Thursday, August 14, 2008

SAGITTARIUS

The thought of stepping outside yourself and taking a good hard look may seem scary. But imagine doing it when you are even uglier.


Bad Coffee

The waiting room wasn't at all what I had expected. Despite all that I had seen to that point, I still held on to the fantasy that the waiting room would be pleasant. I was foolishly certain that it would be a softly lit, comfortable, quiet respite from the trials of the Charles Hacking and Lydia Coughing Memorial wing of Smells Weird General Hospital. While I was imagining Kevin Bacon struggling comfortably alone awaiting the news of Elizabeth McGovern's delivery, the reality was a room full of ill tempered, starkly distraught people staring at bad coffee and life changing news.

More like the waiting room scene from 'Beetlejuice', it was lit like a high school classroom on an overcast day. Each seated worrier was like a 3D cutout on a 2D background. Everything said or done was up a decibel; not because it broke a somber silence, but because everything seemed meant for the room. Everyone seemed so desperate, to me, to want everyone to know about their lives, and their fears and all the things that had brought them here. They wanted Mom and me to find them interesting.
I hated them. I hated their Midwest accents and their stupid Midwest lives. I don't know when I became a snob of this high order; and I may actually not be. But sitting in that tiny, smelly, loud room I hated those people down to the fabric of their souls.

Mom and I, along with finding two seats literally hinged together, also had managed to wrangle some coffee out of the Frank Hardwick Memorial Coffee Machine . We sat and tried to read our books. Hers The Power of Now, mine the first of the seven book Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

This little fucking kid kept running over my foot. Mom watched this with a Grandmother's smile. She was obviously delighted and overtaken by the energy; the 'kid-ness'. I, a single man with no prospects and a displeasure with my life, wanted the little fucker dead. I had even played out the rest his life in my mind. This kid would be kind of an asshole in high school, go to trade school and work on trucks. He'd tip a few at the local every night after work and cheer on the Lions (the closest football team to Toledo). Eventually he'd marry a decent enough looking girl from town and they'd have a couple kids. The wife would blow up to 200 lbs and he'd be chain smoking and drinking more and more and cheaper and cheaper beer. Then, 50 years from now, while he was in getting open heart surgery…his grand kids would be stepping on some other poor bastard's foot in this same waiting room. I wondered if he'd have any fun along the way.

A young woman came in and called our name. "Snyder?", she said. Weird. It had only been an hour or so. The surgery was supposed to take 4 hours. She walked us, and another woman whom she had also called for, into the post-op/recovery ward. Mom and I were confused and perhaps even a bit concerned. Why so soon? What's going on? We passed through the industrial sized, automatic sliding doors and in we went. It was just like the pre-op room. Patient after patient cubed off in their little curtained areas; their bodies wired into bags and machines. The difference here though was that everyone was unconscious. Everything here was quiet, except for familiar beeps and rings. The woman who was called in with us quickly found her loved one and was by his bed in a second. We were looking, but couldn't find Dad. We went to the cubicle where he was supposed to be. It was empty. A man was there mopping the floor. Limp wires hung from silent machines. There was no bed; there was no Vern. My God.

Mom and I stood there in silent panic. Well, I was panicking. We never spoke of this, so I have no idea what Mom was thinking. The young woman who escorted us was at the nurses desk, trying to find out where Dad was. Unbelievable.

Turns out he was, of course, still in surgery. This was all a mistake.

Sitting back in the waiting room, my mood was now much worse. I was almost daring that fucking kid to step on my foot one more time. Please, dick face, just step on me one more time. We can save the health care system the cost of your inevitable bypass surgery.

We got one update. It was to tell he was "on the machine" or something to that effect. I guess this is a critical part of bypass surgeries. The fact that he had lived through them putting him on life support and stopping his heart or whatever the hell happened was good news. It seemed things were fine. It was a little time after this report that two women were in the corner of the room crying. They were saying things like, "I saw him earlier, he seemed fine" and "I guess they just don't know yet".

Finally, we were moved into a smaller, private room. The surgery was apparently over and we were to meet with the doctor to get the status report. Again, I was trying to read every one's body language. They didn't seem to be hiding anything. I was 90% sure Dad was fine. But a few times, I did let the thought slip in that this little room could get really terrible, really fast.

The doctor came in about 10 minutes after we were moved to the little waiting room. Seemed like a nice guy. We shook hands. Even in this situation, I worried that my palms were sweaty. Mercifully, he quickly said that everything went well. He went on to talk about numbers being good and rates being fine and the slight possibility of stroke still existed and so on. But I could tell it was all the standard speak.

Everything seemed silly now. But again, as Mom and I had discovered, we worry most about things we think we can control, and feel fine leaving the rest to fate.

A Gift From A Friend




This is a little piece a friend of mine put together to let me know I am always in his thoughts.