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Impatient with the patient

 

I’m a compassionate woman. Really. Despite my sarcasm and constant complaining, I am quite compassionate. I’m serious.

 

Apparently, my compassion has its limits. Please don’t judge too harshly.

 

Two days ago, a blizzard swept through this part of Minnesota. We received only a few inches of snow, but more importantly, the wind was whipping at about 35 mph, and the temperatures dropped to dangerous levels. Dangerous. Here in the Midwest, however, we don’t gauge winter weather by the temperature or the wind. We judge winter weather by a combination of the two, which is known as the Wind Chill Factor. It is how we make sure the rest of the country knows that we are Hardy Midwesterners. The Wind Chill Factor during this blizzard was approximately 45 degrees — below zero. This means, say our illustrious weathermen, that frostbite will set in within 10 minutes.

 

Say it with me now: Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

 

The rural school students had an unexpected two-day vacation, and life as we know it ground to a halt. It was quite cozy around here.

 

Until our ambulance pagers went off.

 

We were asked to respond to a house right here in TinyTown for a "woman with a broken leg."

 

Now, initial pages are doubtable, at best. Dispatchers receive frantic phone calls (sometimes multiple calls) from people at the scene of an emergency. Usually, the callers are not emergency responders themselves, and so are understandably excited. The dispatcher must figure out the details, then relay them to us. We remain forever hopeful that the facts will be semi-clear and accurate. They rarely are.

 

We’ve responded to reports of "unresponsive man. CPR in progress," and upon reaching the scene, found a man who’d had a seizure, but was upright and conscious. No one had performed CPR.

 

We’ve responded to car accidents "with multiple injuries," and upon reaching the scene, found a minor fender-bender — no injuries. Except the fenders.

 

We’ve responded to 233 WEST Main Street, and upon reaching the scene, found that the emergency was actually at 233 EAST Main Street.

 

So. Unless the bone is actually sticking out of the leg — or the woman is somehow inexplicably equipped with X-ray vision, I’ll treat her according to protocol, but I’ll believe the "broken leg" when I see her crutching around town in a wildly-autographed cast.

 

Did I mention the blizzard? I did? Good, because that will come into play. On many levels, beginning with:

 

Blizzard = giant snow drifts. Specifically, the thigh-high one in front of the door to our house, which was responsible for the snow up my pant-leg and down my boots. Also specifically, the one in front of our garage door, necessitating that I back up at approximately 30 mph in order to bust through it. And also specifically, the ones blocking the road in front of our house.

 

Blizzard = cars getting stuck in the snow. Specifically, my car, in one of the giant snow drifts. Also specifically, the ambulance, in another of the giant snow drifts, which leads to…

 

Blizzard = someone pushing stuck cars out of the snow. Specifically, Husband and me, pushing my now-driverless van from a drift in order to get to the ambulance shed. Also specifically, three of us pushing a 97 million-ton ambulance out of another of those giant snow drifts in order to get to the injured woman.

 

Blizzard = icy conditions. Specifically, icy sidewalks, driveways, and roads, which lead to slip-and-fall injuries.

 

This is what had happened to our patient, a 36-year-old nurse with two sons, ages 11 and 9, and a live-in boyfriend. We arrived to find her sitting on the sidewalk outside her back door, screaming and crying. "Crying" is a relative term here; the entire time we were around her, she was carrying on and making crying noises: "Waaah, waaah-haaah, oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, it hurts so bad, waaah, waaah!" yet nary a tear was shed. It became just one of the many reasons my compassion made itself scarce.

 

Another reason was her refusal to let us do anything. This was a 911 call, remember? She called us. And remember:

 

Blizzard = dangerous wind chills. Specifically — and especially – when the patient is outside on the sidewalk, screaming and refusing to allow us to drag her sorry ass inside, which was approximately 18 inches away.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I understood that her leg hurt, or, in this case, "Jesus Christ! My fucking leg! Oh, you fucking guys! My leg! STOP TOUCHING ME!! AAARHHH! STOP FUCKING TOUCHING ME!"

 

But really? We were going to have bigger fish to fry, not the least of which was the frostbite — and sanity — of her responders, if we couldn’t get her inside.

 

I’ll skip the next several minutes of her screaming and carrying on, during which it was determined that NO! we could not see her leg; NO! we could not just get her inside; NO! we could not get her on a backboard; NO! we could not put a blanket on her because "MY LEG! MY LEG!"; and "NO! STOP TALKING TO ME!"

 

Suffice it to say that Husband — who, if he were a Superhero, would be IntenseMan With Authoritative Voice — and the rest of us got her on a backboard and into the back of the ambulance before our appendages starting snapping off like so many twigs.

 

Once inside, my compassion made its final exit when she ordered her 9-year-old son to "hurry up and get my phone, I said! Jesus Christ! My leg is broken!"

 

Thereafter followed this conversation:

 

"DIANE! DIANE! TELL THE GIRLS I WON’T BE AT WORK TODAY! WAAAH!" At this point, Diane was obviously unable to understand the screaming, "crying" voice of her co-worker, because here was the rest of the call:

 

"DIANE! TELL THEM!!  NO!! THIS IS SCREAMY McCRYERSON!! [name changed to protect the innocent/me] WAAAH!! I BROKE MY LEG!! TELL EVERYBODY!! WAAAH! NO! THIS IS SCREAM-MEE! YES! THIS IS SCREAM-MEE! I BROKE MY LEG! TELL EVERYBODY I WON’T BE IN TODAY…"

 

And on and freaking on. Never a reassuring word to her sons, who were rarely far from her side. (Although now that I think about it, maybe the boys have seen the histrionics before. They were quite calm.)

 

Again, I’m compassionate. I know what it’s like to hurt. I have, in fact, even broken my leg. Twice. The first time I fell, I laid at the bottom of a flight of steps for nearly two hours before someone came home and found me. I was 14. I cried, but nothing like the carrying-on this woman did.

 

In fact, last winter we treated a 5-year-old with a broken leg. A broken femur. A compound break in the femur. It was ugly and hurty-looking as could be. But that little guy just cried quietly while we splinted up his leg, then gulped and thanked us for the stuffed animal we’d given him to hang on to.

 

In addition, there was no blizzard at the time.

 

Compassion. I have it, in spades, unless you’re a screaming, "crying" over-reacting adult.

 

Then, I just have a warning:

 

Blizzard = shovels. Specifically, shovels that may be applied to the side of the head. For medicinal purposes only, of course.

 

Tread lightly.

 

I think this is what crazy feels like.

 

Have you ever cried so hard for so long that your eyes hurt, your face hurts, your mouth is dry, and your brain refuses to process anything more complicated than allowing your body to curl up in a ball and moan?

 

Good. I’d hate to have to explain it to you in all of its gory detail.

 

My beautiful, brown, gentle #2 Son is in jail.

 

The very foreign-ness of that statement is incredible to me. It is, literally, akin to me saying something like "I have four daughters," or "Christmas is in July." It is wrong. It is what happens to somebody else. Yet, as my wise 14-year-old said, "We’re all ‘somebody else’ to other people, Mom. Right?"

 

I had to accept Gabe’s wandering lifestyle, the fact that he was content not to have a guaranteed place to lay his head every night, or wash his face every day, or even eat at least one meal a day. If he was OK with it, then who was I to tell him otherwise?

 

I had to be OK with hearing second- and third-hand about sightings of him: I was grateful, really, that I didn’t have to assume the worst had happened. Who was I to tell him that his apparent carefree lifestyle which included absolutely no responsibility was bound to end badly?

 

And the fact that he was back in Minnesota — back, even, in the County of the Mildly Mentally Retarded — yet still didn’t come see me was troublesome, but who was I to tell him to just come home, start over?

 

I’m no fool, you see. I know that people do not live — survive, even — without money. Not in freezing Minnesota in January, not when there is no visible means of any sort of income. I know that, but who was I to tell him he was headed for big trouble?

 

I’m no one, really. Except his mom.

 

Here is the headline that will tell you all you need to know: Six men charged with passing forged checks

 

The story that follows names my son no fewer than four times, from his charges of felony check forgery and aiding an offender; to the fact that he is address unknown; to the "anonymous tip that led investigators to the home where" he was; to his next court date.

