He’d been handling the stomach issue now for eight months. You got a problem for that long, are you really taking care of it? Hell, no.
The old man awoke on a Saturday feeling near death. Just fine the night before. I’ll spare you the symptoms – headache, the runs, soaring blood pressure, etc. – but as he sat on the porcelain throne, holding a blue plastic bucket, he couldn’t help thinking he should call a buddy. Phone a friend.
Come to think of it: should be a self-help group you could go to, like Old Guy’s Anonymous. Like AA. Much be useful. OGA. ‘Before I had a stroke, felt this and felt this and then that.’
Know about folks getting gas and thinking it’s a heart attack. The old man’s frightening moments turned out always to be gas. So far.
And why always on a weekend? Last time he went to the Emergency Room, place was full of Mexicans who hurt themselves gardening and a bunch of attorneys who had pulled a muscle playing tag football and tennis, maybe bocce, like the competition actually mattered.
The old man would rather die than go to the ER on the weekend. Then he glanced up and the young redhead was looking at him like he was aflame, her dreams of the Golden Years fading into ashes.
Okay, I’ll go to the doctor, he told her. But, which doctor?
If you want your regular physician, the one who is supposed to know everything, no worries, just make an appointment for sometime too late. Not a problem. We’re here for you.
But the Physician’s Assistant, the one who doesn’t have as much training, the cheaper expert, he can see you.
Think I remember something about doctor relocating, but not until I arrive on time at the old, empty place. No longer needed. Can almost relate.
The new location is doubtlessly a cost-saving effort. Same people, same chairs. More comfortable seating in Guantanamo.
The PA walks into the examination room – after knocking decorously – and lets out an audible gasp. ‘You’ve lost weight.’
Long time since he’d been this lean but apparently he was on edge of the cusp of a slippery threshold. Two words: Karen Carpenter.
Stomach felt like the dining room scene in the first Aliens movie.
A loud animal sound – GROWWLLL!!! – rose from the old man’s intestines.
If I don’t eat, I feel better. And the wife says, she doesn’t want an old dried-up husband.
Old, she can handle. Desiccated, no.
That’s no way to live, he tells me. Not medically. Man to man. That’s no way to live.
Well, hell, sure as shit no way for this old man to live.
Still got three books to finish.
Witch me luck.