An Epiphany burst upon me today, drops of sunlight through my cloud of gloom, proclaiming proudly and loudly, from the bottom of the oceans to the mountains of the moon, the essence of my mortality; demonstrating the grace accompanying the essence of life. A quick glance in the mirror of our medicine chest before I quickly and quietly yanked it open, reminded me that not only am I not getting any younger, I am not actually keeping it a secret either.
Early that morning, while mom was at church or the boat, or wherever she goes those five or six hours on Sundays after dressing up and leaving me alone without breakfast, it happened. I experienced a sudden leg and then foot cramp along the medial aspect of my right foot which fiercely clenched itself tight like a fist, ready to punch, unaware apparently that my thieving, lying, recently ex-ed girlfriend was not around to attempt to threaten or manipulate.
This foot-fist hurt and was clearly not simply for show or manipulation.
At this point, all my mojo gleaned from 20 odd years of professional health care experience emerged from its hunger and Sunday afternoon hangover, allowing me to assess my situation - hungry, alone in the otherwise empty house of a widow with countless full bottles of oxycontin, methadone, and morphine that her husband had repeatedly purchased but had almost never been able to find or remember in which cranny, nook, or hand of his daughter he had stored them. Lacking much in the way of upper extremities as a result of time he spent in Asia, the intravenous drugs worked best anyway, as even non childproof caps are hard to remove from bottles when you have no fingers.
About the dead man – husband and dad:For some months in the middle of the last century, he took a sabbatical from college to hang out with some new Korean friends (whose language he was mastering) and occasionally pondered what he might do when he grew up / got out of school and service. It seems Georgian cuisine "ranger" not the "cajun" of nearby Louisiana, was not much to write home about. He had been a young, rattlesnake eating military second lieutenant, who leapt out of airplanes and killed Asians at the behest of his government, to keep the world safe from democracy.
After that stint ended, lacking arms and reasonable cognitive skills, the Department of Veteran Affairs never seemed to give a flying fuck/rat\s ass/ [insert favorite here] about his well being. He himself developed a driving obsession of the sort I have noticed in other folks who have experienced serious head injuries, to determine along just which part of the 38th parallel he had mis-placed his two arms, but he got mainly frustration for that, as there were no real answers to give, and I believe they sunk in the Sea of Japan. The GI Bill certainly helped a bit, but leap forward fifty more years with the spirit of Idi Amin alive in Pyongyang, many thousands more deformities and deaths for the kids, and if Johnny got his gun the threat from radioactive fission destruction remains.
Like most health care agencies that I have associated myself with, i.e. under funded public ones, quality of life is not much they can do much about, and tests for vague complaints of shoulder pain are good for a laugh. All told, the shoulder hurt for just shy of 70 months and if the VA medicos were not treating him as a retard with a strained trapezius muscle, they tried the malingering armless man approach. I cannot help but wonder if it was not the fact that spelling and reading hand written medical h&p-s can be so f-ing complex, that all the while they described him as malingering, the VA actually meant to use the word -malignant-, since after just five years of seeking relief, a palpable cue ball size mass became obvious near the site of the pain he had been objecting to for the past five years.
At least at that point they started in with the extra strength Tylenol as apparently some metastasized cancers hurt. Eventually, that dreaded side effect from opiate use, that “euphoria” took over his life, and "haunted" him to the end.
At which point I felt it incumbent upon myself to first locate and then carefully track those dozens of expensive bottles of capsules and tablets to heaven that were strewn about the home. Wouldnot want the roaches or rats nibbling their way into some euphoria pills mom or I might find better use for. It is common to give rats with anti-clotting medicine like warfarin that humans take, but I am almost positive the reasons are different. I am not really sure who would care about the INR of sewer rats, but I know it would be awkward if a human crawled into wall of her home and bled to death.
Back now to the tale of my debilitating disease. The cramping grew increasingly bothersome and visions of electrolyte imbalances danced through my head, as I do in fact enjoy the Sugar Plum Fairy song, and had taken an extra diuretic or two the day before. I so hate it when my feet look fat.
I soon diagnosed myself as having acquired the rare, painful, orphan disease medial aspect foot cramp cancer, that while generally fatal within five to seven decades of the first, often overlooked symptoms, is always painful and limits employment opportunities, except for the one rare but well documented cases of working as a sea kayaking tour guide, the only profession generally suitable for patients with MAFCC. Special kayak construction allows these patients to not burden society, maintain their self esteem, and afford any palliative treatments they may need, or meds they be able to locate only in Mexico.
Bravely, and with but weeks remaining to come to terms with my existence on this mortal coil, I wandered into the kitchen and located one of mom/'s osteopenia preventatives. Without delay I sucked down that Ca ++ supplement and rummaged around the kitchen a bit more searching for anything else that her shrinking memory might have forgotten to remind her to take.