 

The neatest thing about this is the fact that the stolen, forged checks came from his friend’s grandmother. The "friend" stole a book of checks from his grandmother’s house, and the rest of the thugs participated in the forging and cashing. The cashing part was #2 Son’s involvement. The total amount as of Jan. 10 was $2,525.68.

 

His father, I am told, plans to bail him out. I wish he wouldn’t, but I am nothing in this paradigm.

 

There are many, many bad — shameful — things about this story so far, and I don’t think I need to point any of them out. He has not contacted me, nor will he. If he knows nothing else in this world, he knows that I will not enable bad — let alone illegal – behavior. He will not contact me until he has found some sort of resolution to this, because I will not resolve it for him. Ever.

 

Please know this, because I know that Gabe does: I love him. Even more, I tough love him. I will never stop loving him. And I will never stop hating the things that he has done. I am ashamed of him, and ashamed that at no time in this whole ugly chain of events did he stop and say, "No. Not only no, but HELL, NO! I will not be a part of this ugliness. It is shameful."

 

I love him. And I hate that his youngest brother told me, about the brother he once wanted so very much to please, "He’s like a stranger now. Like he’s somebody else’s brother. It’s surreal to me."

 

I love Gabe. And I know that he will not be 18 forever. And I believe that he has the foundation to be a good man someday.

 

Someday, though, seems like a very long time away.

 

Today, I feel like no one. Except, maybe, a mother. And not a very good one, at that.

 

 

I’ve resorted to transcribing phone calls for your reading enjoyment.

 

Well, not phone calls, exactly. Text messaging. It used to make me crazy(er) to watch my sons’ fingers flying over the keypads of their cell phones.

 

"It’s a cell phone," I would remind them in my mommest voice. "You talk on phones. If you want to write someone, get some paper and a pencil!"

 

Then — as the young people are saying these days — I got hip. I got groovy. I got with it.

 

I began to text. Now I text like a maniac. There’s something semi-addicting about it. I love it.

 

But, like any good mom, I cannot bring myself to throw away (delete? whatever. it’s all the same, just different technology) some of the most entertaining ones. Much like the little glitter-and-macaroni-decorated Christmas ornaments I have collected over the years, these are sweet. Or sarcastic and funny, which is just a different kind of "sweet" in our family.

 

Here are some of my favorites:

 

#1 Son: How’s this for some irony: In my evolution lab of 25 people, there’s a midget. (not politically correct, I know, but he meant no harm)

 

Me: If it were real irony, there would be a monkey in your lab.

 

#1 Son: Touche.

 

---

 

#1 Son: I’m such a fag i just got chills when the captain sang the sound of music with his kids. (I’ve already covered his woeful misuse of punctuation and capitalization in a previous post. And his political incorrectness in the above example.)

 

Me: Wow. Merry Christmas to you, too.

 

---

 

#4 Son, upon expecting my arrival at a rural location: Please tell when approaching. If you would be a dear.

 

Me: Look outside, Knucklehead. I’m in the driveway.

 

#4 Son: So, I gather you’re here?

 

---

 

Me: So, do your turkey friends like thunderstorms? Or do they get scared? (posed to #1 Son during his employment at a local turkey farm)

 

#1 Son: They like the rain, but they like the heat more.

 

Me: Doesn’t the thunder scare them? Do they have ears? (always a quest for education. always.)

 

#1 Son: Not ears, exactly. More like holes.

 

Me: So, could you plug them if you wanted? Stick your fingers in them?

 

#1 Son: You’re gay. Now no more questions until my work is done. (political incorrectness AND impatience. shameful.)

 

---

 

Me: Guess what’s in my house right now?!?

 

#2 Son: I give up. (not even a guess; how rude!)

 

Me: Guess!

 

#2 Son: I have no time to guess i’m working you nutcase. (again with the poor grammar and impatience!)

 

Me: A tiny baby! He’s staying all weekend!

 

#2 Son: What child is this who laid to rest in TinyTown is sleeping? (he’s clever, isn’t he?)

 

Me: Alex! (a friend’s baby. I tell you, people just hand their kids over to me! It’s nuts.) You should come hold him!

