Don't Call Me A Towel Head!

Been a wreck all morning, my mother's surgery was suppose to start at 9:00 am, it only takes about 45 minutes to pull a gallbladder, then 1-2 hours in recovery. When she was still in surgery at 12:00 pm I knew something wasn't right. It turned out to be a little more serious than they thought. Gall bladder came out fine, but then they found a hole in her colon so had to remove a section of her colon and then sew it back together. She will be in ICU for 3-4 days but is doing really well and is only in there for observation to make sure their stitches hold up in the colon and because of her age.  There are two brothers, two sister-in-laws, a cousin's wife that my Mom has always loved to pieces and  her best friend with her. Not a single one has left her side, even when she takes all of them she can handle and runs them out, they just go sit in the waiting room a couple of hours and then move back in the room, one by one, I guess they think if they sneak in she won't notice they are back.

But I have to tell you about my first conversation after surgery with one of the surgeons that did the surgery. First he is Indian, the second hardest accent for me to understand, Chinese coming in first. My brother is on the phone with me and since I wasn't there the Dr was going to repeat to me all that he had already told the rest of them so my brother hands him the cell phone. He seems to think it is a foreign object or maybe he is so old he has never seen one (I must remember to ask how old the guy is), my brother says he fumbled around with it for a while and then put it upside down to his ear to talk in the background I can hear them all laughing, they couldn't wait for him to leave so they could tell me about it and the look on his face when they handed it to him. So my brother very nicely shows him how to hold the phone. Then he apparently thinks he is communicating with me by two tin cans connected with a string across town and starts screaming as if I I am deaf, so I heard basically nothing that he was really saying.  Thank God, the other Dr realized there might be a problem with communication and called me back after #1 Dr leaves the room because this is what I heard in the first phone call:

Dr. (screaming)Hello? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me on this thing?

Me: Yes, Dr. I can hear you but your just a little loud which is making it muffled.

He totally ignores this and continues to scream, what I thought I heard him say:

Dr. Everything is looking good but I run into a little problem and will put it back in in three or four days.

Me: What? Put what back in? You don't put bad gallbladders back in? What are you talking about?

Dr. It's related to your grandmother.

Me: What? How is it related to my grandmother?

Dr. Mumble, mumble, mumble, hole, mumble, small, mumble, mumble, know it was there.

Me: What?

Dr. (laughing)Don't go running around this hospital and tell them all I am a towel head or a Mexican.

Me: I promise I won't do that.

Dr. Mumble, mumble, bird, mumble, mumble, antibiotics, mumble, now go eat you some lunch.

Then he hands the phone back. My brother thinking the Dr has hung it up just slips it into his pocket so I sat there for the next hour listening to them all teasing my mother about how she was having a bad hair day, one told her he thought he would go get a big greasy hamburger for her to eat, and a lot more, my mother tells them they all have to shut up or leave because she is too Goddamn sore to be laughing at their mess. Then one of them, just joking, asks if he "can stay at her house that night", she says "Of course, but why?", he says "We want to have a few friends over and thought it would be better to mess up your house since your not going to be using it for a few days than ours". Risky and brave move there, my mother is a clean fanatic, this is the honest truth if your staying at her house and get up to go to the bathroom you have to tell her what to leave alone because while your in the bathroom she is picking up the glass of Coke you just fixed, pouring it down the drain and will have that glass washed, dried and put back into the cabinet before you get back. It is standard practice when visiting her to yell out "don't make my bed!" if you get up in the morning to pee intending to go back to bed. Many times I have forgotten to yell and came back to find my bed nicely made up. She can't stand anything to be out of place and she moves fast, no way to catch her in the act.

The problem is now my family. Now I know they are all concerned and each one wants to do their part, actually the problem is they each one want to do it all. My mother is very particular and is only going to stay in her own home, they can't get that. Her best friend of 50 yrs is retired and going to stay at the house with her after she comes home. But the rest of the loons are freaking out on me and blowing up my phone with calls and texts bitching and complaining about each other and wanting me to call her and "fix" the situation. Really? You seriously think anyone is going to talk my mother into anything she doesn't want to do?  I know better, I am not getting in the middle of that one. My mother forces herself to go to one of their houses because his wife has not picked up a dust rag in 30 years and probably doesn't know where the vacuum cleaner has been hiding in the last 30 years either. Not to mention since my nieces's death they are raising her children, both of whom act like the world owes them everything, are the rudest kids I have ever been around, lie, steal and about anything else they can think of because they have been so indulged by my brother and his wife since my niece died it isn't even funny. Their excuse is always "Well, they lost their mother", my Mom always replies back with "And that is a good reason to let them act like animals that will be hated by all the other animals in the zoo when they grow up?" The other one's house is as clean as Mom's, no children, no animals, just to her liking. But they hover over her every move like she isn't capable. My mother has a more active social life than all the rest of us put together, trust me she doesn't need coddling unless she is the one doing it. It drives her crazy. Like I said, I am staying out of it.

So I am doing much better and will be able to cut that Klonopin back to two from three, if I don't answer the loons phone calls and since I was up all night I intend to lay on the couch and veg out to some movies.

Until something else happens and I have faith it will the way things are going lately.