CABG patch

So, now that the initial drama has subsided, I can report that my dad had a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) or more commonly, bypass surgery. He had a triple bypass. The weird part is that a week after suffering a series of heart attacks, extensive treatment and examination, and then the extensive, major surgery, he is home, up on his feet, albeit with effort, but that he appears, on the surface, to have survived what was likely, if not treated when it was, to be a major coronary event. Given the amount of occlusion (e.g. blockage), he would have likely suffered a major heart attack.

It's strange to think that he came close to dying, and then stepped away from it. And in a week's time, he's home and he's back to his old self (for better or for worse). I don't think he's necessarily had a Near Death Experience (NDE) but I can say that seeing him have a heart attack in front of me on Friday evening reminded me of seeing other family members go through trauma or injury and how witnessing these events humbles one, renders one fairly powerless, and reminds one of not just fragility but complexity and resilience. In short, it's intense and I don't think I'm yet recovered after the whirlwind of anxiety and activity this week.

Again I think to myself . . . I shoulda gone to medical school so I could be a "real" doctor. What use was I as a clinical psychologist? In this instance, not particularly useful.

Chapter Four, somewhere in there

The sound of Julianne’s phone ringing caught his attention and he looked at the plastic ‘patient’s belonging’ bag sitting on table near the front door. He was pacing around the living room but he did not go to the bag to check the phone even when it rang a second time and then beeped again signaling a new voice mail.

His daughter walked into the living room. She carried Mr. Duck by the bill, one of her stuffed animals. She gave Harry a look and then she went to the sofa and curled up facing the television.

“How are you feeling?” Harry asked.
She didn’t answer.

He walked down the hall in the direction of his office. He came to Will’s bedroom door and looked in. Will sat at the computer and Edie sat on his bed.

“Hey,” Edie said.
“I think my parents are on their way. I think I should take a shower or something,” he said. Then he pointed to Will, “What’s he up to?”
“Oh, Will’s been telling me that he’s making a card for his mom. We were trying to decide what a good picture would be and what we should say. Will has a lot of questions about what happens to somebody when they die. We’ve found out that it’s really hard to explain and really hard to understand,” Edie explained.
“Yeah,” Harry shrugged, “So it seems.”
“Am I going back to school today?” Will asked.
“No. Maybe tomorrow,”
“I don’t want to go to school,”
“OK, maybe later,”
“I don’t ever want to go to school,”
Edie intervened, “Why is that Will?”
“I hate school!”
“It’s no good?” Edie asked him.
“They’re mean to me and I hate them!”
“Who?” Edie continued.
“All of them! Don’t make me go,”
“Were you at school yesterday?”
“I went to school and they told me I had to go home and they made me go home with Miss Elise and I went to the restaurant and I don’t ever want to go back to school!”
Edie took Will’s hands, “You don’t have to go back, right now. OK. You can stay here and everybody’s here: see, your dad is here and your sister is here and your grandparents are coming and your aunt is coming tonight; you won’t be alone.”
“Mommy’s not here,”
“I know.”
Will put his head down against Edie’s hands and started crying for his mother.

Harry leaned his head against the doorframe and didn’t know what to do. No idea crossed his mind except the sound of Will crying.

More family

Melanie Parker-Campbell sat on the kitchen deck looking towards Koko Head on the windward side of Oahu. While the view wasn’t entirely in the direction of the mainland, she imagined that she was facing towards California. She tried to picture her brother Harry at home and wondered what it would be like to actually lose a spouse. She listened for her husband’s snoring. She was used to him being gone. The idea of him gone forever crossed her mind on a regular basis; in fact, both had admitted to thinking about this fact in their line of work. He was an airline pilot, and occasional Navy pilot, and she was still a flight attendant. They never worked on the same flights. She only worked the local, intra-island routes while he worked the transpacific flights. They had a superstition about working the same flight. They didn’t want to orphan their only daughter. However, in planning their living trust, if they were both to die, their daughter Camille would have gone to live with her Uncle Harry and Aunt Julianne.

She loved the peacefulness of sunrise. The morning was humid but she still had coffee. This was her usual routine. Tonight she and Cami would be in San Francisco where it would be inevitably cold and foggy. Melanie was a warm weather fan; between growing up in Southern California and living in Hawaii, she always went for warm; hotter the better. She always thought Harry was drawn to the fog and cold since it matched his disposition: moody. But he was always the moodiest of the four kids. After their brother Daniel died at age 12, Harry, then 11, and already moody, became even more moody. Melanie, then 14, became the stand-in mother at least for the youngest, Evan, who was only 5.

“Kakahiaka mama,” Cami Campbell greeted her mother using the local slang. Born in Hawaii, Cami spoke the local talk. With a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian father and a half-Chinese, half-Caucasian mother, Cami was the epitome of the hapa, or mixed plate in Hawaii.
“You’re up early,”
“Couldn’t sleep anymore. I was thinking this trip’s going to be weird,”
“How’s that?”
“You know, like all the funeral stuff and everything. Seeing everybody sad. I just keep thinking about Willy and Darby,”
“It will be hard,”
“Is it wrong to be thinking about what I’m going to wear because I don’t have that much stuff for cold weather, and I don’t have anything for the funeral too,”
“Grandma and I will take you shopping. I have to find something too.”
“When’s daddy coming?”
“He’ll come in a few days. He’s got two trips and then he’s free. I think he’s going to come up from Phoenix,”
“Do you think Uncle Harry will get over this?”
Melanie looked at her daughter, now sitting in the chair opposite. “No. I know he won’t.”
“I know it’s kinda weird to ask this too but can I bring my laptop?”
“Yeah,”
“Do you think Willy and Darby will remember me?”
“They will by the end of tomorrow,”
“I’m going to baby-sit them a lot, aren’t I?”
“We’re really hoping you will be able to help like that,”
“I know. I’m going to go take a shower and finish packing,”

Wanna get away?

Recently inspired again to the romance of train travel an old idea of mine to take the California Zephyr from the Bay Area to Chicago has taken on more urgency. This evening I looked at the schedule and prices for the route. Apparently, the trip takes 51 hours point-to-point (sparing any derailments or other force majeure) so I would live on a train for 2 days for, depending upon my choice of accommodation, somewhere between $182 and $1000. The low-end fare is a seat. Everything else is an incidental charge: meals, etc. It’s like taking Greyhound. The upper-end is for bedroom which is like a roomette except that it has a private bath and shower whereas the roomette is more like an old-school motel room with a shared bath and shower downstairs. I say, for the train travel, the journey is the destination; Chicago would be the turn-around (I’d imagine a non-stop Chicago-Oakland on Southwest Airlines).

So I would do this largely to say that I did it (and to take pictures and to spend a lot of time looking out the window). Given that I do not own a laptop currently, I think I’d probably need to purchase one since the onboard entertainment indicated:

On some routes, onboard entertainment includes seasonal presentations and commentary by volunteer rangers of the National Park Service through Amtrak's Trails and Rails program.

I generally find this interesting, but …

Obviously train travel has changed a great deal (much like air travel has changed). On the positive side, both train and air travel have cut down travel time; on the negative side, train travel has followed the lead of air travel in terms of amenities. On the pro side, the scenery is generally better on a train; on the down-side, the entertainment on a train and plane are roughly equivalent. On the plus side, a derailment is less likely to kill you than a plane crash. That being said, a derailment involving running into a semi-truck carrying hazardous material isn’t unheard of. On a plane, your seatmate could represent a fact of endurance that only lasts a few hours; on a train, unless you’re planning some re-enactment of Hitchcock, it’s hard to get away from ‘train people.’

This brings me to the point of train people. I don’t know train people. I know railfans. Those are like any other hobbyists—enthusiastic, informative, sometimes a little weird; but train people? I wonder if train people are like RV people, or boating people; and I wonder if train people on long-distance routes include bus people. Now, bus people are an entirely different matter. But train people . . . are they similar to folks who book cheap passage on cheap cruises? I have to wonder. However, if I had a bedroom, or roomette, I could, as I am sometimes quite capable of doing, hang out with myself in my room (until I went stir-crazy—somewhere around hour 13 of the 51 hour trip) for long stretches of time, coming out only for meals. It would be like staying in a motel on rails. But at least the scenery would be eye catching. And the rhythm itself. The rhythmic, occasionally jarring, romantic rhapsody of train travel (or at least the ghost of its heyday).

Chapter three or maybe Chapter four

“Maybe we should take the kids for a while. I think Harry might be too distracted with things for a while,” Nancy Lim-Parker raised her voice so her husband would hear her above the noise in the airline cabin.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Henry Parker, Sr. said.
“Who took care of the kids when Daniel died?”
“Your parents,”
“I think we should at least suggest it,”
“What?” he leaned toward her with his ‘good’ ear.
“I think we should take them for a couple of weeks,”
She squeezed her husband’s hand.