 

#2 Son: I just told you i’m working.

 

Me: You’re mean to babies!

 

#2 Son: Nutcase.

 

---

 

#4 Son (after wrestling certification the first day of the season): Weighing in at 124 pounds, with a height of 5 feet seven inches, reaching up to 7 feet 3 inches! Jaaaaaaaack Fate!

 

Me: Sooooooo big!

 

#4 Son: {stretches arms up over head}

 

Me: That’s why you’re my favorite. You do marvelous things like that!

 

---

 

#3 Son (after walking to the bus stop): Dead crow on road. You should go see it. (our freak-show family is intrigued by dead animals. we often stop to look at them. and occasionally, poke them with a stick. is that weird? never mind. it is.)

 

Me: Where? Any apparent COD?

 

#3 Son: Corner of second and elm. What’s COD?

 

Me: Cause of death. Rookie.

 

#3 Son: Oh. I don’t know. It isn’t flat, though.

 

Me: Sweet.

 

---

 

#3 Son: My back is fricking killing me!

 

Me: Why? What’d you do to it? (medical-diagnoses-r-mom)

 

#3 Son: I don’t know. It just hurts.

 

Me: You should go sit in the hot tub. (medical-treatments-r-mom, too)

 

#3 Son: It’s called a spa, you peasant.

 

Me: I hope your legs fall off tomorrow.

 

---

 

And some of my favorite one-liners:

 

#3 Son: Ah, ist es ein mini-giraffe? (guessing the identity of his Albuquerque Zoo souvenir. he was right)

 

#4 Son: You should see my mighty mouse drawing. It’s beautiful. (it was)

 

#4 Son: From now on, I’d like to be referred to as The Honorable Sir Doctor General Jackson Haines Fate Esquire the Great.

 

---

 

Who have YOU been talking to lately?

 

 

I used to be smart — I swear.

 

After the last few weeks (and in the interest of honesty in my writing and safety for my readers) I have decided to publish a short yet relatively thorough list of Embarrassing/Stupid Things I Have Recently Done That You Should Not — Under Any Circumstances — Do.

 

1. Drive away from the gas pump with the fully-operating nozzle still in the gas tank of your vehicle, even if you believe that your significant other has already returned the nozzle to its rightful home on the side of the pump, and you believe he is chatting with people inside the convenience store just to annoy you because he knows you’re in a hurry because your Emergency Responder pager is going off. Displaying your impatience with said situation is bound to end badly, mainly because this is TinyTown, and you will not even drive the three blocks to your home before everyone in the tri-state area has heard about it.

 

1a. Waste $3-a-gallon gas by fueling concrete, which does not require gas to do anything except burst into flames, which, fortunately, did not happen in this particular instance.

 

2. Shut the front door on your trailing shoelace while hurrying to your car to hurry to the ambulance shed to respond to a medical emergency. Again. It is no less humiliating — and results in a much more painful injury — than the first time it happened. Also, listening to someone repeat the story to everyone he sees ("I don’t know how, but she manages to slam the door before her shoelace clears the threshhold!") just never gets old. And the large, deep leg-lump and multi-colored bruise on your calf will keep you up at night, cursing your amazing door-slamming speed.

 

3. Break out your rusty, college-days Spanish to help mediate an alcohol-fueled family dispute to which you were invited solely via your association with the ambulance service. This is never a good idea, because you will inevitably say such things as "Your kitchen is raining!" or "Why is your cat sad?" You may also, while questioning the patient in your rusty, college-days Spanish, ask her questions like, "Esther! What is your name, Esther?" At which, to your credit, she will smile, gently tolerating your idiotic abuse of her native tongue. Also, listening to someone repeat the story to everyone he sees (as in, "Then your mother tried to get us all killed with her finely-honed mastery of the Spanish language…") just never gets old.

 

4. Use only the backs of your fingers in an attempt to scrub clean your fancy — and therefore, very sharp – cheese grater. This might happen as a result of the dishcloth slipping out of your hands at a most inopportune moment, or because you were doing the dishes while angry at your significant other, or a disastrous combination of the two. It will leave eight of the knuckles on your right hand bloody, then scabby, then strangely scarred, the whole while rendering them most unbendy. This results in a whole different set of problems, not the least of which is the inability to properly hold a curling iron, which may or may not be a really important thing in your life.

