“Well, I’m out of sorts today, which is too bad, since my
preferred, and in fact default, position is to be in sorts. But I’m not;
the sorts clearly have chosen not to sort themselves out—and can I be
responsible for that?”
I said it to Lady, who wasn’t there but was, since now the
coffee shop is in the capable hands of Amir, scion of the patriarch Santana.
He’s the guy who gave me free papaya smoothies for a couple of weeks: free
because the smoothies were medicine, and not drink. Anyway, I can complain to
Lady since she is not there, though she always was even when she wasn’t, but
can I complain to the man who cured my back? Of course not….
For it seems that I may be cured. That at least is what the
neurosurgeon told me: and why can’t he be sure? Well, I was supposed to have
gotten follow-up in the same distant hospital I was treated in. I, of course,
decided (on the basis of what the discharging doctor had told me) to see a
neurosurgeon closer to home. I mean, how hard could it be?
Well, not having the imagings (and I so agree, computer,
that that shouldn’t be a word!) that the other doctor had, the new doctor can’t
be entirely sure. But he’s 95% sure, which is good enough for me.
“So that should be great news,” said Lady, whose sorts have
clearly been sorted out. “So what’s the problem?”
Do I have to make everything difficult? Can’t the divinities
throw me a bone without my sniffing suspiciously at it? Again, of course not….
“The problem first of all is that we do illness very well.
Illness we all get. Go to bed, take your medicines, see the doctor, let time
and diet and prayer work. But recuperation is another story….”
Which in fact it was, since I came home from the hospital
and faced a series of challenges. The first was that my in-laws were in crisis,
and it was entirely normal. My father-in-law was facing a disease for which
there is no cure, and would need, at some point, more care than a very frail
wife could give. And yet they had been together for over sixty years—how does
one give that up? And so decisions were made, then unmade, then remade—and the
times were not easy for anyone. Except, of course, for the required Yuletide merriment,
which I blessedly skipped.
In addition, a week after I had been released from the
hospital, we got the news that Montalvo, our young son, had himself fallen and
dislocated the left hip and fractured it as well. All this while running…
…at the beach!
“How in the world can he do that damage by falling at the
beach,” said Lady, who was in fact there in all senses, when Mr. Fernández
snapped into the café. He was holding my cell phone, and demanding, “what is
this for!!”
Forgivable, and understandable, since all the attention goes
to the invalid, but what of the man who sits at the gurney-side, copes with the
house and the meals and all the things that I could no longer do? So I had
escaped bed rest after only a week—forgoing the 11 other weeks I had been
prescribed—and was drinking coffee cellphone-less at the café.
So Montalvo’s birthday present—as well as Christmas
present—was an 160$ ride by ambulance to…
….Centro Médico!
Yes, Raf was there again, in the same dreary hallway, and
the patient? Well, a bit less stoic than I had been, since when I called
Montalvo to tell him Raf on the way, all I could hear was yowling.
So Raf had a husband on bed rest with a broken back, and a
son awaiting surgery in a place not known for rapid action. In fact, it would
be over a week before Montalvo got operated, and who would be there for him?
Someone had to call his mother, and guess who did that? Right—not me, but Raf.
Oh, and then, and even more difficultly, Taí, our sister home for the holidays.
It doesn’t seem right to replay the scene as it unfolded,
because in the end, Montalvo’s mother came through. But here is what didn’t
get said:
I totally understand that you are
the messenger, and I absolutely comprehend your concern that someone be there
for him. And despite the fact that NOT ONE of my children has given me a
fraction of the trouble this kid….
Taí handled the situation brilliantly, and, as I say, all
worked out well. And so, I called Montalvo every day for a week, and both of us
gave numerical rankings of our level of pain. And he, damn him, was getting
Percocet, while I was struggling along with a placebo called Tramadol.
The weeks dragged on; the nerves frayed. And then, one day
Raf snapped, and I snapped, and I—once again!—completely lost control. I was
tired of being in pain, and tired to the bone of being in suspense; I was
raging and sobbing and alone, so whom to call? Lady!
Here’s the thing about being sick: your world has completely
changed, but other people? Their world has not, and so, when Lady told me,
“Marc, I can’t talk right now—I’ve got somebody right in front of me,” that
made perfect sense. And did I say, “crisis, Lady, I’m having a meltdown!”
No, because I was and I wasn’t. Also another thing about
being sick: when your femur is sticking out and wagging off the sand…well,
that’s an emergency. That’s “stop everything and talk to me.” But was it an
emergency? The fact that I was terrified of children on bikes and fat ladies
with cell phones and of cats? And that I was tired of being terrified?
Blessedly, the Gods sent Taí, but not before I had called my
eldest brother, Eric. Why he, and not John, whom I tend to call more often?
Because Eric is retired: it was a Monday, John would be working. And so Eric
got the meltdown, and very well he took it. Yes, he turfed the call, but I
would have too….
“I’d call your psychiatrist,” Eric said. “You may need to
jump up your antidepressants….”
I agreed, knowing perfectly well that I wouldn’t. Because I
wasn’t depressed, or at least, any more depressed than the situation
legitimately led me to be. No—I was simply venting all of the frustration and
the anxiety. And so Taí made me slow my breathing down, and we went off to the
café, and the storm was over.
In fact, it was the last meltdown. All would, apparently, be
well. The only question now is….
…why am I out of sorts? And when will I get back into them?
