Scarred For Life

This post isn't FFXI-related. Probably shouldn't read it unless you're just interested in getting to know me better. :)

Yesterday started off rather normal. I get to "work" (consultation gig I do Mon-Fri from 8AM-Noon), get settled in and start doing some maintenance. A couple hours go by and my cell phone rings.

It's Mom and Dad.

Normally, when I see the number on the caller ID, I always assume it's Mom. Y'see, Mom has a habit of calling me at oddball times of the day to pick up odds and ends for her or to tell me I got a package or something that could have otherwise waited for me to get home to tell me.

This time, it was Dad. Dad rarely calls anyone. I've mentioned before, he's hard of hearing, so talking on the phone with him isn't always the best form of communication. What he asked me tends to worry me as he rarely asks it and only asks it when it's serious.

He asked me to take him to the hospital.

Now why couldn't he drive himself or why couldn't Mom drive him? That takes explaining that Mom doesn't drive due to health issues and Dad was apparently in enough pain that he didn't want to risk it. The last time Dad asked me to take him to the doc, he had taken a spill and jammed his shoulder. This time it was for some severe abdominal pains. Mentioned before, Dad doesn't usually talk about his every day aches and pains, so this kind of blindsided me.

As I'm driving home to get Dad, a train of thought had crept back into my head that I had been giving a lot of thought to the past year or so since Dad retired. Mom and Dad are both at the age where their health is going to start becoming more and more of an issue. Insurance will obviously take care of a lot of the expenses involved, but it doesn't really take care of the time and home care involved. The past year or so, I've been wondering if I'm at that point where the transition from "parents take care of kids" to "kids take care of parents" has begun.

I really don't know how one would prepare for this emotionally. You obviously set aside some money for emergencies and you try to provide as much time as you can. You also set up some emergency plans in the event the the bad happens and you obviously prepare for the worst. It's a grim topic, I hate thinking or even talking about it but I know it's something I have to prepare for.

So today I approached this issue with all of that in mind. I had a feeling that whatever approach I took, it needed to involve humor. There's always room for humor. I've known for a long time that laughter is the best medicine. Naturally, as I get Dad and have him explain what's wrong, I started in on the "old people sex" jokes and the very obvious toilet jokes. Jokes that are forced though aren't anywhere near as funny as the ones that just come naturally. It's hard for me to make jokes when I had that weighing on my mind. I decided, for the time being, it was just better to listen to Dad talk.

We get to the hospital and naturally have a wait before we can see his doc. We're sitting out in the waiting room and Dad is talking. A lot. I swear I've never heard Dad talk this much. I'm not getting annoyed or anything. Dad's hearing loss has resulted in a slight speech impediment. He can speak english a lot better than most people, but he's completely aware of the impediment and usually doesn't speak for very long periods of time due to it. Getting him to talk for any length of time is usually a treat. Most of his normal conversation pieces are one-liners at someone's expense or simply an answer to a question that's been asked to him.

For the time being, I just let him talk. I got the feeling letting him talk was probably taking his mind off his pain more than my trying to make him laugh.

When it came time for him to go into the exam room, I went in with him. Normally, this is Mom's role. Their family doc (I'll call him Dr. Accent), was involved in the scouting program with Dad and I when I was a kid. Dr. Accent's wife and his son were the ones that were involved more so than Dr. Accent himself, but Dr. Accent wasn't completely absent from the activities.

The purpose of my being in the exam room was simple. I was the guy translating what Dr. Accent said to Dad. Foreign accent + soft voice + hard of hearing = communications train wreck. Dad can read lips pretty decently and understand Dr. Accent well enough, but sometimes he'll have difficulty understanding him and look to Mom (or me in this case) to repeat what the Doc said. Sometimes Dad won't hear Dr. Accent begin to speak and continue to speak over him. That will require Mom or myself to slap Dad on the arm to get him to stop talking for a minute.

At this point in this story, you're probably asking why I titled this post "Scarred For Life". Well...

Up on the exam room table Dad goes. Dr. Accent has Dad remove his shirt and starts poking around his belly and back trying to find the tender spots. He's going through the normal breathing routines and being asked questions, but then the unthinkable happens.

I have no idea how this happened so fast, but I kid you not. Within five seconds, Dad was on his side, pants around knees, and Dr. Accent had suddenly become a blue-latex-gloved Dr. Jellyfinger.

Dad is not a small man. I never knew he could move that fast. Dr. Accent is not a young man. He's 10 years older than my Dad. I am a young man (by their standards). I am also the son of the patient.

In short...

There are some things a son should never see his Dad subjected to. Having a lubed up, blue latex covered finger or two shoved up your Dad's (bleep) would be at the top (or very near the top) of that list. At least buy him dinner or something...

In telling this story to Kay, Lect and a couple of others on the phone earlier, I started it off by asking the following question:

"On a scale of 1-10, how difficult do you think it is to stun me into a state of speechlessness?"

Kay: Impossible
Lect: 2 (Tried to explain his logic, but I don't think he thought this out.)
Suraph: 9

As soon as I realized what was going on, I turned around and faced the corner of the exam room. I tried very hard to burn the image of this out of my brain. Hearing Dr. Accent say things like:

"I usually don't find the right spot on the first try."
"Press down like you're trying to have a bowel movement."
"Well he's not screaming, so I guess he's not in pain."

("Screaming" might have been "Squirming" and misunderstood by me due to the accent.)

And my personal "favorite"...

"Hmm. No stool sample yet, one more try."

I seriously almost lost the contents of my stomach listening to him. When he was done, Dad got dressed and, apparently noticing I'm pale and speechless...decides that's a good moment to explain the fact that getting older means your privacy is going to get invaded a lot.

I know when people reach a certain age, the idea of humility and humbleness just simply goes out the window in regards to health care. A doc or a nurse seeing a patient in all their glory is not uncommon, regardless of age. That's why you go to a doctor to begin with. I looked at Dr. Accent after I realized he was laughing at me. The only words I could muster were...

"Give me a warning next time."

Is this what I'm in store for when it comes to taking care of my parents? Am I going to have to accept that some jokes I have made are going to end up becoming reality in terms of their day to day health care in the future? The notion of something along those lines is a lot easier to fathom when it comes to a child of my own or a spouse. Definitely not a family member. Man you talk about karma.

After being unsatisfied with the physical exam, Dr. Accent sent Dad down to have an array of tests done. Chest X-Ray, Urinalysis, Blood Work, etc. The one test that would have probably told him everything else he wanted to know couldn't be performed due to Dad having eaten within the 8 hours prior to that visit. So Dad is currently laying in a hospital bed with Mom at his side waiting for mid-morning to come around so he can have a CT Scan done on his abdominal area. All of the other tests came back fine. No blood in places there shouldn't be blood and Dad's appetite being normal are all things that pleased Dr. Accent, but being worried about the pain getting progressively worse, he opted to keep Dad overnight until the digestive system was empty and they could do the scan he really wanted.

For the time being, I'm sitting at my desk wondering what the future holds. This doesn't look like anything serious, but it certainly opens my eyes up to the sorts of things I'm going to end up having to prepare for in the long run. I owe a lot to my folks. I'm not speaking from a "cause they raised me" standpoint, but rather from a "they put everything on the line" for me standpoint. I never asked, they just did it, without thinking and without doubting. This is in reference to my computer business getting in trouble financially and Dad's decision to bail me out. I have no doubt about my ability to help, I just wish there was some sort of manual I could read about the various things to look for and how to react accordingly to further my ability to help along.

At least wondering what the future holds is a far better mental process than being unable to get the Dr. Jellyfinger image out of my head...