 

I have more, unfortunately, but a quick review of the list thus far makes me mad and sad and embarrassed, all at the same time.

 

If you learn from this, however, it will all have been worth it. Be careful out there.

 

It’s the thought that counts.

 

We had a pretty quiet Christmas this year. As usual, we made gifts for Husband’s side of the family, then handed out some of the leftovers to other friends. Sons 3 and 4 received new cell phones, socks and underpants, and their annual shopping trip.

 

But the strangest thing to appear under our tree this year was a really heavy box from Husband’s aunt and uncle, who live in California. It arrived via the U.S. Postal Service, second class.

 

I wish that I had the energy to download a picture of the contents of the box, because it would be so much more…funny? ridiculous?…than just telling you.

 

Whatever. Here’s what the box contained:

 

Six 28-ounce cans of fruit. Two cans of cherries, two cans of peaches, and one can each of pears and apricots. Wha’?!? What the hell?!?

 

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not ungrateful for the gift. It’s more that I am…confused? troubled?…by it.

 

The fruit? Great! Delicious!

 

Mailing it? Um, questionable, I guess. Because, you see, the postal service doesn’t just give away its service of post. It makes you pay.

 

And to mail six 28-ounce cans of fruit, it makes you pay dearly.

 

So, to recap:

 

Six 28-ounce cans of fruit: $25

 

Mailing six 28-ounce cans of fruit: $37.50

 

The looks on the faces of your cheapskate relatives in Minnesota when they open the box: priceless

 

And just so you know? Yes, yes, I do know that I’m going straight to hell.

 

Happy new year!

Three weeks have passed, and this is the best I can do…

 

 

I tell you, I try and I try to be semi-normal, and it just never seems to work out. Case in point:

 

Cell phones. Specifically, cell phones that allow me to take photos AND send text-messages. In other words: my own cell phone.

 

A couple of weeks ago, while I was watching my outstandingly beautiful and intelligent goddaughter Silly-Lily-Billy-Goat, I was fascinated by the details of a high-speed chase that were being delivered to me via a police scanner in her mama’s kitchen. It was most exciting, what with speeds of 110 mph, wild lane-changes, talk of stop-sticks, and — holy crap! — it was all heading down the highway toward TinyTown!!

 

Immediately, I parked my ass on the sofa and began my mass-text to those I knew would share my excitement: Husband and Sons 3 and 4. Belatedly, I added #1 Son.

 

I gave them the essentials: high-speed chase down Hwy. 14, 110 mph, coming toward town, then the stop sticks, which resulted in the car losing a tire and an eventual surrender.

 

Here were the responses from the recipients, word-for-word:

 

Husband: No! Are you alright? I’m on my way.

 

#3: Oh.

 

#4: Quit bugging me in school!

 

Following is the exchange I had with #1 Son, word-for-word:

 

He: What are you talking about?

 

Me: There was a high-speed chase down Hwy 14, at speeds of 110 mph. The cops blew his tire off w/ stopsticks. Were the words too big for you, or what? (Impatient, because he’s NOT APPRECIATING THE EXCITEMENT.)

 

He: Well what the hell you told me 110 and then that he lost his tire. You watch enough courttv i figured you were excited about that (Note his inappropriate use of punctuation and capitalization. Shameful.)

 

Me: No, first I said ‘high-speed chase on Hwy. 14 East.’ THEN the rest. And you KNOW I lost my beloved Court TV, so thanks for opening THAT old wound. (Bastards at Dish TV!)

 

He: You never said that you sent me a picture you crackhead (The respect simply oozes from him.)

 

Me: (???)

 

Me: She’s cute, though, isn’t she? (Playing the Lily card [the picture I'd inadvertently sent him], desperate now to save face. Obviously.)

 

He: Yes but shes no high speed chase (Always the comedian. Snot.)

 

 

And Husband? He actually did think I was the one involved in the high-speed chase. As the chasee.

 

I give up.