“I wonder if Julianne had a life insurance policy?” Henry said.
“I’m sure she did. Harry would have insisted.”
“I just hope he puts in trust for the kids,”
“Of course he will. He won’t want it for himself. Remember what we did with Daniel’s life insurance policy?”
Henry nodded, “We put in trust for the other kids’ college funds,”
“Do you miss him?”
“Daniel?”
Nancy stared down the aisle for a few moments. “Even after thirty-something years; Losing Julianne brings up a lot for me,”
“I know. We’re not supposed to outlive these kids,”

“Well folks, we’re starting our descent into the San Francisco Bay Area. Current weather in Oakland is 58 degrees, overcast, with winds out of the west at 12 miles. We’ll have you at the gate in about 20 minutes. We’ll be turning on the fasten seat-belt sign now, so . . .”

“We should have flown into San Francisco. I don’t want to look up at the airport tower when we get there. I used to look up at the tower and wonder if Julianne was there. I’d tell people seated next to me, ‘Oh, my daughter-in-law is up there,” Nancy’s voice went flat.
“I know. I just wish I didn’t have to drive this morning or else I would have had a bloody Mary. I could use one under the circumstances,”
“Let’s go straight to Harry’s. We’ll check into the hotel later,”
“Why don’t we go to the hotel first and check in, then we can take a cab to his place. If we need to go anywhere, we’ll use his car,”
Nancy shrugged. “I just don’t want to delay too much,”
“We’ll be fine,”

After they landed, Nancy looked out the window in the direction of the air traffic control tower.
“Everything’s going on as normal. Harry said she would have been working today,” she began to cry.

Chapter three, smudges

Edie came back. She had a duffle bag over her shoulder and a smaller bag which Harry recognized as her ‘doctor bag.’
“I called to check on the status of things with the examination over at Moffitt-Long,” she said.
“What exam at where?”
“Remember yesterday at the hospital where you filled out the information and I was able to get somebody I know to arrange for Julianne to be examined at UCSF?” Edie said.
“Oh, the autopsy,”
“Sorry, do you want to talk about this later?”
“Are they done?” His voice was flat.
“They will be done this afternoon. The report will likely be done within two days,”
“Do I have to go there?”
“Oh no, unless you want to. I can get it for you and I can read it. They can email it to me, too.”
“Hmm. Do you think it will make a difference?”
“As your best friend, or as your best friend who happens to be a doctor? I think I might have different answers,”
“Say Julianne was your patient,”
“Harry, technically she was. I think it’s very important to know for a lot of reasons. For you, there will be important reasons now; perhaps the mystery can be understood. There may be other reasons, too,”
“Like what?”
“Let’s just wait to see what the pathologist says,”
“Like what reasons?”
“If there’s anything congenital that we should know about,”
“Oh,”
She kept quiet.

“Have you eaten?” She asked.
“No,”
“Here, have a sandwich. I picked it up from your place. They said they’ll cook up some meals for you and the kids,”
“OK,” He unwrapped the sandwich. He didn’t feel like eating.
“Are the kids asleep?”
“Darby’s asleep. Will’s still watching TV, I think.”
“I’ll go check on them,”
“How am I supposed to figure out the funeral?”
“We’ll start making those calls after your parents get here,”
“Who do I call?”
“It can wait a couple more hours. Just eat.”

He went over to the washing machine and looked at the top rack. He remembered the glass from two days ago. She was thirsty and wanted cranberry juice and he remembered that she had just put on lip balm. He couldn’t kiss her lips at the hospital. There was tape holding the breathing tube in place. He found the glass. He took it out and looked at the outline of her lips against the glass. He brought the glass back to the table.
He picked up the cigarette pack from the tabletop and lit up. He took a drag and felt a rush of nausea and dizziness. He coughed and felt like he was going to throw up.
“You can’t smoke!” Will appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. Edie was right behind him.
Harry put the cigarette out in his coffee mug.
“Sorry,”
“Can I use the computer?” Will asked.
“Your computer?”
“Yeah,”
“Go ahead.”

