Monday, September 10, 2007

Summer of 2006- Catching up

Bobby had a gig down in lower downtown on June 16, a Friday night. Only his third gig as a country western drummer. The band's name was Cars n Trucks. It was a great gig. In the morning, noticing a sharp stabbing in his right side, he got up, got dressed, and headed out to go over Ardis' apartment and get her up, cleaned up, fed, walk the dog, fix her something gluten free, stock all the cupboards with schnapps, and make sure her New Grist stock was full.New Grist is a new gluten free beer. Made with sorghum and rice. Very tasty. Her ceiliac's disease
rash, dermatitis herpitaformis had virtually disappeared. Bobby noticed a tugging sensation in his side. A fullness. Later that day, the tugging feeling turned into a horrible painful feeling like a cramp. He called Tom to ask him if livers could hurt, but Tom thought maybe Bobby had just pulled a muscle. Ardis greeted him as always with a smile, and they talked about how well the little bonsai trees he had bought her were doing. He had gone to a special nursery to buy her 5 mature trees, each no more than 7 inches tall. He made sure she had something or dinner she could stick in the microwave, moved 6 beers from the case to the fridge, and walked the dog one
more time. He always walked the dog first and last because he wouldn't be over here until morning, and the scenario would repeat itself over and over every day. But 10 days later, he came after work, and she hadn't done very well getting to the bathroom. At this point Sharon had bought her 4 sets of sheets, (with Ardis' money from SSDI) and he just made up the bed with a fresh set, and put her soiled ones into a bag to take home. Her mental status being so poor, he did the routine diaper check, and realized he had a daunting task ahead, because she was taking the powerful laxative lactulose every 6 hours for encephalopathy, had made the mother of all messes, and did the best
she could to change herself, but she was not cleaned up, and she needed some serious perenial care in order to not get severely sick. So, he went about the task the best he could and she hollered, and moaned, but he had her bottom spic and span 45 minutes later. While he was cleaning her up, he asked her why couldn't he check into some kind of nursing care for her, but all he got was" don't you have any heart?". This was repeated for 4 days in a row. Even the daunting perenieum. 6 months ago this would have been so strange but she was malliable like his
daughter when she was a toddler. In fact he imagined it was San Diego back in 85 when Kelly was in diapers, same concerns, the irony was heavy. He could see that she had not been drinking very much of anything including beer or water in the last 3 or 4 days, really since they had successfully taken her up to golden gate park for a picnic, and he tugged her skin, and it didn't spring back very fast, and he looked into her eyes, and they looked a dull grey instead of the normal Santa Catalina Island blue. He thought, she is dehydrated, and asked her if he could take her to the ER, and she relented and said yes. He got on the cell phone and called the non
emergency number, and asked them if they could send fire rescue to get his sick friend to University hospital, but he didn't want them to come lights and sirens, and risk lives by doing so. They came and took her to the hospital. Bobby quit drinking cold turkey then, that 4th of July. in the morning in front of brother Jeff's house as the moving van was being packed to the gills,
someone offered him a cold beer. He declined and the smell of it made him nauseated. Later that day, having left the movers to be back in the ICU with Ardis, he took the elevator down to the gift shop. The floor felt like it was heaving under his feet. He got back on the elevator with Big Red in his clutches,
BIG RED
and as the elevator doors closed he had a thought. Shit! I caught up to her! How could I have caught up to her? He knew after that that his worst fear had come true.
Ardis in the ICU JULY 2006
He had caught up to her. On the 4th of July 2006, I was completely inflamed with alcoholic hepatitis, superimposed over the chronic scarring. He had caught up to her, but not now, long ago. Those severe nosebleeds the November before Ardis had moved out, where he came home looking like someone who had been stabbed, covered with dried blood. He had started bleeding at a work thanksgiving dinner party, and struggled for over an hour to get his nose to stop bleeding. That was a sign he had missed until now, 6 months later, he was having bloody stools. Every day. Bobby went to see his doctor a week later, and told her that he had caught up to Ardis. It would be 5 months later, two ct scans, a hyda scan, two ultrasounds, one EDG and finally a laproscopic cholesystectomy with a liver biopsy before it went on paper. And the wild ride began.

No comments: