Poof

My son Steven, a doctor, called me this past Saturday.

“You better check on Grandpa.  He’s had a pain in his stomach for three or four days and I think he should go to an emergency room.  He needs to have tests that can’t be done at an Urgent Care.  Take him to a good hospital.”

An hour later I was on an airplane back to Los Angeles. My dad is 102 years old. The caretaker who usually stays with him had been on vacation for almost two weeks and she wouldn’t be back until the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend.

“Hi, Dad.  How are you?” I asked as soon as I arrived at his house.

“I’m fine.  But I’ve had this pain in my stomach for three or four days.  My doctor is out of town.  If it wasn’t a long weekend I would just wait to see him on Monday.”  Understandably, Dad doesn’t like hospitals. He especially doesn’t like the expense. He hates to pay his Medicare co-pay. Even so, I followed Steven’s advice and drove Dad to the emergency room at the UCLA Medical Center.  He didn’t complain, which was a pretty good indication that he was in significant pain.

We found the usual surge of holiday weekend patients waiting to be seen.  Dad was examined after about forty-five minutes.  The emergency room doctors ordered an MRI of his abdomen as well as an ultrasound.  They also started him on three IV antibiotics, including Vancomycin.  (I paid the $75.00 co-pay charged by the emergency room).

I’m not a doctor. I don’t know much about the practice of medicine.  I do know that a few seconds after the nurse took Dad’s blood pressure (which, incidentally, is better than mine), he suddenly became unresponsive and stopped talking.  Then his eyes rolled back into his head.

The nurse called for a doctor.  The next thirty seconds seemed like a lifetime.  Or a deathtime. I was terrified.   I thought to myself, “This is it.  In a few minutes my father is going to be dead.”

The doctor arrived, and didn’t seem especially concerned.

I know that any of us can die at any given moment. Even so, none of us are prepared for the sudden death of a loved one, or for the moments just before.  I remembered my young assistant Cecile who died ten years ago when her sports car flew off a dark mountain road and landed two hundred feet below.  I wasn’t prepared for her death, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for my dad to die in a hospital emergency room two days ago.

Our experience of time is always subjective, but after forever my father came out of his daze.

It’s now Monday, and Dad is scheduled to go home tomorrow.  With the help of antibiotics he has experienced his usual quick recovery, an outcome for which I’m very grateful.

My message to you, and to myself, is this:  Cherish every moment.

Poof.

Alan