"Okay, Mom, let's get you to the hospital."
"I'm not going. Please don't make me go, Greg. It's just a nightmare. I don't want to go."
We were in her living room. A Marie Osmond doll glared at me. I guess I was the bad guy for coming over to take Mom in to get her bum leg fixed.
"If it's really bad, they'll just have you put down. Now, come on."
"You joke, but this isn't a funny matter. And my cough is getting worse. Every time I cough, I pee."
"All the more reason to take you in. Let's go."
"In the night I have to go to the bathroom, but my legs are so bad that I can't make it in time so I pee on myself. I have so much pain, and pee, shooting down both legs."
"Right! So, let's..."
"But I don't want to go. Please don't make me. Maybe if I get a good night's sleep. Yesterday Medora fell down and I had to get her up, but we both started slipping until Jerry the handyman just happened to be there to pick us up. He's 78, but he's in good shape. Except for his cancer."
"It's like a Samuel Beckett play over there. Next you'll be dragging your limbless torso through the mud to get to work."
Mom started coughing. "If I could just get rid of this stupid cold."
"Let's just get you to the hospital, Mom, and then we--"
"No!"
"And what if you fall again? It's getting really bad out there."
"So I'll fall. I can just lie in the snow and die. No great loss anyway."
"So let me understand this. Unless you have blood streaming from every orifice, you're not going to go."
The phone rang. "Oh, it's Chris. He's coming over with Taylor."
"Good. Maybe he can help me yell at you."
Mom got up. "I need to change my underwear. Just a minute."
At the hospital, they checked her in and the nurse told her to strip down to her (temporarily dry) underwear.
"Can I leave on my bra?"
"No."
I stood on the other side of the curtain thinking about Freud and wishing I wasn't thinking about Freud. Finally, Mom let me back in. But she needed helping with the laces in the back. I tied them for her, noticing how many raised moles and skin tags she had on her rubicund adiposey skin, and then wishing I would stop noticing things damnit. Then she sat on the side of the bed. And shared her feelings.
"Where are they? This is ridiculous. If they're not here in the next five minutes, I'm leaving. I'm serious. This is ridiculous. This is a nightmare."
"Shhh, Mom. People are dying."
"Don't tell me to lower my voice! If they're not here in the next five minutes, I'm leaving. Give me my purse."
Mom put on lipstick.
"That killed a minute."
"Can you go to the nurse's station and ask them what's taking so long?"
"Are you busy, Mom? Do you have somewhere you have to be?"
"I'm going to get dressed."
"Mom, please..."
The medical student arrived. She chided Mom for self-diagnosing, and then took her findings to the great and powerful doctor who was hiding behind the curtain somewhere. Mom later had an MRI, struggling not to cough inside the tunnel. It looked like she might need back surgery to relieve the nerve damage, and other medical-y stuff. But first things first. Before she went home she demanded I take her to the Wendy's. She ordered a double bacon cheeseburger and a Coke.
"Is that really what the doctor ordered, Mom? Especially for your diabetes...?"
"Oh, shut up," Mom said, mouth full of meat soaked in cola.
"Love you, too, Mom. Love you, too."
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