The little brat comes to heel.

I had my brainiectomy on the 23rd of July, demanded discharge from the hospital on the 25th so I could recover and rest. I had been put on corticosteroids to reduce the swelling in my brain, had been on some morphine for a slight headache, no sleep, no exercise, I was crawling out of my skin like a snake, nothing worked right, and at 4am every morning God’s secretary would tap me
awake and start asking probing questions. One would think he, she, it, would know what time zone we were in.

A week later I had my radiation therapy planning session at Providence Medford Medical Center. After a kind explanation of what needed to be done, Margie and I were left in the linear accelerator room. Ooh! Laser beams, hums, don’t touch signs, DANGER, HOT; I’m an MD, they won’t mind if I poke around. I don the rubber gloves, gotta be careful!, start rifling through drawers, cabinets, the accelerator, quite important that all this stuff works right and doesn’t radiate the wrong part of me if you catch my drift.

Suddenly there was a disturbance in the force, and yikes, worse I was in the grips of a tractor beam. COME!,HERE!,SIT!,STAY!,memorialized commands from Labrador dog training days. I didn’t think that Margie had been listening in. I dutifully assumed my position at her side, took her hand and insightfully noted that it was time to put the little boy away. She wearily replied that she didn’t have the energy or time to deal with a 4 year old now; and didn’t we just pay for a lobotomy?

Later the same day a phone call from number one son to catch up. Dad, you are shouting. You sound like you are on coke. Dad, if you are the only drunk at a party no one else is having any fun. Yikes! I remember those days, some guy full of loudmouth soup bellowing, groping, careening around the room. Everyone else recoiling and in defense mode. Could that be me? Tough love from my kid. That night at dinner my daughter- a fourth year medical student- raises her hand up and says, “dad you are at a 9 and we need you down here at 3", my god, a 62 year old guy with ADHD. I was wearing everyone, especially my wife out. My mind has been on spin cycle with an unbalanced load, alarms ringing for 2 weeks and no way to pull the plug.

Thirty years ago a young women cam to me as a patient with an autoimmune disease that required corticosteroid therapy. She reported back after a couple of weeks that she was going crazy, hadn’t slept, felt like shedding her skin, was driving her family crazy, hurt all over and that this wasn’t working for her. I used all my cultural cues: male, white, eurocentric, christian (in name), scientifically trained in the finest medical institutions to inform her that this medicine was best for her and, well, “toughen up.” She was tough and pushed back and we got her less toxic successful therapy. Now I find myself a whirling Dervish and know of what she speaketh. Sorry, ‘A’ for those painful times. Someone said that stupidity and arrogance cause antibodies, but they are slow to come to proper levels to help. Some of us are innately a little slow too, but I was blind and now I see, perhaps through God’s healing grace.

I’m coming off the corticosteroids and expect a report back from the tough love troop on whether I can be taken out in public yet. The rambunctious behavior coupled to the blue Mohawk created concerns that my wife’s fine reputation, honed here for 28 years, would be irreparably tainted, and the only thing the family could control at the moment was to put Chingachgook back in his childhood haunt.