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Mom in front of the Poplar trees on Ada Street

I was sitting in my living room last evening waiting for Mark's supplies to be delivered. Mark is supposed to be discharged today, so a whole bunch of things will be needed for support. Anyway, I was sitting there looking out the large living room windows as the sun dipped behind the bungalows across the street. The end of the day, it kind of made me sad. The sun setting reminded me of my grandparent's house on South Ada Street when I was a kid. I spent many overnights at my grandparent's house. When morning came I would get up and look out their living room windows that faced east. I still remember the rising sun rippling through leaves of the Lombardy Poplar trees that Grandma had planted. Three or four of them in the parkway between the sidewalk and the street. She had planted those a long time ago because I see photos of the street from my mom's albums. Photos taken in the 1940s and late 1930s, and the trees were there. It always made me feel good. The towering trees and the sun of a new day, like something good was going to happen.

I got up this morning and took the dogs out to the back yard. Time to do their poopies and what not. Maybe Chandler will eat some raspberries off the bush, Scout will bark at the big German Sheppard across the alley. The sun was rising behind the big trees on the next block. A new day and something good is going to happen. Mark is coming home.

The Fecal Regatta (2020 rewrite)

I was thinking about my childhood yesterday and I remembered something I call 'The Fecal Regatta’. It was a boat race that was held in the creek that ran through Tinley Park. No, not like big boats. My older brother, Dave and his friends would build small toy boats out of two by fours and other wood scraps, then launch them in the creek near the middle of town. There would be two man teams, each with their own little boat. I was on my brothers team and my duty was to run ahead and make sure the boat kept flowing freely with the current. Sometimes this involved stepping into the creek and nudging the boat free from what it had been snagged on.

Back in the nineteen fifties, our home town of Tinley Park had no sewage treatment facilities, no separate sewer line for storm runoff and no separate sewer line for household sewage. Every time you flushed a toilet, your turds went directly to the creek that flowed through town. Directly to the creek that we played in. Those ‘snags’ our toy boats got caught on sometimes were not fallen branches, but turd that had left the Parkside subdivision just the day before. They gave the town creek a certain aroma that I remember to this day. Besides those crap clogs, there was also an occasional white ‘balloon’ floating along with our boats. I always wondered what kids party those 'balloons' had come from and how come I hadn't been invited to that party.

Mark Update

It's been two weeks since they took Mark away in an ambulance, and I haven't seen him since. The hospital and the nursing home where he's getting physical therapy are locked down tight. No visitors. I am able to bring him lunch every day. I put on my mask, walk into the place and leave Mark's bag of food with the front desk. Sometimes they even bring it up to him before it gets cold.

It's weird here at the house. The dogs are sticking to me like Velcro. On the day Mark went to the hospital I put them in the back yard. When I let them back in, Mark was gone. They probably think that if they let me out of their sight, I'll disappear too. I thought it would be nice to have the house to myself for awhile, but I'm not really alone. I'll be in the house, it will be quiet, and then I'm sure I hear Mark's voice. 
"Alan, I need a bowl of ice cream."
"Alan, bring me some of those gummy candy things."
"Alan, where's my dinner?" 
But it's just my imagination. Very weird. Sometimes I even think I see him out of the corner of my eye, coming into the living room with that clunky aluminum walker. It all makes me just a little jumpy. I guess I miss the guy. Today I'm going to try and do that facetime thing with him on the phone. I know how it works, I'm not sure Mark will figure it out. According to what I was told, Mark is only supposed to be in the nursing home until the end of this week. As long as they can get him walking again, that would be nice. Then all those apparitions will be replaced by the real thing and I'll have a reason to be jumpy.

Mark Goes For a Ride With Some Firemen

There's a subject I don't talk about too much on my blog. Mark's health. Mark is a lot more seriously ill than I let on. In the last month or so he has been losing his ability to walk. So I prepare and serve him all his meals in bed. I empty the pee bottle that he uses, wash it out, and return it to him. (Mark pees a lot.) Much of my day is taken up with schlepping things for Mark, boxes of tissue, beverages, snacks. As a man of low energy, I usually don't have any left for myself after all that. As of last Tuesday, when Mark informed me that he would have to be using a bed pan because my dragging him into the bathroom wasn't going to do anymore, I knew I needed to do something. I wasn't going to deal with pooping into a bed pan. So on Wednesday I called for an ambulance to come and take him to the hospital. We needed to find out why he was no longer able to stand or walk. According to the doctors, it's a mystery. They couldn't really tell me anything new. On Saturday Mark was moved to a nursing home for two weeks of physical therapy. Damn, I hope they can get him up and moving again. For the health of both of us. Now deep down I did cheer a little. I know, I'm horrible, but I looked upon these two weeks as a vacation for me. That was until the phone started ringing. It turns out that Mark hates the place he's scheduled to stay in for two weeks. They don't jump to his every command like I do. I've spoiled the man. Every thirty minutes the phone rings and it's Mark complaining that they haven't fed him. They haven't given him his meds. They haven't given him his oxygen. That last one freaked me out. So I called the main number like I had earlier in the day. This time nobody answered the phone, so I immediately drove over there to find out why they weren't providing oxygen. The nurse who came down to talk to me, assured me that Mark had oxygen. Mark had his meds. Mark had food. I called Mark back and he agreed, they had provided all that and that now he was tired, and he hung up.  So far it's been a hell of a vacation.

Installing the Tushy

Best that the photo is blurred. It's not a pretty sight.

