A Greasy Hamburger

Friday December 23rd, 2005

Aahhhhhh.

I sit in the blue chair in Grandma and Grandpa's living room as Grandma sleeps in Emelda (her chair), Dally is pressed up against the chair on the floor, and Daisy has buried herself in the big blanket on Grandpa's chair that exactly matches her color scheme. There's a little lit-up Christmas tree on the coffee table in front of me, and the glowing candles in the window and the nets of lights on the bushes out front state that it is, indeed, Christmas.

More than the lights, though, or the soul-stirring music of this time of year, the "feeling of the season" welled up in me as we sat around the table at Baker's Dozen--Mom, Dad, Ken, Daniel, Uncle Keith and I. Just having Ken and UK around brings an air to the conversation and activities that is endemic to Christmas. And even though Grandpa isn't here in the house...it just is Christmas now.

It was really good to finally get to see Grandpa. Mom, Dad, Ken and I went to the hospital after dinner, where Grandma had been since the afternoon (She and Mom have been trading shifts during the days). I was steeling myself for a ghastly sight, and was glad to see instead just Grandpa, lying on the bed. Small-looking under the covers compared to his robust, big-boned persona of the past, but still Grandpa. His fingers may have gotten scrawny, his skin may hang like bags off of his biceps, and his words may come with half-breathless effort, but those words still speak the keen wit and interest of Grandpa Ken. He asked several times about stuff Ken had done at Cape May and around New England, and kept up his smart comments, like "Boy, the quality of help around here!" when Mom dropped the oxygen tubes she was trying to help him get in place :-)

He's hooked up to about 8 different tubes and gadgets, he has a motorized reclining bed which he can adjust, and there's a table within reach with tissues, water and other such amenities on it. One of us is there with him pretty much all day, and he takes sleeping pills to get rest at night. The big concern at the moment is the level of saturation of oxygen in his blood. Due to the pneumonia racking out his alveoli, his capacity for absorbing oxygen is reduced, sometimes critically so. He's got to get that squared away before he can come home. Tonight he was running fairly steady at about 90% of normal saturation, which was good, ATC (All Things Considered).

The biggest factor keeping him in the hospital now is his severe weakness. His muscles have simply faded away as I he laid in that bed for two weeks, half dead to the world. He has got to get some of his body back now. He's got to eat, and he's got to move. So yesterday the doctor, in all seriousness, prescribed a greasy hamburger for him :-) The fat and protein are what his body desperately needs, and the grease will literally help it get through his parched mouth and throat better. I loved that! If at all possible, I will get him some Taco Bell too, before I leave. The zesty chicken bowl is nice and moist, with friendly chunks of tasty chicken and a nice mix of rice, refried beans, lettuce and dressing. We'll see :-)

Um, other brief points of interest: Ken drove from Massachusetts yesterday, arriving home around 8pm. When Dad related those plans to me, I was elated to realize that that meant Ken would be riding with Dad and me to Chicago! Such was indeed the case, and it was a great drive. In the afternoon Ken told us two stories of "nocturnal adventures" he had had in the deep woods of Colorado and New Mexico. Let's just say that it was as good a story as I've ever heard, except the liver of the adventures was sitting in the seat in front of me! What Ken has done and experienced in his 3 summers out West, though far from the unrealistic and naieve ideals of "communing with nature" entertained by many, still amaze and intrigue me in a deep way. He is a mountain man, he has brushed death pretty close, and he has an earthy and practical sense of forest and mountain, trail and tree, hiking and navigating, thinking hard, working hard, and surviving. He's crawled over great tracks of remote forests, seen things few people have ever seen, and gone through many many brutal, uncomfortable, genuinely unpleasant days and experiences. He's a mountain man with a GPS, and his body and mind are much closer to standing up to nature than mine.

We left at 10:15 and got here at 4:45 EST, clocking in a trip time of 7.5 hours--a record for me! I slept a bit on the drive, for the last half, and realized just how deep-down tired I am. I emixed the Chex Mix so I could enchex my mouth. Sorry for the meaningless private joke, but I want to remember it in the future :-) Dad and Ken did all the driving, which I was cool with because I'll be driving it all when I return to Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Boo :-/

As pondered upon in previous posts, the "emotionally anticipated visit to my ailing Grandfather during this dismembered holiday season" was met with happily pedestrian real life, and things are better now than they felt several days ago. Grandpa is still racked out in the hospital, lymphoma still fills his body, 8 rounds of chemo still leer at us from the uncertain future, but we're all here now, and there is joy to be had in the people gathered together, even when some are missing.

Praise God.

--Clear Ambassador