Will left the kitchen. Edie sat at the table.
“He seems normal,” Harry said.
“He’s trying to be normal. Darby’s fever’s increased so I’m going to give her some Tylenol, all right? And I really think you shouldn’t smoke. Just eat the sandwich,”
“I think I should take a shower,”
“Just eat,”

And next, juice boxes and fruit roll-ups

Tonight my dinner consisted of a peanut-butter and banana sandwich drizzled with honey on wheat bread. This has got to be one of those flavor combinations that is the epitome of childhood carried forth to the present. Now, if I added a carton of milk and sliced carrots, I could recreate some random lunch from 2nd grade; nevertheless, to remind myself that I'm 36, I had a large Americano.

After recess, where hopefully the yard duty teacher won't bust me . . .

Chapter three, more

The sound of something splashing woke him. He focused on Darby lying next to the edge of the bed. Her head was perched over the side.
“What was that?”
“My tummy hurts,”
He got out of bed and came around to the other side, Julianne’s side, and looked at the puddle of vomit on the floor.
“OK, let’s go wash your face and brush your teeth,” he picked her up and carried her to the bathroom.

He heard the door open and for a moment imagined Julianne walking in. She would announce her arrival in part to find out where everybody was. He would have called out their location in the bathroom. She would have come in and looked at both of them. Darby sitting on the counter brushing her teeth, her dad perhaps doing the same, or shaving. Julianne would have made a comment, usually involving a wish for a camera in that very moment.
“You never had that camera,” he said.
“What?” Edie asked him from the doorway.
“Oh, nothing. Hey, she’s sick,” he pointed to Darby.
“What’s up?”
“I forgot that yesterday I picked her up from school because she threw up and she just threw up again. Oh, where’s Will?”
“He’s in the living room, he wanted to watch TV.” Edie squeeze past Harry and looked at Darby. “Do you have that thermometer I gave you a while ago?”
Harry pointed to the cabinet drawer.
“I suppose you don’t have the sterile sleeves for the tip?” She ran the tip under the faucet and then placed it in Darby’s mouth. “Just keep it there for a little bit, sweetie.”
Edie proceeded to perform a quick physical exam.

Harry leaned against the doorway and watched.
“Well, my diagnosis is that she just has one of those usual childhood bugs. I don’t think she’s eaten since last night. Let’s just make sure she eats and keeps up her fluids,”
“I think the same goes for me,”

The phone rang twice and Harry heard Will answer the phone.
“Dad—it’s for you. It’s Auntie Melanie,”
“Please bring me the phone,”

“Hey, how are you doing?” his sister began.
“It’s horrible,” he went down the hall to his office.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what time it is,”
“It’s early for both of us. It’s 4:30 AM Honolulu local time. Anyways, Cami and I are confirmed on the 2 PM flight; even if it’s full, we’re going. I’ll go jumpseat if necessary. We’ll rent a car, or Dad said he’ll pick us up. Is there anything you need us to bring?”
“Are you sure you want to bring Cami?”
“She’s already out of school and she can help out. Plus I think it will be good for her to be with her cousins; she’s a good baby-sitter,”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,”
“We’re going to be there soon enough brother, just hang in there and know that we love you and we’re going to be there for you and the kids,”

Edie popped her head in the door to his office.
“Hey, I have to run home for a while to get some stuff and change. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Just call me if you need anything and I’ll be right back. I’m going to bring back some pediatric electrolytes if Darby gets worse. Do you want me to bring you something for sleep?”
“Yeah, why not? We’ll be fine for the moment,”
“I know you probably don’t feel like it but you need to eat something,”
“I don’t feel like it, but I’ll try,”
“OK,” she walked over and gave Harry a hug. “I put Darby in bed and she fell asleep. She’s probably going to be out of sorts for a day or two; she has a slight fever but nothing too worrisome.”
“Thanks doc,”



Harry made coffee and then went to the living room and sat on the couch. Will watched cartoons.

Will turned to Harry.
“Auntie Edie said I could get waffles with whipped cream this morning, Miss Elise said I could have extra whipped cream,”
“That’s good.”
“Are you going to work today?”
“I don’t think I’m going to work today,”
“That’s because mommy died, right?”
“Yes Will, that’s exactly right,”
“Daddy, will we get to see mommy?”
“How do you mean?”
“Do we get to see her again?”
“Like how?”
“Before they put her in that box and put her in the ground,”
He fought the urge to ask how he knew that. “Yes, you’ll get to see mommy before then.”

Will turned back to the TV.
Harry stared at the bookcase next to the TV. He looked at the family photo taken six months earlier at Christmas time. They were sitting together on the beach on Oahu. Will sitting in between Julianne and Harry, Darby in Julianne’s lap.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t want any more reminders.

