Every family goes through tragedy and our family is not immune to this fact. The big difference is the way our family handles these tragedies. We deal with tragedy with humor and sarcasm. It is our coping method and this sometimes has a interesting effect on the first responders and the medical staff at the local ER.
Back in the year 2000 I had what appeared to be a heart attack at home. This was at 2am. I woke Angie to tell her I couldn’t catch my breath and it felt like I had a fat lady sitting on my chest. Why a fat lady? I don’t know, possibly my mother had an unfortunate fright at the circus side show while she was pregnant with me. At least this one didn’t have a beard. Angie called 911 and the paramedics arrived quickly and whisked me off to the emergency room. As they were wheeling me out of the house on the gurney Angie ran into the room and threw my wallet like a fastball right into my crotch while shouting “Here’s your wallet!” My mind quickly was diverted from the fat lady and the paramedics obviously were wondering what they got themselves into. Fortunately it turned out not to be a heart attack but the start of a panic attack syndrome that we have been dealing with handily ever since.
Earlier this month something happened in by brain that caused me to lose the ability to speak clearly. I started stuttering severely. At first, Angie thought I was just goofing around with her so she didn’t take it seriously. I knew something was wrong but couldn’t figure out how to tell her as I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth properly. When Angie told my oldest daughter that her father was acting weirder than normal Marisa called me. When she heard what I sounded like she came over and took me to the ER as she thought it might be a stroke. The ER staff were fantastic and got me back into a room and started running all sorts of tests. Word quickly spread to all the kids and soon the room was crowded with all the unique characters that make up our family.
Room 1 in Quad A of the Kaiser Permanente Hospital Emergency Department was transformed from a sterile room of healing to a noisy party room complete with laughter, jokes and random mayhem. Of course, Marisa was with me when we arrived but she was quickly joined by her sister Ashley who started looking closely at all the tubes, wires and monitors hooked up to her father. When I finally managed to get out the question:
“Wwwhhaatt aarree yyoouu llllooookiiinggg fffooorr?”
She looked at me and said:
“I’m looking for the one I need to unplug if I have to.”
Ashley has appointed herself the official “plug puller” of the family.
Soon I had a standing room crowd of Sons, Daughters, Son in Law, and even an occasional employee from the family business. These all showed appropriate concern and compassion but I did notice several had sales brochures from the nearby new car dealerships. It is at times like these that you realize how important you are to your family and friends. They are so kind and loving but sometimes they seem obsessed about me having my life insurance policy always paid up and current.
I think Marisa is the one who expressed it so eloquently when she recently said to me:
“Dad, we don’t want you to die, but if you do, we want to wipe our tears with cash.”
Blaringly missing from this ensemble was the bride of my youth, love of my life and probably the reason I am in this current condition, Angie. She was off doing very important things and probably thought I was still just kidding around with the stuttering thing.
I am not sure which one of my kids asked me to say “That’s All Folks!” but I am going to review the security tape and reward them properly.
They took me off for a CAT scan and when we returned we found the “concerned family members” had gotten bored and were experimenting with all the gadgets and devices in a hospital emergency room. My sons were working with the “endoscope” in a truly inappropriate way. Ashley had her lip stuck to the suction port in the wall because she didn’t know how to turn it off. My son in law, Daren, was sticking test pads to various parts of his body and was soon to discover the reason why they shave your chest to attach them.
The doctor didn’t find anything on the CAT scan so he ordered up a MRI. Soon we had a technician from the Radiology Department arrive to take a pre-MRI questionnaire. They are apparently very concerned about any metal you might have in your body as the MRI is a giant magnet and it is real bothersome when a patient’s posterior is stuck in the tube and the tray they put you on comes out of the machine empty. The final question was if I was claustrophobic as the tube you go in is really tight. I replied in the affirmative for claustrophobia and he then asked me what my drug of choice was. I asked what he had and he started listing off all sorts of choices. I told him to just give me his favorite and make it a double. Soon I am sliding over to the tray they put you on to slide you into the machine and I asked when my drug order was to be administered. The MRI technician got a look of concern and told me they were supposed to have administered that before I came over. She informed me that I had two choices: 1.) Go back to the ER and get loaded, which would delay the test until the next day, or 2.) Put my big boy panties on and tough it out. I chose option 2 as it was going on 10 hours since my arrival. She said just close your eyes and do not open them under ANY circumstances and think about your “happy place”. For the next 25 minutes I spent quality time in my personal “happy place” which was back in the company of my looney family and how I was going to reward them of the compassion, love and embarrassment I had been subjected to this day. I was halfway through the dissection of my son in law when I felt the tray coming out of the device.
Upon my return I discovered that my dear wife had finally decided to join the festivities. She had brought a bottle of Club Soda with her incase she got thirsty waiting for my demise. Why Club Soda? It was the only “wet thing” in a bottle she could find. Don’t try to figure that one out or your arm will start spasmodically shaking as mine does. The following is living proof of the insanity of my family. Please enjoy and send your sympathy messages to the comment section of this blog.
Health update: All the tests came back negative which shows why they call it the “practice of medicine”. In other words, they don’t know what is wrong. More testing to follow, I won’t be inviting my family……
My children now insist on stuttering in their texts to me. Marisa texted me recently with this:
