been all over the news. At a party one night in 1969, Ted and a young female aide went for a drive. Ted drove his car off of a small unlit bridge and into the water below. He escaped, but the girl died. Ted claimed he made multiple attempts to save her, and then walked (walked?!) back to the party to get help. Sometime later that night, Ted swam back to the mainland and went to his hotel for the night.

   I looked at a map and Chappaquiddick appears to be several miles away from the mainland of Massachusetts (although one web source reports that Ted swam 500 yards. I've never been to Chappaquiddick so I don't know how far it is for sure. But I do think that it would've been a challenging swim for nearly anyone, even without it being late at night or coupled with probable drunkenness.) How did he do that? And why? Why did he leave his other friends? Why didn't he call an ambulance? Even if you are certain the person in your car is no longer alive, how can you just leave their dead body in the water? Maybe you'd have to walk a mile in Ted's shoes (or swim a few miles, in this case) to fully understand his decisions, but it is puzzling and disturbing for sure.

  The tallest Republican coot casually mentioned that his niece's husband was at that party on Chappaquiddick. "What?" I asked him. "You mean THE party?" He nods, and I shout, "Ohh! Tell me more!" The people at that party would've surely been able to tell if Ted had made an honest effort to save the girl, or if he had any motive to dispose of her. But the tallest wise man just said, "He won't talk."
   "Are you serious?" I ask him. Yes, he's serious. He tells me that his niece and her husband live in Boston, and he only likes to go to Boston when he is flying to England because it has a better airport than New York. Then he tallies up the cost of my exacto knife, plywood, saber saw and wood glue that I am purchasing and puts it in a nice bag for me, and he asks me if I want to buy another model ship like I did last the last time I was there.

   I paid for my items, and my friend Cameron and I left the store. The Hobby Shop is always an adventure.

Camelot Has Closed

My co-worker told me today that Ted Kennedy died. She said she had been crying, and when she heard that he will be buried with his assassinated brothers in Arlington National Cemetery, she started crying again.

Ted, arguably the most scandalous of the political powerhouse of Kennedy brothers, was the one we got to keep. His long reign in the U.S. Senate ensured that some small piece of that glamorous brand of Kennedy liberalism was always lingering in U.S. government. He was a tangible, breathing legacy of his two brothers that were murdered...slaughtered...in broad daylight while serving their nation. "How perverse," said Brian Williams on MSNBC news, referring to the inconsolable amount of tragedy that has become synonymous with the Kennedy family.
   Before last year's announcement of Ted's malignant brain tumor, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crash had been the most recent family devastation. My aunt Jackie said she was driving when she heard the news of the crash, and she had to pull off the road because she was crying so hard.
   Keith Olbermann described Ted Kennedy as, "The very definition of the word democrat." He cited Kennedy's political influence over the years, which included championing programs that help provide nutrition for lower income families, aided people with disabilities, ensured voting rights for minorities, provided rights for immigrants, and gave women the opportunity to play collegiate sports.
   Senator Kennedy never saw his long-time wish for universal health care come to pass, but he did manage to give a riveting endorsement last year to the presidential candidate who believed in "the cause of my life," (Kennedy's own words.)
Health care should be a right, not a privilege.

What Have These Eyes Seen?

Bowling with my 92-year-old Grandma.My Grandma turned 93 today. We live in different states, so I had to wish her a Happy Birthday on the phone.
"Do you know how old you are today?" I asked her.
"I was born in 1916; you do the math," she replied quickly.
She makes me smile. She always makes me smile. She has a very German sense of humor - no frills, no fuss. And she's one tough old bird.
I recently went to California and looked at her old house in Albany. She lived there with my Grandfather for 30-something years. She remembers when the front porch railings were built, when the stairs were built, when everything was built. She was there when the Golden Gate Bridge was constructed, for crying out loud! She remembers the local movie theater showing news reels of the recent progress that had been made on the Golden Gate. "It was a big deal," she says.
She left her family's farm in North Dakota to find a better life in the West. "I don't like cows," she'd say. Two of her siblings followed her out to California, which is why I now have kinfolk sprinkled all over the Pacific Northwest.

Global Equality Has Begun.....

.....sort of. The U.S. has managed to convince our Swiss friends to disclose the private account information of more than 4,000 its American clients to the IRS, according to online news sources. The IRS has allegedly requested this information for 52,000 Americans, in an effort to collect due taxes from those who are serious about tax evasion.
One question I have is, how did the U.S. get the names of those 52,000 people in the first place? If the Swiss accounts were truly private, how did the names of the account holders get into the IRS' hands?
I may sound like I am against the IRS finding these tax evaders. (I realize it is probably not fair to assume that all 52,000 people are guilty of tax evasion, but, one has to wonder why they would bother setting up a Swiss bank account unless they really needed to hide something?) One person commented on the New York Times' website that this action by the U.S. is a "witch hunt," since there is no hard evidence that any of these people have committed a crime. What gives the U.S. the right to gain access to private financial information on a hunch? The person argued that this action is not any different than if the U.S. had successfully forced Google to disclose information about what types of websites you view in the privacy of your own home.
Does this action by our government represent yet another example of our freedoms lost, or is it just a step towards ensuring that everyone, including the uber-rich, pay their share of taxes?

Strong women, Strong girls

Could you survive alone on an island for 18 years? What if you had no choice? A woman in the 1800s actually did that on this island - San Nicolas. It's located 60 miles off the coast of Southern California.
I read Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins when I was in grade school, but I did not realize that it was based on a true story. It was haunting. It was sad. The strength of that young woman, her fortitude, her survival instinct, her love for her little brother....incredible. I remember reading the story and wondering how the girl knew what to do to stay alive. She was impressive. She was wise beyond her years. She had the grit and wisdom of all of her grandfathers and great-grandfathers somehow stored in her soul. 18 years...alone. And the worst part is that she died less than two months after she was discovered and brought back to Santa Barbara. Apparently her new diet could not be tolerated by her digestive system, which had been accustomed to a very limited range of biota on the island.
I would have liked to have met this woman. She was made out of things that I can scarcely fathom.