2001-05-05 - 11:11 p.m.

Failed Family Reunion

Today was Saturday, and that's a day Lily and I usually sleep in, but my brother Harry is an early riser. Around 10 a.m. he showed up and the two of us walked over to the hospital to check in on Dad.

When we arrived there we got quite a surprise - Dad was awake and looking quite lively. He clearly recognized us and looked delighted to see us. He had improved amazingly since we'd seen him last night. He still had the breathing tube down his throat, but according to the nurse they were getting ready to remove it. When I talked to them last night they thought that they wouldn't be able to take it out until Monday. More good news.

Yes, Dad was acting quite frisky, in fact a little TOO frisky. The nurses had to use some gauze strips tie his hands to the railings on his bed, or else he would constantly be pulling out his IV tubes and monitor feeds. There was a clip on his finger that was monitoring the oxygen in his blood, and he kept taking it off. Every time he did that, the monitor kept emitting a shrill alarm.

No, Dad was not being an ideal patient. In fact I was talking to the nurse that was going to be taking his breathing tube out. Just before we'd arrived he'd had one of his tiny fits of rage - he wanted the breathing tube out NOW!!!!!! He almost got out of bed to take it out himself.

Sigh. The nurses seemed more amused than alarmed by Dad and his demands, which is pretty much the best way to handle him.

Harry was much cheered by Dad's recovery. Obviously his fears that he might never get to talk to Dad against were groundless.

After we'd been there the nurse got the go ahead to take his breathing tube out. They shooed us out of the cubicle and went to work on him. When they were done the tube was out and he was wearing an oxygen mask. Dad didn't much like the oxygen mask and kept trying to take it off. We told him that he had to keep it on because the cool vapor was good for his inflamed throat. Even though the tube was out he still couldn't talk, even though he kept trying to.

So, all in all we had a nice visit, which was a relief and a change of pace.

After that Harry, Lily and I went to have lunch at one of the local diners. Lily and Harry think that my liking for diners and sub shops is funny. Frown Town is rather short of good eateries and where the hell else am I supposed to get food? Sheesh.

By the time we returned to the Hamster Palace it was late afternoon and we still had not heard from our sister Janis. Was she coming, or not? I called her number in Philadelphia and got an answering machine. Well, that meant she wasn't home, but it didn’t mean that she was here.

So Harry and I went back to the hospital and Lily stayed home in case Janis called.

When we got back to the Intensive Care Unit, the nurses informed us that Janis had just been there, we'd missed her by about half an hour. That's typical Janis - just blow into town and not tell anyone. I had a vague recollection that she'd done this before. I knew that she was staying with friends in Frown Town, but I had no idea where they were or what their phone number was, so we were back to square one.

Dad seemed a little less lively than when we had visited him in the morning, but there was an important difference now - he could talk. Why this was important quickly became clear: he was half out of his head. For some reason he though he was at the local Golf Club that he always used to go to, not at the hospital. He kept asking me when dinner was going to be served - he wanted to treat Harry and I.

Really, it's not easy to mistake the hospital for the Golf Club. Do they usually tie your hands to the sides of your bed at the Golf Club? If they do, it's s more interesting place than I thought it was.

According to the nurses, at one point he also thought he was down at the New York Stock Exchange.

In the morning, when he could only nod and smile when we talked to him he seemed pretty sharp mentally. Now that we knew what was actually going on inside his head, we were a lot more concerned. He seemed to have no idea where he was or why he was there.

Well, it was kind of funny too. At one point Harry was lecturing Dad on why he had to be good and follow instructions. Quoth Harry: "Remember, you have to do what the doctors and nurses tell you to do, not what you THINK they SHOULD tell you to do!"

Dad absorbed this information for a couple of seconds and then a sneaky smile spread across his face. He said "Yeeessss," in a way that sounded like he was already trying to figure out the loopholes in what he'd just agreed to.

After we left the hospital, Harry went off to party with his friends. Lily and I considered going out to see a movie, but by the time we got going it was too late and we were too tired, so we just went out to dinner.

Later in the evening I was checking my email, and Surprise! There was and email from Janis, saying that she was in town and giving the phone number of the people she was staying with. Too bad it was 11:30 at night and too late to call her.

So much for my plan of some sort of family reunion. Maybe I'll be able to get all three of us together sometime tomorrow. It just occurred to me - the last time that Harry, Janis and I were together in one place was shortly after Mom died - nearly five years ago.

Obviously we need to work a little on our family unity.