I’ve been on a bit of a roll this week. I’ve written a few new blogs, most of them shorter than usual. I’m not really sure why I’ve felt like writing so much. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a LOT of time listening to The Tobolowsky Files podcast. It’s an hour long podcast starring Stephen Tobolowsky, who is a character actor you might know as Ned from Groundhog’s Day or the cop in Mississippi Burning. In his podcast he tells stories from his life as an actor. It’s a very quiet and subdued podcast that would probably bore you to sleep if it wasn’t for one very important factor. Stephen is an INCREDIBLE storyteller. He has a way of creating visualization for the listener so that the story really comes to life. I highly recommend it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that listening to his podcast has inspired, as of late, to write more than normal. Anyhow, on to the post!
My Dad has lots of sayings. Most of them are regional colloquialisms that he picked up during his formative years. They are usually humorous, and always informative. Here are a few examples and their meanings:
“That steak could make a chihuahua break a log chain” – This one infers that something is so attractive that it could create an urge so great that if that urge was placed in to a small dog, not even a logging chain could hold him back.
“That girl could make a freight train run a gravel road” – This is used to describe something so unattractive that if a freight train were faced with the possibility of meeting it on the tracks, then the train would rather jump off of the tracks and flee, courtesy of a gravel road.
“You don’t take a Cadillac to a Ford dealer” – This is, perhaps, one of the wisest things he ever taught me. Basically, it means that if you have something important in your life, treat it as such. Only entrust important things to people who know what they are doing. Don’t use amateurs.
However, sometimes I forget. Maybe it’s that I’m too trusting of others to truly ascertain their qualifications. Two stories from my life represent this concept in spades.
In late spring of 2003, Amanda and I were getting everything in order to get married. Part of this process is to acquire a marriage license. So one day we ran over to the courthouse in Brandon, MS on her lunch break. We filled out lots of various forms, showed lots of identification, and we faced with the last step of the process, the blood test.
Now, for this story to really make sense you need to understand my horrific fear of needles. From an early age I have always been terrified of a tiny knife, wielded by some $3 quack, breaking through my skin and forcing God knows what into my body. It doesn’t seem natural. Why can’t I just take a pill or drink some cherry liquid substance? And the process of taking blood is another thing all together. I just can’t fathom that nurse Sally Sue has the necessary acumen to not only shove a metal spike into my arm, but to then use said spike to carefully enter a vein and extract the stuff that keeps my heart beating. See, when you think of it like that it’s like something out of a horror movie.
As an aside: To all you nurses out there please stop trying to prepare me for a shot by describing it as a “little pinch.” That is crap and you know it. If you really want me to respect your bedside manor tell me the truth. “Well Mr. Nolan, I’m going to poke you with this. It will hurt and the thought of cold steel entering your butt cheek will probably make you nauseas for a good half hour. But don’t worry, you won’t even think about the nausea as you’ll likely be concentrating on how drive your car without crashing because your leg is twitching uncontrollably as your butt pulses from the medication.” That I can respect.
Anyway, we take our paperwork down to the finest of currency deficient college student healthcare providers, the free clinic. After surviving the waiting room we skip down to our treatment room. After a few minutes a kindly old nurse wonders in explains what is coming next. Apparently, we were fortunate enough to need blood tests on a new LPN’s first day. Perfect. The LPN joins us in the room and looks like she is about to have a stroke. She is visibly shaking, white as a sheet, and can barely form sentences as she speaks. I bolt up out of my chair in protest. I then explain to the older nurse that there is NO WAY I’m going to play guinea pig for the new girl. My voice cracks as the anxiety level in the room crests. The LPN has tears in her eyes, which will obviously have a negative effect on her vision. This makes the situation worse. I now have nervous Ms. Magoo trying to negotiate a needle into my body? I think not.
Amanda and the older nurse now join forces to try and calm us down. After a few minutes, I agree that I will give her a chance. She brings in a tray containing the syringe and some viles to collect my blood once it starts gushing. I take a few deep breaths as she situates her equipment and puts on her latex gloves. She then fumbles around with a rubber band and straps it to my arm. Once in place, she goes for the needle. Then I heard it. As she picked up the needle, she quietly uttered a very faint “oops” and looked curiously at her hand. As she looks back at me and begins coming at me with the needle I realize what just happened. I SCREAM “HEY, did you just poke yourself with the damn needle? “ She looks horrified as she nods yes. “You were about to stick me with a dirty needle? Are you out of your mind?”
I would like to tell you that I acted graciously during the aftermath, but I can’t. That would be a lie. What ensued was a barrage of verbal attacks. It was not my proudest moment, but she deserved it. We almost shared a needle; the least I could do was share my honest opinion of her mental state. She ran out of the room crying. After a few seconds the older nurse comes in and sternly questions me about why she is so upset. I explain the situation, expecting to hear a meaningful apology. I wanted an Oscar worthy performance. What I got was this: “you should be ashamed of yourself, making that poor girl feel bad about a little mistake.” “LITTLE MISTAKE!” At this point I’m convinced that I’m either taking crazy pills or have enter a dimension of sight and sound known as The Twilight Zone.
The older nurse eventually gave us our blood tests and sent us on our way. In all honesty it was my fault. I didn’t take my Caddy to a Caddy dealer. I went with a very nervous shade tree mechanic instead.
Story two is a little different. During the summer following my sophomore year of college I became addicted to running. I ran every day. Well, after a few months of running and waiting tables, I went back to school as fall rolled around. After convincing some of my friends to join me for a run in the rain one night I felt a twinge of pain in my left leg. It was up near my lower knee and continued to get worse over the next few days. I was convinced that it was shin splints, but to make sure that it wasn’t a stress fracture I visited my friendly school nurse. We joked around and talked as she took a couple of x-rays and sent me back to her office to wait. After about 20 minutes she returned to the office with a completely different demeanor. Her voice trembled as she instructed me to have a seat.
