The Aerie
One of the things brain cancer does, I guess, is strip away the shell.
It's been weird. Going to see my dad, everybody is all glum and...
he's cheerful. He's merry.
Everything is stripped away. None of his anger and rage are present.
He's in a pleasant kind of waiting room with nowhere to go and nothing
to do and no pressure of any kind. And so he laughs. He sings. He
tells jokes. He plays with the children and flirts with the girls.
But he's not awake. His eyes rarely open, and when they do they don't
seem to see much. But he's very relaxed, at least when I was there on
Sunday. He's a little agitated, shifting around like he's trying to
find a comfortable position, but he's not in any pain. Someone told me
that the two kinds of cancer to get are liver and brain, because you
don't feel anything.
I went to visit him today only to find his hospital bed empty. Of
course I was concerned that I'd arrived to find him already dead,
though how that could have happened so quickly I did not know, but the
desk nurse reassured me that he'd been moved down to the hospice wing
only an hour earlier.
The hospice room, when I found it, was very nice. A private room, with
a comfortable couch and some comfortable chairs arranged around his
bed. They'd taken the big mittens off of him and he wore only an IV in
his left arm. He'd been shaved and dressed in a decent shirt, and
looked much more like the man I knew than the one I'd failed to
recognize in the E/R.
He lay in the bed, breathing softly through is mouth, apparently
asleep. I didn't want to disturb him, so I sat quietly for a few
minutes, but hallway noises roused his attention. "What?" he said,
distinctly.
I told him I was there. At first he didn't recognize my name, "Bobby?
Bobby who?", but later he started slightly and said "Bobby, what are
you doing here?"
But that was as lucid as it got. He began to talk about many strange
things: cherry tomatoes, and my friend Moldy.
He spoke very much like someone talking in their sleep. His eyes were
closed, his voice was usually quiet and slurred, and his thoughts
rambled. I put it down to the painkillers and sedatives. Then the
nurse came in. She showed me around the hospice, pointed out its
various comfortable features. Then she answered my question about what
medication he was on: none.
The room swam for a moment. None. The only thing they had him on was
something to prevent seizures.
The man muttering drowsing in the bed was not sedated. He was not
numbed. He was it, he was the real deal. The man sleeping 24 hours a
day and mumbling and chuckling and singing and laughing in his
sleep...
...that was all there was remaining.
The significant thing about his mention of my friend Moldy is that
Moldy has brain cancer, too. As a medical transcriptionist, my father
would periodically see Moldy's medical records on one of his
transcription assignments, so he was aware of Moldy's condition.
At some point I decided to try to transcribe my dialogue with my
father. Everything that follows is by him unless it begins with "Me:"
I'm not that type, I'll take a little help along the way
But, y'know...
There are a lot of people that ARE choosy and they have the right to be choosy.
I'm not one of those.
I should shuffle on downstairs and see...
A lot of those people don't have the opportunity to be choosy
I'm of the ilk that doesn't find a lot of people to mix with.
Then there's one group, I don't really know the, I don't really know...
alot of people actually, but um, they can't be choosers because they don't
have people to count on.
Take what you can get.
They uh, they take what they can get, and a lot of them they aren't able
to get on
Moldy would like to be in that category, he'd like to be in the know, but he
doesn't have a lot of people.
I think I'm going to shuffle off, there isn't a whole lot going on.
I guess you can call it, uh, you're in the group.
I don't know who they are exactly.
What group are you in?
I don't really care what group I'm in, the groups are important but I can't say
who they are.
Shuffle off to Buffalo.
The only people who really annoy me as a group are the ones who, uh, how d'you
put it? They're in-the-know. People want to hang around with them. I guess
it's alright to be in the know, though.
Moldy, he's a nice guy, he's got a lot of brains, and he's a pretty intelligent
fellow.
So I'm going to shuffle off to Buffalo, what are you going to do?
Me: I'm going to work in my office.
I'm of the opinion that you should hang out with anybody at all that you
should hang out with.
Me: You want any water?
No, I don't need any right now, but I was wondering where you're getting it?
'Cause there's a hose in the yard if you really need it.
Me: No, I'm not getting it from the hose, Dad.
Well, I'm going to shuffle off, and uh, you let me know if you find anything
good. And if you find anything good, you uh give me a jingle. And uh, I'll
jingle you back.
I like Moldy a lot but he doesn't seem to swing with my crowd, you know what
I mean?
No, I like to hang out with people. What about you?
Me: No, I don't hang out with too many people.
You take what you can get huh?
I want to give my mother a call, if you want to hang out here that's fine,
but I'm going to shuffle off.
I figure we can hang out and shoot the breeze or whatever.
You know the other day, yesterday I think it was, I was looking around and I
kind of saw the cherry tomato guy.
You don't know where he went, right?
Me: No, where'd he go?
He hung around here.
See?
Why don't you walk over to your sister's and say 'hello'
Me: I could do that
And if she doesn't want to hang out, that's okay.
I gotta pick up some .... some
Who knew I would spend so much time looking for tomatoes today.
You'll have to lead the way since I'm not that familiar with the way.
I'm going to go find Moldy and buy some tomatoes.
I don't quite know what it means. But it's one of the last
conversations I'll ever have with my father.
[1]Last
Posted by Albatross at December 10, 2002 12:00 AM