How’s it going?
He just came out of surgery and it seems okay.
Define okay.
Well he didn’t even bleed they said!
(pause) Wouldn’t that be a problem if they’re hoping the infection bleeds out?
Right.
Riiiiiiight.
Well they have a vascular person ya know um a Vascular Specialist coming I guess to increase his circulation I guess, tomorrow.
To get it to bleed, apparently.
Yeah, right.
Well not to be an asshole ( . . . ) but if he’s got to bleed out gangrene within 48 hours, wouldn’t his foot just being like day old steak on the counter for over a day be kind of less than ideal?
I don’t know. I’m on kind of on overload with all this.
Ma, I’m going to get a ticket for the weekend, one of those business commuter things, okay?
No no it’s going to be fine, she says a little panicky.
I am going look for a ticket for this weekend if you call me later or I am going to drive to your doorstep by morning if you don’t.
(pause)
Oooooooookay.
Oooooooookay.
Later.
Then she calls back. There are four operations planned in quick succession. The rest of the foot. When that doesn’t work, then a bypass surgery in the calf. Then when that doesn’t work, then the leg will be removed below the knee.
The doctor looked pitiful, she says, He seemed hopeless and said it was terrible when there just was no blood because then there was nothing to be done really.
I say, Well if they don’t think those next two surgeries will work, then why not skip to the last one and not make him suffer so much on the way?
(goes bonkerinos): “Well they’re not going to kill him this isn’t Oklahoma or wherever they do that shit so they keep him ALIVE and then you just take the steps of that because that’s that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
(paaaaaaaaaaaaaaause)
Mom, a care-plan is a negotiated settlement. You can ask how many options they considered and you can ask that their decisions be justified. If someone were going to hack into you four times with you awake for it, I’d kind of be like um is that the best you can fucking do . . .
WellShirleyasksallkindsofshitWe’reNotDoctorsTheyKnowI’mgoingtogonow.
Sigh. Okay.
Okay? I’mgoingtogonowI’mtirednowyou’renothereyaknowso.
Okay okay.
Okay[Click].
I have a head cold. I am not unhappy. A cd comes in the mail and I sew a curtain. Mom is adamant I cannot show up sneezing (“Did you just Cough?!”), so I lay around w the kids and we sneeze and get out the playdough. The oil’s been changed in the van and I watch the flight prices and I pop another vitamin C and make pea soup and write letters of recommendation for students and write in my journal Chinese Crayolas! and I watch America’s Top Model and I clean absolutely everything and I wait and do what I think is best: I remember. I focus everything else from my mind and remember him. The thing about dying in the United States is that they medicate you within an inch of your life and then keep you there in that inch until nobody remembers what you were like before. I remember him built like a barrel filled with something, solid and short and strong as hell. I remember the boats the cars the golf carts (he didn’t golf), the black lab dog he loved (and of course named Sambo), his leather jacket tight and making that leathermovingsound when he walked, and his less-than-gifted power-tool moments (woopsie—but you don’t need the whole finger, he said, flipping me off with the stub and a wink).
Ben Harper – The Drugs Don’t Work (The Verve cover)
