Indy has a hairline fracture of his toe.
He woke up one day last week, unable to walk without limping. He hobbled around the Temple of Doom for three hours before finally telling Willie.
This is pretty typical behavior for Indy, keeping his cards close to his chest like that. He had Parkinson’s symptoms for well over a decade before he told anyone. And he kept mum for about six hours before telling anyone about the bank drive-through he took down with his service truck.
So now that I’m thinking about it, three hours is record-setting for Indy.
And no. Willie didn’t notice Indy was hobbling. He probably wasn’t getting her tea right. Improperly prepared tea is all that Willie would notice.
After a day or so of rest, ice, compression, and elevation, Indy’s foot still hurt. That’s when we had Indy’s foot X-rayed.
“How did you fracture your toe?” I asked Indy. He’d already denied any injuries – he didn’t drop anything on it, he didn’t stub it on a chair.
“I don’t know,” Indy said. Which is what Indy says to every health question ever posed to him.
I suspect he incurred the injury exercising. Or it’s a stress fracture from osteoporosis.
I voiced my theories to Willie.
“Well, I was screened for osteoporosis a few years ago and they said I was fine,” Willie said in response.
“Amazing that your lack of osteoporosis didn’t protect Indy from a fracture, Willie,” I sighed, rolling my eyes as Indy laughed. I might re-christen her Moira Rose.
So now Indy is in a boot for four to six weeks. I expressed concern that Indy’s boot overlaps with the Cape May vacation he and Willie planned with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. It may not be wise to take Indy, already unsteady, to less familiar terrain in a boot.
“Pah,” Willie said. “He’ll be fine.” Which is what she said when his hand began to shake.
That turned out to be Parkinson’s.
She also said Indy would be fine when the cross-country train they were on in 2019 crashed. The staff tried to evacuate Willie and Indy for the duration of the train’s repairs. “Pah,” Willie told the staff. “We’ll be fine right here,” she huffed.
Indy passed out.
I asked later why they didn’t just leave the train. “They wanted us to jump from the train,” Willie said. “I don’t jump.” Although Indy, 81 at the time, suffering from Parkinson’s and having just passed out, jumped from the train.
I’m not sure if my line here is, “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” or “If I was trapped on a crashed train car with Willie, I’d jump too.”
Now, when Indy had a totally benign irregular heartbeat, Willie insisted he wouldn’t be fine. He’s had five months of cardiac evaluations, including a stress test.
“Why is he getting a stress test?” Willie asked, forgetting all about Indy’s January hospitalization. “Nobody worries about my heart,” she grumbled.
“You do realize,” I said, “that the cardiologist wasn’t going through charts seeing who needed a stress test. He didn’t say ‘Oh I really like Indy, Indy needs a stress test, but to hell with Willie.’ If you’re going to insist Indy go to the hospital to get his heart checked, they will, in fact, check his heart.”
“When did he go to the hospital?!” Willie exclaimed, having forgotten all about the night Indy and I sat in the emergency room for eight hours.
Which made me seriously reconsider my Willie/Indy sick day policies. If they’re not going to remember trips to the hospital, and get annoyed at the follow-up testing, do I really need to take them to the emergency room every other month? Can I just pop them in the car and take them to McDonald’s? Can I just tell them we went to the hospital?
I’ve added Indy’s boot to the checklist of things I run through when I check in at the Temple of Doom. Indy’s Parkinson’s symptoms, Indy’s blood pressure. Is he taking his meds? Is he using his sleep apnea machine?
“Oh ask him how he uses his sleep apnea machine, because I don’t know!” Willie cried.
Apparently, Indy goes to bed before Willie. When Willie retires, Indy is asleep. No sleep apnea machine.
When Willie wakes up in the middle of the night, the sleep apnea machine is on. When she wakes up in the morning, it’s off.
“When does he get up to put it on? When does he take it off?” Willie cried. “You’d think I’d notice!”
Well, tell that to Indy’s foot.