Chapter three, next segment

Darby started hitting the mattress with her fists, “I want mommy!” Will started crying as well.

Harry pulled them both toward him, “Mommy’s gone, mommy’s gone.”

“Where is she?” His daughter tugged at his shirt.

Harry looked at Edie, now sitting on the edge of the bed trying to comfort the children. She looked like she wanted to cry as well.

“Mom died yesterday. She had an accident and she didn’t get well and she died. This means you won’t see her anymore,”

“Is mommy in heaven?” Will asked.

Harry patted his stepson on his head. Darby put her head against Harry’s chest. He held both kids in close. He started to cry. Darby pulled away to get a look at her father. She gave him a confused look. He looked back at her and saw Julianne’s eyes.

The phone rang. Edie picked it up. She introduced the call with “Parker residence.” She listened and looked at Harry. She asked him if he wanted the restaurant open today. He shrugged. Then she asked if there was anything they could do for him today. He shrugged. She told them to call back later.

A couple minutes later, the phone rang again.

“It’s your mom,” Edie handed the phone to him.
“Hi,” he tried to compose himself.
“Oh Harry, we’re so sorry. Your father and I will be up by mid-morning. We’ll take a cab to your place,”
“Thanks mom. Who knows?”
“I called the relatives. Your sister’s coming in tonight and she’s bringing your niece to help out with Darby and Willie. Is there anything you need us to bring up?”
Darby tugged at his shirt again, “Who are you talking to?”
“Your grandmother,” he patted her head. Then patted Will’s head again. They were nestled in close to him.
“What time is it?” He asked.
“5:30 AM,” his mother said.

He thought back 24 hours earlier. He looked at the dresser across the room and saw Julianne’s things on the top and how she always left one drawer ajar.

“Twenty-four hours ago, we woke up and she was going to be late for work,” He started to cry again.

“We’ll be up in a few hours. Your brother’s coming in tomorrow; he’s in court today and can’t get out of it,”
“OK,” he hung up.

Will got up off the bed and walked over to the dresser. He took down a photo of Harry and Julianne on their 1st wedding anniversary. They were holding a baby.

“That’s me,” Will said to Edie, pointing at the baby in the picture.
Edie came over to him, “I know. You were ten months old.”
“When was Darby born?” he asked.
“Three years ago,”
“How old are we?”
“Do you mean, how much older are you?”
“Yeah,”
“Two years older,”
“She’s two?”

Darby sat up, “I’m not two. I’m three,” then she cuddled up again.

Edie looked at Harry who had leaned back against the pillows with his eyes closed. He needed sleep. Darby stayed close to him.

“OK Will, why don’t we get you washed up and go to the restaurant to get some breakfast,” Edie offered, “It looks like your dad still needs sleep,”

Back to my musings on notebooks and journals

The usual kinds of journals / notebooks / diaries people keep

The Dear Diary (Today I was rebuffed by Mr. Darcy; he’s an ass. I shant speak with him forever more.)
Dream journal (Mr. Darcy had the wings of Pegasus and a body like a cross between a Griffin and a common donkey; he sang to me the songs of Mel Torme)
Meditation journal (One, inhale, exhale . . . two, inhale, exhale . . . om . . . )
Project journal (Day one: buy stuff; Day two: try to put stuff together; Day three: hire somebody else to do it)
Baby journal (Day one: ooops, that wasn’t the plan; Month six: This is going to be weird. Month 8: Should I tell him, he’s the daddy?)
Wedding journal (I’m really hoping we can have ice sculptures of swans in flight; then we can also have real swans in flight)
Divorce journal (If we didn’t spend all that money on those freakin’ swans . . .)
Wine journal (This 2008 Boone’s Strawberry Hill is fruity with a hint of grape reminiscent of the 2007 Thunderbird)
Food journal (If you can’t super-size it, fuck it, it shouldn’t be called food)
Travel journal (On Wednesday we continued north. The countryside changed dramatically. There was less graffiti.)
Calorie intake journal: 2 sprigs of parsley, one sunflower seed, one peppercorn does not make a salad.

Journals people could keep, but usually don’t

Best fried chicken survey journal
Donuts that are unrivaled
Coffee: one cup per page (must include at least one drip or mug ring per page)
The “If I were in Prison right now, I’d be thinking this” Journal
Dreams I had but I was too embarrassed to admit
Thoughts I had but I was too surprised to admit
Places I’ve been but really shouldn’t admit
Crushes I’ve had that nobody would understand