A Night In The Hospital...

This Lunatic was just released from a hospital yesterday.

Well, maybe not "released", as what happened was that I went to a hospital, and once I felt better I demanded they let me out, but you get the idea; I was in the hospital overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday morning.

The first thing I'd like to say is "Thank You" to the staff at Staten Island University Hospital. You folks do a bang-up job, and probably never get any credit for it. Especially when you have to deal with the world's worst patient (i.e. Me), although the part where you woke me up from a sound, bed-wetting slumber in order to give me a sedative still sorta-kinda mystifies.

A Trip Through My Mailbox, Part IV…

Okay, it is now time to go over some reader mail, which I haven’t done for some time recently, mostly because there’s been such a paucity of such. I like to do this from time to time, if only because it is my (self-appointed) task to let the seven or eight of you who read this regularly to know just what sort of knuckle-dragging, gap-toothed moron has been given access to a computer in these here United States.


We start with an oldie-but-goodie. Someone named MomAgainAtXX (the 'XX' is to keep you from knowing her age, or trying to look her up) has just found this classic blog entry, and is quite disturbed by it (I can't believe people are still responding to this, but the New York Times keeps directing them here!).

She wants to know how my mother is doing, and is concerned that the woman is in danger if left alone with me, because I seem to have it out for her. To which I might reply, "Mind your own business, bitch!”, but for those who might be genuinely interested, here it goes:


The Old Warhorse is six months past her knee replacement surgery. She has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 pounds, because I feed her properly. Her brilliant Surgeon at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases has recommended that she cease the twice-weekly physical therapy because she has made tremendous and better-than-expected progress. Mom is certainly more mobile and pain-free these days, but no less annoying.

Now that we’ve corrected the problem with a bum knee, it’s time to move onto that abrasive and annoying personality of hers. I’m seriously contemplating suing the therapist she’s been seeing for the past 25 years, because if anything, my Mother is an even bigger Lunatic than I am. She is either the most persistent OCD/Anxiety Complex/Narcissist/Clinical Depression case in the annals of medical history, or someone has just been taking the piss out of her and not caring whether these complexes ever get fixed or addressed. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

And no, MomAgainAtXX, I haven’t shot her, but I should have…years ago. I would have saved myself the aggravation of last night’s -- twice weekly -- encounter:

Mother: (puffing mightily, as if having just completed a marathon, after ascending the 14 steps to enter the house. The point is that I’m supposed to feel sympathy, as if the trek was a trial upon her surgically-repaired-and-better-than-ever knee. She stands at the door, apparently trying to get my attention, sighing and making guttural noises).

Me: (Not paying her any mind, watching TV, because I KNOW WHAT’S ABOUT TO COME OUT OF HER CAKEHOLE…)

Mother: You’re not putting the garbage out?

(I'm About to throw something in her direction because the garbage collectors won’t be here for another 14 hours and this is the second time today I’ve been reminded that garbage has to go out, despite the fact that I put it out every Goddamned Sunday. She’s obsessed with garbage and appearances, as this is the only house on the block that hasn’t put it’s garbage pails out 14 hours before the truck arrives and this greatly bothers her, playing upon all her exigent neuroses:

The garbage needs to go out, but she’s not going to do it because that might require an effort. The longer it sits in the pails, the more upset she becomes, and the fact that the garbage has not been put out WILL keep her awake all night. And because we’re the only house on the block that hasn’t put its garbage out a day early, it gives the appearance that there must be something wrong with us: we’ve bucked the trend, failed to follow the herd, we’ve fucked up the neighborhood symmetry, whatever.

Just know that I hear about garbage at least four times a day, and in an imperative tone that implies Galactic Doom should it not be ready 12 hours in advance of pickup. The Earth might fall off it's axis if the recycleables are not thrown out in a clear plastic bag, like the Sanitation Regs require, or if the trash cans have crud stuck to them, as this is an embarassing example of lack of attention to appearances. Welcome to My Hell).

Again with the garbage? Get a hobby, please?

(Mother exits, Stage Right).

Here’s the kicker, MomAgainAtXX: thanks to changes in the Social Security rules, I’m stuck with this maniac for another year as she can’t support herself -- this will be the SECOND TIME my mother will be relying upon me as her source of support -- and when her disability insurance runs out this summer she won’t be eligible for Social Security, being only 66 years of age this August. Check back with me in another year to see if she’s still alive then.

And keep your tut-tutting to yourself. I don't particularly care what you think. If I were a terrible son, I would have kicked this albatross around my neck to the curb long ago. She's more trouble than she's worth.

On a Mission of Mercy...

The Lunatic will be unvailable until this weekend, as he is on a Mission of Mercy (details to follow in a post). Stay tuned!

Your ObamaCare Future...

