“How do you a bathroom open house?”
Silence answered, followed by gales of charming laughter.
So sweet.
The Ice Chip
It’s five thirty A.M., and cold and dark. Even the cats are all curled up and asleep.
The telephone connection is amazingly clear. The tension in the hospital room seems as substantial as the phone against my ear.
“She’s gurgling, and sounds wet,” the speech therapist said. “I’m going to see what she can swallow.”
Her voice becomes louder as she speaks to the elderly patient. “I’m concerned about your ability to swallow. Can you lick you lips? Can you lick your lips?”
Holding the phone, I lick my lips in response to the orders on the other end and urge the patient to do the same.
“No? You can’t lick them? No saliva?”
Damn.
“Okay. I’d like to give you an ice chip to see how you swallow. Would you like an ice chip?”
“Yes,” the patient says in a low, weak gravel.
“Yes, I bet you would,” the speech therapist says. “You’re probably pretty thirsty because you haven’t been able to swallow anything for a couple days.
“Can you stick your tongue out for me? Can you put it out a little further? There we go. Good, that’s good. Now, I’m going to put the ice chip on your tongue, okay? There we are. Good. Now take it in your mouth and let it melt. Feels good, doesn’t it? Yes, I bet it does. Don’t let it run out of your mouth okay? Keep it in your mouth.
“Okay, are you ready to swallow? Swallow it for me. Let me see you swallow. Okay, that’s good.”
I hear an odd sound and listen, trying to understand what it is. I imagine the process it takes to let ice melt, and the muscles and passages used to swallow.
The speech therapist’s volume drops to a normal conversational level. “She couldn’t swallow, and I can hear wet gurgling.”
That was probably the odd sound that I heard.
The speech therapist says, “The fluid is going down into her airways. Normally, when that happens, we violently cough. That’s a normal reaction. But she lacks the strength and energy to cough.”
My sister-in-law speaks. “She’s in advanced stages of Parkinson’s, and hasn’t had her meds for several days, because she’s had the flu and pneumonia, and hasn’t been able to swallow. They’re going to insert an NG tube and begin her meds again.”
“Yes, we’d expect to see an improvement in a Parkinson’s patient with their meds, so we’ll try the test again after the NG tube is inserted and her meds are given.”
Thanks are given, and comments about things that will be done later are made. I listen and absorb it, but I remain thinking about the importance of a melting ice chip and swallowing.
Wednesday’s Bumper Sticker
This one has been around for decades.
The Green Tooth (An Abridged History)
I’d forgotten about my green tooth.
How did I forget? It was right in the front of my upper set of teeth. Dark green, it beckoned others’ curiosity, disgusting them. I saw that in their expressions.
The tooth was a product of playing blind man’s bluff in our Pittsburgh cellar in the dark. The cellar had a few steel support poles. I ran into one in the dark and broke off the bottom half of my tooth.
That was fifth or sixth grade.
We were a lower middle-class family struggling to get by. It took a few months to get my tooth repaired. Meanwhile, I walked around with half a tooth in my grin. Already a little shy, retiring, self-effacing, and insecure, I took to smiling and talking less. When I spoke, I mumbled, to avoid showing my teeth. Eventually, though, I received a nice fake white tooth on a post.
Then I knocked it out.
It was replaced.
I knocked it out again.
This happened several times. Eventually, that fake white tooth turned green. Nothing I could do about it. So I endured, thirteen years old, with a green tooth. A perforation developed in my upper jaw bone. The summer I became fifteen (the year I met my wife), my upper gums became swollen and infected. I solved that by thrusting sharp objects into my gum and squeezing until the pus burst out. It was a little painful and bloody.
Did I mention that I’m not too bright? That’s pretty evident by now.
I moved in with my father that summer. The perforation remained. My gum would become swollen and infected about once a year. I’d heat a steak knife, cut it open and drain it. I got pretty good at it. Yes, I know how lucky I am that the infection didn’t worsen and kill me.
I did this alone because my adventures with my tooth upset my parents. They were exasperated that I kept knocking it out. That exasperation spread to me. I also became aware of being studied and judged. I didn’t like the judgement I heard. I became overly self-conscious, and secretive about my tooth and what was going on with it. My mumbling increased.
Eventually, I joined the Air Force. Uncle Sam replaced my post with a pink, plastic denture. That lasted about ten years. I’d break that tooth off, too, then glue it back into place. I struggled to eat with it, so I’d take it out, usually wrapping it in a napkin so that others didn’t see it. Of course, that left a tooth-sized gap in my smile.
My wife would sometimes need to remind me not to forget it after I’d taken it out.
A metal bridge replaced the pink one. Also uncomfortable, held into place with little silver holds that wrapped around my bicuspids, Seeing those metal things, people would ask, “What are those silver things on your teeth?” I’d explain it was my denture, and offer to show it to them.