So Mark has been whining since last Friday for me to install his new butt washer. I told him not to order that bidet, and when he ordered it I told him I wouldn't install it, and when it came I told him it couldn't be done. Yesterday he had whined enough that I gave in and tried to install his new ass splasher. What could go wrong? I'm old, I'm fat, and I have arthritis. I'm the perfect handyman. I pulled the bidet out of the box and read the instructions. Hmmm..... 'Turn off the water to the toilet'. I looked, and there was no handle on the valve to the toilet. So I had to go down to the basement and turn off the water there. Back upstairs I disconnected the supply to the toilet and connected the little valve that came with the bidet. Then I connected the hose that came with the bidet, and finally connected the bidet to the hose. I then went downstairs and turned the water back on. By the time I got upstairs a sizeable puddle had formed around the toilet. I cursed a bit, and ran back down to the basement and turned off the water. After reconnecting everything and double checking, I went downstairs and turned the water back on. This time when I got upstairs there was a fountain spewing water against the bathroom wall. I ran back downstairs. After a few more runs up and down the stairs, all the leaks were gone. So before I put the bidet on the toilet, I took it for a test run. I turned the little knob and water squirted out. Squirted right out onto the crotch of my pants leaving a large wet spot. I cursed. While my pants spun around in the dryer, in my underpants I attempted to install the new bidet permanently. Following the instructions, I laid down the rubber gaskets, adjusted the holes to fit the toilet, and dropped the toilet seat bolts through all of that. Now I had a toilet seat sitting on top of the bidet, sitting at an angle to the front. In other words, chances are Mark might slip off the toilet if I leave it like that. Worse yet, the bolts are not long enough. I cannot secure the toilet seat and the bidet to the toilet. I cursed. I cursed Mark, I cursed Tushy, and I cursed Amazon.com for selling it to Mark. Today I will go over to the hardware store and get longer bolts. I will install Mark's bidet. The toilet seat will slant towards the front of the toilet and at some point Mark will slide off of it. I will laugh.

Twelve Years Ago

 

I don't know where this hospital room is, but Mark has never been there.

Monday, March 3, 2008

No Mark, the Nurse is not a waitress

On a list of my favorite things, visiting someone in the hospital is near the bottom. Lets face it, you aren't going there to have a glass of wine and spend quality time with a good friend. You visit someone in the hospital just to show that you care enough to be around them when they are at their worst. To me a hospital is a germ filled hell hole.

On Thursday, the doctor put Mark back in the hospital. It turns out that he was released too soon the last time, and has only got worse over the last week. It also turns out that he doesn't have pneumonia, and at this point after x-rays, cat scans, and heart tests, the doctors have no idea why he can't breathe. I am sure it is a horrible experience for Mark, but what about me? Sure, Mark being in the hospital means I can sleep through an entire night without being woke up by his hacking cough, that's a plus. The problem is that he calls on the phone at least ten times a day. The first call comes at nine in the morning, with the question of when am I coming to see him. Then in a flurry of calls during the next two hours, I get a list, a long list, of things that I need to bring him. Magazines, newspapers, socks, underwear, food, DVD's, are all on the request list. After assembling everything, I then have to schlep all this crap up to Mark's hospital room.

A patients room is not built for comfort, for either the patient or the visitor. In the middle of the room is the patient, on display like the turkey on a Thanksgiving table. Around him are the machines and tubes pumping him full of mysterious fluids. In one corner of the room is a chair, the visitors chair. A cheap, uncomfortable chair, manufactured specifically for use in a hospital, probably by the same company that makes electric chairs for the prison system. This is the chair that I will have to sit in for a couple of hours and make small talk with a man who is constantly hacking up phlegm balls and spitting them into a bucket. I actually look forward to Mark’s trips to the bathroom. It’s a break in the routine, even if it requires moving Mark and all his tubes, machines, and IV’s en masse into the bathroom and then back. There is a television in the room, yet it offers no relief from the tedium of a hospital visit, because Mark has the remote, and besides, the tiny speaker is on the bed next to Mark. I know it sounds like I’m a real prick, but I put on a good face for Mark. He has no idea how much I hate the visit.

I wonder if hospitals make visiting a patient difficult on purpose? I mean if they wanted to encourage it, wouldn’t they put in a recliner chair, a big screen television, and surround sound? Oh, yeah, and serve liquo

The Perfect Poop Post

Mark orders all kinds of crazy gadgets from QVC and Amazon. I often take the unopened box when it arrives and walk it through the house, then deposit it out on our enclosed back porch. I figure they're closer to the trash when Mark forgets that he ordered them. Yesterday was different because Mark had to sign for the package. A rare Fedex delivery. Amazon Prime, UPS, and the Post Office all know to just leave the package inside the door. Not Fedex, they have rules. Anyway, years ago when Mark and I went to Italy, our hotel room had a bidet. Basically a toilet that looks like a drinking fountain that you clean your ass with. I of course, had to try it. I didn't like it. Cold water spraying at my bunghole leaving a dripping mess. But, it seems that Mark really liked it because he recently ordered up his own bidet. That's what Fedex had delivered, a bidet that attaches to the toilet you already have. I pulled the box out of the Fedex packaging and was a bit surprised at what I found. In big letters, "TUSHY". And then below that and all over the rest of the box were nasty little blurbs about poop and poop related puns. I liked it. I might not get around to installing Mark's new bidet on our toilet. But I will keep that box.

The Reviews are in !