Before I start today’s tirade, allow me to note that I’d rather have the cast of “Grey’s Anatomy” running a hospital. Sure, they’re actors, but they can’t be any less competent than what I’ve seen in the past few days.
I think there has got to be a note in my grandfather’s chart that when the granddaughter shows up, people need to act like they know what’s going on.
All they know is that I live in D.C. proper and that I can throw around medical terminology enough to seem like I know what the hell I’m talking about. All I know is that when I so much as approach the nurses’ station, I get a team of doctors dispatched to the bedside.
So my grandfather’s had this nasty, gurgly cough since Halloween. My mom had been asking for days about it, and when I arrived a few days later, I could hear it well. She went to ask a doctor about it and he said she’s hallucinating — he’s fine.
So “Harper Valley PTA” marched her ass up to the paging system and got someone sent to the room. I went off and said some asshole had told my mom he didn’t hear a cough and could you PLEASE take a listen because the wrong person was told they were hallucinating. The doc gave me a nasty look and snapped, “I’m that asshole who said he doesn’t have a cough because he doesn’t.”
Heh. He was right — he WAS an asshole. Because SUDDENLY he heard the cough. And even more suddenly? He realized the unclean hellhole had caused the poor man to contract PNEUMONIA.
SPEAKING OF ASSHOLES
Oh wait, I don’t have enough bandwidth to cover all the assholes in the world. (Although I do try. …) But then we got this other doctor the next day. Oh my GOD, I can see this idiot prancing around in his Superman Underoos and his lab coat — I’ll bet he wears that coat to bars to pick up chicks. Because that’d be the only way anyone would talk to him more than two minutes.
I think they versed him on the fact that I was going to give him a hard time. Snotty little punk-ass bitch. It ended up being Mom who got him good, but let me say this. “Meredith” gets “McDreamy” — we got “McDildo.”
So my grandfather was already gravely ill when we took him to the hospital. Now he’s contracted pneumonia, a bladder infection and a blood infection (they didn’t want to tell me they think it’s MRSA. They used a 14-syllable word and because I am well-versed in this shit and the hospital is filthy, I said, “Oh, MRSA.” And everyone looked scared and probably made another note in his chart to not answer pages when I’m around!
Anyway, they want to transfer my grandfather to another hospital, germs and all, because he really is getting sicker in that environment. We all agree on that. But he doesn’t want to go to the other place — he was there years ago and was absolutely terrorized by the experience.
BUT, McDildo pretty much threatened us to help talk him into it or he was going to order it without our blessing. *sigh*
My grandfather fought the transfer with his weak little voice, saying it’s a bunch of assholes running that place. McDildo said, “It’s been years — I’m sure it’s a whole ‘nother group of people.” And Mom chimed in, “Yeah, Dad — it’s a bunch of NEW assholes!”
And because McDildo was trying to win this argument, he had to admit, “Yeah, wouldn’t you rather deal with new assholes instead of the old ones?”
HAH!
GOOD THINGS DO HAPPEN FOR GOOD PEOPLE
With my grandfather’s last roommate, Mom was always buying him treats and talking to him and taking care of him. With his latest roommate, I’ve been bringing him meals and hanging out with him. Luckily, both guys were younger and very verbal, and the most recent one has been feeding my grandfather when those morons were leaving his tray four feet from him and also moving him in the bed, helping him to the bathroom and otherwise just being a friend.
Thank God. You know? What goes around comes around, as the latest one kept saying. And despite the doctors being McDipshits overall, the nursing staff (save for one or two) has really been good. The doctors (i.e., interns) are there for three-month stays (and are all on ego trips) but the nurses have been there for years. He had a lovely Korean woman from San Francisco last night — she calls my grandfather “Papa.” Her mother had told her to treat each of her patients like her own father, and she really does.
Anyway, it restores my faith in karma. It especially pleases me that, like my family, I refuse to become jaded by all the bullshit in life and I continue to want to be good to people because that’s not just my nature, but also my lineage.
So, I’ve been doing everyone’s errands and doing all the driving and giving Mom curbside service and making sure everyone gets fed and whatnot. I am truly the baby of the family and I know I have the most energy (although it’s dissipating) and need to take over for them whenever I can.
This makes me see the point of having kids — having a sane mind around when all the world is collapsing has been good for them. Not to mention, they both sparkle when I come into a room. I mean, most people do light up when they see me — I try to be enertaining or, at least, not annoying. But these people light up just for me. I love that. I miss that. I hated that as a kid, as I couldn’t stand being fussed over. But these days, I’ll take all the love I can get, and it’s there in bountiful supply, thank God.
ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?
I think we all know the answer to THAT question, but I have a funny story. First, I have to mention how hard it is to catch an elevator. There’s a bank of a dozen of them and not a goddamned one of them dings when they hit the floor. By the time you notice it, it’s gone.
I tell you that to share this story. There’s a robot wandering the floors. (It has more personality and probably more knowledge than the M.D.s.) It’s almost five feet tall and three feet wide, just a big cube that rolls around the floor.
Mom’s afraid of it. BIG TIME.
We went to a hidden restroom (it’s the only fairly clean one in the joint) in a back hallway. Wouldn’t you know, I’m in the room and the robot comes zooming down the hall, chasing Mom clear down it. (I think the thing carries files from floor to floor, but I really don’t know.)
I come out of the floor to find Mom collapsed in a heap, sobbing and laughing. I didn’t want to ask. The thing chased her all the way down to the elevators, where one opened and it got on, thus ending its pursuit of her.
She was so traumatized, she had to call her best friend, who’d been to the hospital before I came back. And the friend had said, “How the hell is it that we miss three elevators and yet that thing can catch one?”
I’m almost looking forward to this insane odyssey coming to a close and resuming my life — I’ve been living out of a suitcase for three out of the past four weeks, and I’d like a little bit of routine for a change. I just hope my grandfather is strong enough to make it through the next leg of this journey, because I think the next part is going to be the roughest. But like I always tell him, he’s stronger than they are stupid.
A higher power is giving them a chance to save him (and, therefore, themselves) and they’d all be wise to take it while they can. And if we’d all live by that motto, we will all turn out OK. …