I remember.
Almost exactly two years ago my family had a REALLY BAD DAY. My Mom busted into my room early in the morning hysterically screaming about terrorists blowing up the World Trade Center. Immediately we all got up and started watching the reports roll in, showing unbelievably horrifying footage. The same thing must have been happening all over America. How could things be worse...
From a few months before my Dad had been complaining about severe stomach cramps, and he believed it to be caused by stress. Everything he tried seemed to have little effect on easing the pains, which worsened with the passing of time. Refusing to go see a doctor, his last efforts were directed toward seeking out Chinese herbalists that might be able to treat his excrutiating pain (if you know my Dad, you know he would rather recieve a swift kick in the nuts, rather than admit to feeling something as trivial as pain!). I could tell things were wrong because the night before, he walked in the door with his pants unbuttoned, leaning on the bannister, saying "Hi Ad", fighting to keep up the appearance of control and strength. Although he was in great pain, he didn't lash out in anger to vent it. He maintained control of himself to the very very last second (sort of like how he likes to wait past closing time to make his way to the register, only after the Costco employees start getting pissed off about it).
Flash back to about 9:00 in the morning. I am summoned upstairs by Mom calling "Adam, Merin, get up here!". My Dad uttered words that chilled me to the soul, the words I never expected to ever hear him say: "Take me to the hospital!". As he said this my father looked like a dying man. His face was jaundiced, eyes bulged out and bloodshot, jaws clamped down fulll force, sweat pouring out of him. He refused to let us summon an ambulance stating "Its going to take too long to get here!".
So we got him into the QX-4 and I hauled full throttle to Fountain Valley Hospital. The whole time he was screaming "Oh F**k, I want you to SHOOT ME!" and other really frightening things of the same vein. We took him to the emergency entrance, and he tried to quickly and accurately explain his condition to the medical personnel.
M.P.: I'm going tell me where the pain is, Mr?
Dad: DR. Yoshida. The pain is in the LOWER LEFT QUADRANT! I think I need about 20 c.c.s of.....
M.P.: Take it easy sir! Folks(to us), we're going to need you to fill out the proper paperwork and wait over there (the small waiting room).
Luckily, my father lived. It turns out that his gallbladder had exploded and turned gangrenous (I'm guessing that this would be due to gas gangrene, the worst of all types of gangrene I think) almost killing him. In other words, it was ROTTEN! I can't imagine what that would be like: In degrees of pain, it must have been past excruciating.
9/11 was a bad, bad day. But I, unlike almost all other Americans, was slightly relieved at the end of the day. My father was finally getting proper medical treatment, and was in stable condition. I slept that night, and it wasn't until the coming of the following days that the magnitude of the attacks finally kicked me in the head.
Comments (1)
you know, I completely forgot about dad's near-death experience until reading your detailed account of 9/11. It was surreal. Dad's ability to suspend rational thinking and desperately try to withstand pain, rather than do what he tells his patients to do ("get it checked out by your doc immediately!", and ignore repeated warning by his physician friends to seek medical care, NOW!", is legendary. It was scary and traumatic. Top that off with sitting by his bed listening to the beep, beep, beep of monitors and the hushed burbles of hospital noises while nurses listened with grave faces to the reports of devastation in New York and watching dispassionately those play by play visuals of jets crashing into the Twin Towers.....it was overwhelming, numbing and beyond words. Merin, you and I called Mika, who cried so hard, we worried about her, too! And then we called Jus. I wondered how hard it was for the two kids who were so far away, to hear about it and not be able to help. It was great for dad and for me to have you and Mer take command and drag dad's writhing, sweaty body down the stairs and throw him into the back of the QX4...and to watch how you could funtion well under all the pressure. Remember how the surgeon came into the waiting room and said, "We had to cut him open because went we went it with the micro-cam, we could see that the gall bladder was blackened with gangrenous tissue, and when we tried to surgically remove it, it exploded! It was rotten and putrifying, so we had to go in between the organs and intestines and vacuume out as much of the diseased stuff as possible! So he'll be in a little pain for the next few days."
Yeah. The next few weeks were hell for him...and us!! And I remember you sitting by his bed saying, "push the button, dad, the morphine is free! Push it, push it!" And he still wouldn't push it because he was strong, dammit, and able to withstand wimpy pain...for an hour! We are fortunate he pulled through and will be even more lucky if he's learned to be wiser about respecting his body's inner wisdom, huh?
Posted by: yomama | September 15, 2003 3:28 AM
Posted on: September 15, 2003 03:28