(One of) My Worst Nightmare(s)

An old medical joke compares the strategies that different types of doctors would use to stop a closing elevator door.  The internist would use his hand.  A surgeon, would be more leery of a hand injury, and so he would block it with his foot.  An orthopedist would put his head into the gap.  As a surgeon, my worst nightmare has always been getting a hand mangled in a garbage disposer.  I never dreamed that my cat could be a far greater threat. 

Denial of peril is a natural coping mechanism.  How else does one continue to function?  Like when I was Christmas shopping on Oxford street.  I found it a bit odd, but not worrisome, that there were suddenly guards at the entrance to Debenham’s, inspecting all the purses.  I didn’t find out until much later that the Wimpey’s next door had been bombed.  My mother, at home in Texas, watched it all unfold on television and thought I should come back home immediately.  That was back in the early 80’s, and the IRA was always blowing something up.  But I never felt personally threatened during my year in Britain, even when they blew up the Horse Guard parade an hour after our picnic in Regent’s Park.  The nurse from Northern Ireland said she felt much safer back home than in London, because in Belfast, you knew where the shooting and bombings occur.

Back to the cat.  His name is Amarillo and he has black and white tuxedo fur.  To be fair, he gave me ample warning.  We were changing planes in the Philadelphia airport, in one of those “Companion Care” rooms where you can lock the door.  I let my pet out of his carrier, so he could stretch his legs.  The old bathroom had been retrofitted with electric photo sensing faucets and soap dispenser, and a crude wooden box under the counter hid the plumbing and wires.  I didn’t notice the opening at the end of the box until it was too late.  Curiosity compelled Amarillo to leap through the perfectly cat-sized portal.  I reached in and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck so that he wouldn’t follow pipes and wires through a gaping hole into who knows what kind of netherworld.  When he slipped free, I grabbed his leg.  That must have hurt.  He growled and hissed, but I refused to release him until his teeth plunged into my hand.  Then, he was the one who wouldn’t let go.  Think of the Dune Trilogy pain box conceived by Herbert’s sadistic imagination.  When I finally managed to extricate my hand, it didn’t look that bad.  A little blood, a few poke marks, but everything worked.  Amarillo, to his credit, seemed genuinely stunned and remorseful, and retreated into his carrier. 

It was a three-hour layover and by the time we boarded the plane, my hand looked like a baseball.  My pain score was 9 out of 10.  It was worse than labor, because the agony was continuous.  Back in Florida, I had to take the cat home, empty the litter box, and fill up his food dispenser before taking myself to the Emergency Room.  They sent me home with pills, but by the next morning the swelling was half-way up my arm, with pus pouring out of a few orifices and red streaks approaching my elbow.  I spent three days in the hospital on IV antibiotics.  My right hand was useless, and for some reason the nurse in the ER put my IV in the bend of my left arm, so that side wasn’t much use either.  I couldn’t write, couldn’t type, and eating was a chore.  I watched a few bad movies and 6 consecutive episodes of Law and Order Special Victims Unit. 

I did get better and by the next week, I was back at work.  On Saturday, enter the tortoise.  My hand was 90% better.  It was still stiff and tender, and I was guarding it.  But I saw this reptile, a gopher tortoise, to be exact, trying to escape my back yard.   He was wedged against the fence. Who knows how he got in.  I ran out and carried him through the gate and watched the tall grass shudder in his path as he lumbered across the field.  On the way back into the house, I stopped to pull some weeds among the lantana.  Big mistake.  Searing pain.  I couldn’t see my attacker—probably a yellow jacket, maybe a bee.  Within an hour my hand was once again a throbbing orb and the itching and swelling extended above my elbow.   My sympathetic cat tried to lick it and make it better.

The hand is 99% normal today.  My husband, who was out of the country, has returned home.  I am back at work, able to perform surgery.  Still, I am apprehensive.

There is an old medical superstition that bad things come in three’s.  You see two stab wounds in the ER and you know it’s just a matter of time before someone comes in with a gushing jugular.  I feel like Sleeping Beauty on her 16^th birthday, dreading an encounter with a spindle.  I have decided that if I see any animals in distress, they can just do without my help.  Even if a bird flies into the window, or a baby squirrel fall out of the tree.  But what if the neighbor’s pig escapes again?

A letter to my Father

May 17, 2018

Dear Dad,

I had a nice trip up to Baltimore for Susie’s retirement party.  As you will recall, retirement is a bittersweet process, unplugging from a career that provided purpose and friendships.  I was so proud of my little sister.  People said so many wonderful things about her.  They didn’t just talk about what a good job she had done or how effective she had been as a leader.  They appreciated her subtle, dry humor and her patience and fairness.  Some recounted stories of how she had made them feel welcome when they were new to the job and to the city.  She had encouraged many through tough times, and regularly celebrated accomplishments.  One person said that she was the kindest person he had ever known.  Susie, in her typical self-deprecating manner, said to me, “It’s amazing how easy it is to be perceived as kind.”  She is so like you.

We spent the next two days at her house, sorting, tossing, packing, getting her house ready to put on the market.  She will be moving back to Texas.  Of course, our family home was sold several years ago.  Still, she is still going home.  It has been said that “Home is that place where, when you go, they have to let you in.”  But a place is not necessarily a specific a building.  Home is family–people who love you. 

I helped her install a new tile floor in the bathroom--something you would have done, if you had been here.  I found a box of photos that you took 20 years ago, when you helped her to move into this house.  And in another box, I found a letter that I wrote to you in 1979.  Back in those days, before email, before texting, when we actually hand wrote letters.  I will never forget that you wrote a letter to me every day during my first year in college.  This particular letter had to do with Aunt Frances.  She had recently been discharged from the hospital after a prolonged illness.   The nature of the illness wasn’t stated in the letter, but I recall that she fell and broke her arm.  In the hospital, she had a seizure, and it became evident that she was in withdrawal.  For years, she had taken a “stomach medicine” that contained phenobarbital, and she was addicted to it.  We joked about how this sweet little old lady with matching purse and shoes was a junkie.  Frances was very sick, nearly died.  She was never what I would call a pleasant person, and the withdrawal made her much worse.  She said some very hateful things to Mom.   But she was your sister, and you loved her and took care of her.

The old letter that I found was apparently intended as an apology for seeming unsympathetic to Frances.  I said that I was glad that Frances’ ordeal was over.   I said that I had been more worried about you than Frances—that it was such a strain on you. You always know what to say to make people feel better, to help them see the answers to problems.  I said that it was a rare talent, something that I wished I had.  I went on, at some length, to tell you what a wonderful person you are. 

I said that I was sorry that the letter was not more cheery.  But it must have touched your soul, because you kept it, all those years. 

You used to have this saying, “A successful family is a self-destructive unit.”  You meant that in reference to a nuclear family—that children grow up and build home of their own.  But in a larger sense, a successful family is bound together by the kind of love that endures. 

I can’t mail this letter to you.  The postal service does not make deliveries to heaven.  But I can feel you reading over my shoulder.  Give Mom a hug for me.

Love always,

Gayle