If you’re a Lewis Black fan, you know by the title exactly where this post is heading. If not, I can only explain it as a beautiful story/joke Lewis tells to explain that sometimes you hear or read something that is so insane that it will cause a terminal loop in your brain, and if you don’t have someone to help you work it out, you will shortly die of a brain aneurism.
Enough with the introductions, let’s start the show….
I have spent several hours since yesterday working on the terminal loop the nurse injected in my brain when she responded to my pain of leaving Rich’s bedside with…. “That’s okay. Not everyone can handle this.”
I will spare you the details of my efforts (although I did attempt to make a song of it in hopes I could sing it to conclusion, but I couldn’t make a rhyme for “handle this”.)
Lewis is right. You need another person to discuss it with in order to make it go away.
Today, I have to encounter that same nurse again, and she now scares the shit out of me. In the hallway, before I get to his room, there she is and she wants to give me report. Since 93% of communication is nonverbal, I assure you that without the words it was like I was picking my child up from day care and she was telling me all the amazing new things Susie did today.
I sat with Rich a while. And yes, he’s “doing” new things. I stop on my way out to let her know I’m leaving and she smiles brightly and says, “So what do you think?” I confirmed every “new” thing. And then, coward that I am, I said, “well, I’ve got to be at calling hours for a friend at six. In Canton.” Luckily that’s okay and she’ll call me when it’s time.
Give a big round of applause for our opening act, folks. And now the headliner!
Last night, after I posted that last entry, I poured a glass of wine for me and my own best friend, and started flipping through the stack of mail that has been sitting since Monday. Just in case there was something that needed immediate attention.
There was a card from the hospital. I read the return address again, but it is a card. I know this because it’s not an official No. 11 envelope. It is the size, weight, and feel of a greeting card. It’s addressed to Rich but I’m in the mood to break some federal laws so I open it.
Yep. It’s a card.
On the front of this sky blue card is the name of the hospital, the hospital’s logo, and the hospital’s “tag line”. I love the tag line. “the choice you can believe in” I love this line because the use of the word CHOICE in any way related to medical care just makes all the Voices in the Van giggle.
I’ve been three years down this road, and I work in a medical office. If there’s one thing I know, its that the only, the ONLY one who has choice in medical care is the insurance companies. I don’t know who the hospital’s ad agency is, but I hope they’re getting big bucks. Because if you can sell that client on that line, then you’re selling something.
I open the card. Printed on the inside, identically, is the hospital’s name, logo and tag line. Just in case I missed it the first time.
There’s more. Someone. Assumably a primate with an opposable thumb and a basic grasp of the English language has written in cursive, in ink, the following……
“Rest Well. Feel better soon!!”
Take a minute to let that sink in.
It was signed, “the staff of 5400”.
I read the card again. Again. And one more time. I closed the card. Stared at it. Opened it and read it again. I looked at the envelope again. It was postmarked Jun 1 2012. I studied the card. I read the card again. Because I for damn-shit-sure do not need another terminal loop seeping into my brain.
I could understand a computer generated faux paus. But a two-legged person had a hand in this. immediately I start formulating a defense for this well-intentioned act. Okay, they didn’t know he was going to hospice. Still, it was generated by the oncology floor, so I knew they knew he was going to hospice if he didn’t die in ICU first. I can make no sense of this. I can feel the terminal loop carving a comfy spot in my grey matter. Shit.
I can rattle off six preferable warm, fuzzy sentiments far more appropriate for a patient leaving the oncology floor for any reason headed to god knows where.
“Thank you for allowing us to care for you.”
“Our thoughts go with you.”
Blah, blah blah.
I pour another glass of wine. Because there ARE the two of us here--me and my own best friend. And while I’m thinking of it, the Voices now leave the van when we get home and wander about the house just to keep me company. Hell. We could kill the whole damn bottle.
I read the card again. I examine it thoroughly just shy of dusting it for finger prints. I am that intent on trying to make sense of this before the terminal loop starts playing like a song you can’t get out of your head. I’m so desperate I start singing the entire theme song of the Brady Bunch. I move straight to the opening song of the Big Bang Theory.
By the time I finish Barry Manilow’s classic tribute to the Big Mac I collapse on the couch in exhaustion. I’m fucked.
Today I took the card to work. Waiting for a lull in the insanity, I casually hand it to my boss with a big smile and say “I want you to see this card I got in the mail,” Just like I’m telling her the amazing new way Rich is breathing and how his feet are now a more lovely shade of purple.
She opens it exactly as I did. I watch her face and get to see exactly what I looked like when I opened it. The stunned silence, the disbelief, the total examination of what cannot possibly be real. The shock and awe. YES!!! Vindication is MINE!!
Then she went absolute ape shit.
THAT’s what friends are for. You have to have a friend who can help you kill the insanity worm in your brain before it eats more brain cells than you can afford to loose, then burrows it’s engorged, satiated self in the exact spot that will result in an aneurism. An aneurism would not be convenient right now. I’ve still got shit to do.
Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen! Don’t forget to tip your waiters!
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