She told me that there was no stress fracture, but there was something that I desperately needed to see. She placed the x-ray up on the wall and switched on the lighted background. There it was. Near the bottom of my leg, just above my ankle was a huge mass covering the bone. She stated that it was likely one of two things. Either a fluid filled sack or a bone tumor. Not fully understanding the impact of my two options I called my parents to inform them that she set me up an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for the following day. During that appointment I met Dr. Smith (not his real name). He seemed like a nice enough guy. He also seemed to be very knowledgeable and professional. He set me up with a round of tests. I would need many x-rays, an MRI, a CT scan, and a bone scan. These would all take place over the course of a couple of days then I would come back to see him for a diagnosis.
I’m a very optimistic person. During this entire process it never entered my mind that I might be in danger. I just saw it as a little problem that would probably end up causing me to have some type of outpatient surgery. The tests were horrible. Most of them took a really long time of sitting perfectly still. The bone scan actually required me to ingest some type of radioactive crap that made me feel a neat combination of nausea with hot flashes. Misery.
I still didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation as we met back up with Dr. Smith to discuss my diagnosis. My parents were there and my brother even flew in to be there. I remember feeling bad that he had wasted money on a plane ticket and rental car just to come and hear that there was a mistake and I would be fine. After waiting for a long time, Dr. Smith entered the room with a mound of paperwork and images. He popped up a few of the images as my family introduced themselves. He was primarily focused on the MRI. I remember that he measured his words carefully, being as efficient as possible, as he pointed out that the MRI showed that one half of the out layer of my tibia was gone throughout the length of the tumor.
Since I didn’t quite get it, he was forced to explain that this most certainly meant that it was malignant. He had no doubt. I even tried to approach the subject of alternatives and he shut me down. I assume that he felt it was the right thing to do; to make sure that I wasn’t confused about what was to come next. He stated that the cancer had most likely spread to the soft tissue of my lower leg. “OK, that sounds bad.” He then gave a prognosis where he explained that the way forward would most likely be to amputate my leg just below the knee. I jumped off of the table and screamed “BULLSHIT! There is no way you are cutting my damn leg off.” My mom grabbed me and pleaded with me not to use bad language. I remember giving her a terrible look that said “Really mom? Really? I’ve just been given some incredibly devastating news and you’re worried about my potty mouth. Did you even hear what he just said? Cancer mom, CANCER! How could you possibly care about my language? Are you afraid that if I curse God won’t protect me? Look around mom, I ain’t feeling very protected, are you? In fact, I’ve never felt more vulnerable and alone. How can you be thinking anything other than ‘OH GOD, not my child?’
Yep, all that with a single look.
I’ve since come to understand why she reacted the way she did. She needed some semblance of control. We all did. We were on a rollercoaster that only seemed to be heading downhill. I tried to gain control by telling Dr. Smith what he would and wouldn’t do. Dad immediately went into provision mode as he made it his personal mission to focus on the details of our new and ominous way forward. My brother did what a brother should do, he cried and hugged me. The weird part was, I wasn’t crying. I was far too angry for that. We left the hospital, each going our separate ways. It wasn’t until I reached the interstate that I began to break down. But mostly I broke down because I would now have to tell Amanda the news. How would she react? Would she run away? If she did, was she justified to do so? And the scariest question: If it were the other way around, would I run away? The thought of my potential weakness if it were her scared me to death that I would have to face this alone.
But, as always, Amanda was there. She loved me. “Oh, that’s what love and commitment is!” The next 20 days were the darkest of my life. I had to drop out of school and move home. Some days, we only cried a little, but those were few and far between. Then my dad tried to give me hope as he explained that some old man from our town had his hip replaced at UAB in Birmingham, AL, and that Dr. X who performed the surgery was some kind of miracle worker. I didn’t want to hear it. I had already gone through so much pain, there was no way I wanted to get a glimmer of hope only to start over with my grief. But he insisted.
So, we piled into dad’s truck and headed to UAB. We had the hospital in MS send over all of our records ahead of time. As we sat in the waiting room, I was understandably cautious. Let dad have his chance and then I can get back to reality. Dr. X from UAB walks in the room and nonchalantly asks me how I’m doing. I don’t even know how to respond. He asks me if I’m scared. I nod. He then confidently states, “Well, don’t be scared, you don’t have cancer.” He said it so fast that I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I asked him to repeat himself. He did. He went on to explain that Dr. Smith had based his entire diagnosis around a picture taken by a piece of crap MRI. He said that my type of tumor was rare, and most orthopedic surgeons would probably go an entire career without seeing one. But he, however, had seen many. He set me up to have an experimental surgery that would have me up and walking in under two months.
I occasionally get gas bubbles in my chest. It is really painful. Then comes the burp. In an instant......relief. This news was a lot like that. It was almost impossible for me to process how instantaneous the relief was, and how everything seemed brighter. I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. I mean visibly brighter. It became almost impossible to look out the window because of this newly found brightness. I could barely speak and make sense. As Dr. X left the room I tried to make a joke that made NO sense whatsoever. In reality, I had no idea what I had just said, or why I said it. I just needed to laugh, to smile, to breathe, and to rest. Grief takes those things from you and you don’t even realize it.
Then, like clockwork, my dad looked at me and said, “and son, that’s why you take a Caddy to a Caddy dealer.”
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