I suppose, for normal people, attending doctors’ appointments with their elderly parents is boring on a level akin to kids’ sports.
Lucky for me, Indy and Willie are not normal people.
It takes a lot of effort to keep Indy and Willie in tip-top shape. They’re like the Apollo 13 mission – no sooner is one problem fixed than another crops up in its place.
I try to write down everything that happens so I can relay it to you. Sometimes, though, even my notes aren’t enough. For example, a few weeks ago, I had to take Indy to the VA in University City.
As we drove, he outlined an idea for a fictional story he wanted me to write.
I know. There’s so much to unpack there. We can talk about that later.
I wrote down that Indy had a book idea for me. What I failed to do was write down the exact idea.
And now I can’t remember it. He probably can’t either.
Anyway, last week Indy had a video appointment with his primary care doctor at the VA. I attend as many of Indy’s appointments as I can.
Let’s talk about why.
A few weeks ago, Indy saw his regular – as in non-VA – primary care doctor.
Yes. Indy has two primary care doctors. Listen, if Michael J. Fox can get spinal cord surgery at Hopkins even though he lives in New York City, and if he can get the chief of neurosurgery to operate, and if he can get the director of nursing to hand-pick his nursing staff, then Indy can have two primary care doctors.
Michael J. Fox’s new book is really good, by the way.
I couldn’t attend the appointment with Indy’s non-VA primary care doctor. I was supposed to, but when Willie scheduled the appointment, she forgot that I have kids.
I can’t be at Indy’s appointment in Lansdale at two in the afternoon and make it to Southampton to pick up the kids from school at 2:45. This fact chronically eludes Willie.
And this now concludes the angry portion of this post.
I have Indy’s non-VA primary care doctor’s cell phone number for just such occasions. So I teleconferenced the appointment from the school’s car line.
Indy had to resume a medication we had stopped. We weren’t sure if he could start it all at once or if he had to titrate the dose up over a few days. Indy’s doctor said to have at it – hit Indy with the full dose.
Cool.
The next day, I asked Willie if she had given Indy the medication.
“Oh, the doctor didn’t say anything about that,” Willie told me.
So I try to attend all of Indy’s appointments.
Indy and I settled in as usual – seated at the dining room table, my computer ready to go. As soon as the doctor called in, Willie began the most important task for Indy’s telehealth appointments.
Making as much noise as possible.
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Let me be clear. Indy and Willie are both retired. They have twenty-four empty hours a day to fill. So why does Willie need to unload the dishwasher when Indy is on a telehealth appointment?
Willie clanged and banged away with the dishes like an errant New Year’s Eve reveler as Indy and I shouted over the clamor and strained to hear the doctor.
The commotion paused when Indy and Willie’s doorbell rang.
Willie answered the door. Then she invited the visitor into the apartment.
Willie and her visitor conversed right next to the table where Indy and I were conducting his appointment.
They did not speak in hushed tones. They did not move out into the hallway. They didn’t even move twelve feet away into the kitchen.
They stood right next to us, talking about the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma or whatever it is the old folks at the Temple of Doom talk about.
Once the appointment was over, so were the Kali Ma negotiations and the dishwashing. Willie settled in quietly at the table with me and Indy.
“Let me tell you about Steven Spielberg!” Willie began.
Because, you know, there’s nothing going on with Indy. He didn’t just finish a doctor’s appointment or anything important like that.
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Once I had the full update on Steven Spielberg, Willie filled me in on the current status of her cough syrup prescription because she and Indy are straight-up Motley Crue, passing that nonsense around like they’re Dr. Feelgood.
Willie was running low on her cough syrup. She couldn’t get ahold of the prescribing doctor, so she did exactly what Erica Kane did on All My Children when Maria wouldn’t prescribe her more painkillers.
She found another doctor to do it.
She didn’t sleep with him though. Willie is many things, but she’s no Erica Kane. Because really. Who is?
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re getting narcotic cough syrup from two doctors?”
Willie clearly hadn’t thought about this. “Well, yes,” she said.
I’m beginning to think Willie’s cough syrup is the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma.
That’s when Indy piped up. His younger and only surviving brother calls Indy every Sunday from his home in Florida. This particular week, he told Indy he had received his medical marijuana card “for pain.” He thought Indy should get medical marijuana too.
As if I don’t have enough problems with Nikki Sixx here calling around to every doctor in Pine Valley – I mean the Delaware Valley – to get her cough syrup fix.
Or maybe that should be “cough syrup fixx”?
Now, I assumed that my uncle was suggesting medical marijuana for Indy’s Parkinson’s disease – which has been researched. But I was wrong.
He suggested it for Indy’s pain.
“But I don’t have pain,” Indy told me.
Well, I know Indy doesn’t have pain. I was at a complete loss as to what Indy was asking.
“Maybe he just wants you to get high with him,” I said.
Indy laughed, but reiterated that my uncle thought Indy should be using marijuana for pain.
“I don’t have pain,” Indy told me again.
I needed this like I needed Willie’s friend talking about Kali Ma right next to Indy’s telehealth appointment.
I explained the different uses for medical marijuana – like anxiety and managing the side effects of chemotherapy – none of which apply to Indy.
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Next, we moved on to Willie’s CT scan. I asked her doctor to order one for her head because that girl can’t remember a thing, including that I was the one who scheduled the CT scan.
Willie is afraid of CT scans. She gets claustrophobic. She wanted me to be in the CT scanning room with her so that I could – and I’m not making this up, but I think you know that – pull her out of the CT scanner if the room caught on fire.
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“Maybe you need the medical marijuana,” I told Willie. “That’ll cure your phobia.”
Willie huffed. Marijuana, she informed me, is just a gateway drug. It’s just a short hop, leap, and jump from medical marijuana to, I don’t know, heroin or something.
Or the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma.