Life in
General...
The last line I wrote in my dad's eulogy was
"...because he was five-ten, hazel eyed, and bulletproof." The same
could be said for my nephew, except his eyes are blue. I often look up to him
and not just because he is an inch taller.
Mike is one of those people that I can't bring
myself to tell him, "I have a headache." At times, Mike lives far,
far beyond the threshold of pain of the average mortal. What makes my heart wrench
is to hear how calm he stays at the checking-into-the-hospital times. The nurse
breaks the news to him. She speaks slowly about what will happen, her tone hushed
and an apocalyptic look upon her face. Mike shrugs and says, "Eh. I've
done this before."
I know, I know. He has undergone this scenario over and over since he was
17 hours and 40 minutes old. A week ago, he celebrated his twentieth birthday. But people were never meant to become used
to the thought of brain surgery.
And it is easy to despise the ER doctors and
nurses when another bout rolls around of almost daily visits to the hospital
for two weeks and repeatedly receiving one misdiagnosis after another. It is not a sinus infection. Nor is it a
migraine. We don't care if the shunt has not moved. We all know what this is.
We have been through it before.
Truth is though that the medical staff is just
doing their jobs and not jumping to the nuclear solution. Besides, how often do
they see someone with a hydrocephalus and Dandy Walker Malformation?
Huh. Yeah.
Mike's tough. He calmly lets them play out the
script until the doctor finally says, "Okay, let's schedule surgery."
I imagine Mike sitting around the hospital ward
like it is the county jail.
Patient One:
"What chu in for?"
Patient Two:
"Migraine." To the next bed he asks, "You?"
Patient Three (whispering): "Laryngitis."
Patient One:
"How 'bout chu, Hardrock?"
Mike:
"This . . ."
Part of me looks at him and cringes, because
that's gotta hurt. Then, there is part
of me that thinks, "Damn, he looks bad ass."
He even mentioned something about going back to
college and work on Monday. The day
after tomorrow!
Bulletproof, man. Bulletproof.
The
Writing and Current Projects...
Nothing today.
I was visiting a sick friend.
Fiction = 0
Blog = 375
Monthly
totals for October 2015...
Fiction = 288
Blog = 2,262
MANUSCRIPT TOTAL COUNTS...
Alaskan
fantasy = 7,310
Missouri horror novel = 3,679
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