It was pretty flimsy. The bridge would end and twist. I’d try fixing it. Eventually, a new fake tooth on a new post was installed.
Naturally, I broke it off. While eating a hamburger, in fact. I glued it into place. It broke off again. That became my regular thing: glue it into place, and then break it off while eating.
After years of going through all this, I had a new, permanent bridge implanted. It cost me thirteen thousand dollars, but it was worth it. By then, I was fifty years old.
It’s interest how such a trivial matter affected me and my life, and how much of it I’d forgotten. Most of us have something like this that shapes us.
When I think of all the things that others endure, I’m fortunate that it was so trivial.
But I still mumble.
Her Memory
She’d found herself forgetting everything. It was, she explained to friends and families (who didn’t seem interested), like a wall or chasm existed between the answer and the question. She knew the answer was on the other side, but she couldn’t reach it.
This infuriated her. She’d been a five-time champion on Jeopardy! Ask her anything about culture, politics, arts and literature, physics and chemistry, or geography and history, and she could give you a quick, correct answer. Or could. Now it was changing.
She would not accept this. She adapted, because that was her nature, first keeping copious notes on calendars and notebooks about everything that happened. Nothing was too mundane. Updating her calendars and notebooks took from fifteen minutes to an hour every day, and was done as part of her ritual of preparing to retire for the night. Memories of more personal matters were augmented via recordings. The first recordings were done with a small Sony tape recorder. She switched to digital as the technology matured and became cheaper and more reliable. Eventually, she started making digital video recordings and storing them on the cloud. Then she could see and hear herself, reassuring herself of who she was and who she’d been.
By then, she’d retired. By then, her hair was wispy and white, and she wore wigs, out of vanity. By then, she’d buried her third husband and second child, and her parents and siblings. By then, she’d gone through cancer in her cervix and successful treatment, and had a hip replaced after a fall, and was treated for glaucoma, and celebrated her ninetieth birthday. By then, many friends had died or moved away, or were in hospice, or couldn’t remember her. By then, new technology emerged for an augmented digital memory, something like Keanu Reeves’ character had in Johnny Mnemonic. She’d enjoyed the book (by William Gibson) (because she loved science fiction and fantasy), but didn’t like the movie. But then, she’d never been a huge Keanu Reeves fan, outside of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, although he wasn’t bad in the first Matrix film.
Technology improved. She gave her memory a name, George, after her first husband. George would chat with her about what she needed to know and do, and what had happened, who said what when.
A new product, “Your Best Friend,” emerged. Using smart technology embedded in phones, computers, cars, houses, and businesses, her memory could have a holographic presence and a voice outside her head, almost everywhere, almost all the time.
She loved this aspect. She named her new memory Jean, after a friend she’d lost in her past. She and Jean had shared many good times together, and she thought it would be better to have a dead girlfriend as a faux companion rather than a dead husband.
She and Jean went everywhere together. It was initially a little strange to others and she was self-conscious about it, because it was all new, and others didn’t have virtual holographic friends. Others thought it odd, or that she was weird, or demented, you know, delusional. She was on the cutting edge. If her husband(s) could see her now. Hah!
Technology improved and became cheaper and more prevalent. Soon, many people had such companions, nannies, guards, and mentors. Eventually, she forgot that this was her memory.
Her memory had become her best friend, which, if she thought about it, was how it should be.
Saturday’s Theme Music
My wife and I were driving home when John Mellencamp’s “Authority Song” played on the radio. We knew the song and sang along. It’s from his Uh-huh album. It came out in 1983, when he was John Cougar. We saw him perform a few years later, in Germany.
As the song wound toward its end, my wife said, “This song doesn’t have many words to it, does it?” No, but that’s how a lot of pop songs are, to me. I was thinking more about these lines:
“I said, “Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying
“And dying to me don’t sound like all that much fun.”
The idea that death is bad — or not fun — has been weaponized, something to use keep us in check. “You might get hurt if you do that. You might even die.” Yes, as if we’re all living forever on this world, in these bodies.
I thought, Heaven as a concept must have been invented to comfort people who are dying or has lost someone. I always liked that idea of Heaven, that another place is beyond death where we live on. Maybe it’s like living in this sense in that mythical next existence, but suppose it’s not? Yet, we’re coached and socialized to fear death because this is life.
Come on, we’re all going to die. Life might be a spectrum, and this slice of life is just another frequency band. Thank of how wonderful it could be in the next band.
Here It Comes
Here it comes,
the daily screed,
the morning sun,
the cat and the first cup,
here it comes,
here it comes.
Here comes the parade,
here comes the day,
here comes the moment,
here comes your chance,
here it comes,
here it comes.
Here comes the hopes and dreams,
here comes the losses and tears,
here comes the beginning,
here comes the end,
here comes the realization,
here comes the rest.
Here it comes,
here it comes.
Expected
The things I expected to do and see,
were not the things I saw and did,
so what’ll become of the things I expect to see and do now?
Monday’s Bumper Sticker
Hmmm…true or false?
New Boy
The words weren’t what he wanted to hear. “Your son was in a terrible accident,” the doctor said. “Steven has suffered extensive injuries.”
He stared at the woman, Indian and young, attempting to assess her abilities. Beside him, his wife was hiccuping with sobs. New tears ran down her face. He didn’t know where they came from. He was certain she was cried dry, but no, here were more.
“I’m afraid we’re declaring him medically challenged,” the doctor said next.
That drew his attention.
The doctor said, “I have no choice, Mister Ryan. Your insurance dictates it.”
“What’s that mean?” he said, as his wife echoed, “Medically challenged?”
“Well, to be crude, Mister Ryan, Missus Ryan,” the doctor said, “and use a coarse analogy, if your son was a car, he’d be declared totaled, because it’s cheaper to write him off and give you a check to have him remade.”
Words exploded. He was talking. His wife was talking. The doctor was backtracking and attempting to explain and placate.
It didn’t seem like he heard anything, not even himself. He was saying, “My son is not a fucking car, my son is not a fucking car.” He didn’t know what was coming out.
Then he and his wife were holding one another, shaking and crying, a scene in the hospital. He held her warmth and tried pouring strength into her, but his strength was evaporating.
The doctor said, “It’s not as you think.”
He couldn’t believe she said that. He said, “What?”
Reacting with a speed she’d never exhibited before, his wife lunged for the doctor. Catching her, he held onto her. Her body felt like steel. She dragged him forward. She was saying something, but tear-filled and high-pitched, he couldn’t understand her.
“Heather, Heather,” he said. “Calm down, calm down.”
A foot shorter than him and fifty pounds lighter, Heather dragged him forward. He was forced to lift her until her feet were off the ground. That was the only way to stop her.
“Let me go,” Heather said, “let me go.”
Security showed up.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Ryan said.
The doctor waved security away. A young nurse beside the doctor held a folder out. The nurse looked Indian, too. Were there no white people in medicine any more?
The doctor said, “This package explains everything. You can contest your insurance company and keep your son alive, but unfortunately, not in this hospital. He will need to be moved to another facility. In the meantime, if we harvest his organs, you can make more than enough money to pay off the expected costs, and your policy permits you to keep all the profits.”
“You are sick,” he said. He put his wife down, but held onto her. “You’re all sick.”
“And if you start right away, your son can be done here in five days.”
His wife fell still. “Five days?” Heather said.
He let go of her. “What’s that mean, exactly?”
“You will be able to take your son home in five days,” the doctor said.
“That doesn’t explain anything,” he said. “What’s it mean?”
“It’s explained in these package we’ve prepared for you,” the doctor said.
“I’m asking you,” Ryan said. “What’s it mean?”
The doctor sighed. “It means we’ll grow you a fresh boy, Mister Ryan. He will look and act exactly like your son, Steve. He will be a new boy, for all purposes, but he will be Steve’s age.”
“Like a clone?” Heather said.
“Yes, basically,” the doctor said. “He will have Steve’s knowledge and memories, of course, and the skill levels, talents, and abilities that he exhibited before, but he will have a new body.”
“How?” Ryan said.
“He’s been monitored his entire life, and we have his DNA map,” the doctor said. “So we will grow it. Steven’s teachers have faithfully filled out all required quarterly reports, with videos, and all his test results. You’re lucky that your son is in such a good school system. We also have all his social media records. So we can fully analyze all aspects of his personality and life.”
As he was thinking about what the doctor was saying, and what it meant, his wife said, “Can you…change things?”
“Changes are possible,” the doctor said. “They’re extra, of course, and it depends on what you have in mind.”
“Well, he was always a little slow,” Heather said, with a glance at her husband.
“And can we make him taller?” he said. “Steve’s always been one of the shortest kids in his class. It’d be nice if he was a few inches taller.”
“Of course.” The doctor made a gesture. The nurse made a call. A man in a suit appeared. He was white.
“This is Gary,” the doctor said.
“Hi, Mister Ryan,” Gary boomed, putting his hand out. As Ryan and Gary vigorously shook, Gary said, “I’m sorry about your loss,” and the doctor said, “Gary is a medical sales technician. He’ll walk you through your options and costs.”
As Gary shook hands with Heather, Ryan said, “Thank you, doctor.”
Smiling, the doctor said, “You’re welcome.” She walked away as Gary said, “Let’s go to somewhere quiet. There’s a Starbucks in the hospital. Would you like some coffee or tea?”
“I’d love some coffee,” Ryan said. “It’s been a long night.” His eyes were bright.
A new son. A new boy.
Science was fucking amazing.