Four postponements. Institutionalization. Poor nutrition, and despite government-provided dental care, a set of teeth one would be embarrassed to show in public on anything but a nag horse. Oh, and a dead person who maybe shouldn't be dead. Great healthcare system they've got there in Britain.

You just have to love the following typically-libtard-ed quote. I can imagine it being delivered with that famous British stoicism and stiff upper lip:

'We were given the very sad news and as word spread it threw a pall over the civic dinner. Margaret was much loved and respected in this town.'

Yep, don't you just hate it when your Civic Dinners have a pall cast over them? Rather takes away from one's enjoyment of the Stilton and Port.

Now, I'm not saying this woman would have lived had she been given the advantages of the American system, or at least, what's left of it. But you have to wonder why it is that a presumably-vital surgery can be postponed four times, why there is no inquest, and why the family of this poor woman is left to wonder "what if...", or worse, left wondering "Why?" and apparently getting no answers from officialdom.

Could this happen in America? Sure it could. Would it be commonplace, though? Hell no. Why? Because six seconds after this woman expired, ther would be a battalion of lawyers talking lawsuit, a local TV or newspaper reporter looking to make his/her bones on the story, and a grandstanding politician or two to pollute the airwaves with inane nonsense that would still have the effect of at least getting someone in that hospital to take a look at their methods and procedures to ensure that everything was done to the best of everyone's ability.

It's called a 'Free Market', and even though the involvement of a reporter, a politico and an ambulance chaser would, at first blush, seem to have nothing at all to do with whether or not a woman gets an operation, they, in fact, DO. They are part of the auxiliary to the System which keeps healthcare providers honest, and even if they would have failed to keep this particular woman alive, their actions would have had the effect of ensuring better care for those who come after her in similar circumstance. Free Markets are about more than just the transfer of money from one hand to another. Read some Adam Smith and Freidrich Hayek if you don't believe me.

Personally, I hate (in ascending order of repugnance) reporters, politicians and lawyers, but even a study of basic biology will reveal that parasites can often serve a useful function, without even knowing it.

Because the National Health System in Britain is government-run, it cannot be sued when someone fucks up, and requests -- even from bereaved family members -- for information can be problematic if not damned-near impossible endeavors. The System investigates and audits itself, which is to say that the government investigates and audits itself, and so there is little motivation to be honest about costs, results, statistics, goals or conditions. The bureaucrats who run the System have no interest in letting anyone knows how it operates, because if the general public did know the truth, these assholes would have to find other jobs, and let's face it; no one pays as well and expects as little as The Government (any government) does.

This is what's headed your way, whether it's Canada's infamous 10-month waiting list for the Maternity Ward, or Britain's onerous "We've only budgeted for 1,000,000 emergency appendectomies this year. Unfortunately, you're Number 1,000,002, please come back on January 1" standard, or Holland's "Why should we fix your leaky heart valve? You're 84, for Chrissakes! Have you thought about Euthanasia and medical marijuana?" routine.

It sounds like (and I have no evidence to back this up whatsoever) they shuffled this woman from one ward to another over a series of weeks or months, while some nameless, faceless bureaucrats, actuaries and accountants discussed whether or not it was a worthwhile investment to save her life.

So much for being loved and respected in the community.

The sooner ObamaCare is defunded the safer -- and healthier -- we'll all be. We'll at least have the choice about whether we have a surgery or not.

Welcome Smartsilvers.com Readers...

Been a lot of you coming here for the last four months or so, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say hello, and thanks for stopping by...and mind your own business.

Of course, you're all here to read the same four-months-old post, and judging from the e-mail that it still continues to generate, it would seem that you're all shocked...shocked...that someone would say such horrible things about his own mother without having a clue as to our family dynamic,or history. A few have expressed concern for her safety, and some, mostly you Asian twits -- who have come here from that Lady in Singapore's blog which linked to the original post, which will get no traffic from me -- want to know what the fuck is wrong with me that I show such blatant disrespect for my own mother. This would never happen in Singapore/China/Japan/Korea, et. al.

Well, this here is America, not the Orient (I don't care if that term is Eurocentric, I'm fucking using it).

Here's the news: My mother is still alive, despite being the biggest pain in the ass since that (in-)famous Englishman (who's name I cannot be bothered to look up) was executed at the Tower of London by having a red-hot iron poker rammed up his Poop Chute. She is well, and no, I haven't beaten her to a bloody pulp...yet...and -- probably -- never will. So you can stop saying novenas for her safety. She is not liable to meet her untimely demise at the hands of an ungrateful son.

That post is what we refer to in the trade as SATIRE. It's actually not very far from the truth, but still satire all the same. Your generation (and just which generation is that, anyway? How many of you went to school with King Tut, John The Baptist or Atilla the Hun? Show of hands?) has the unfortunate habit of believing everything you read without engaging your (rapidly-fading) critical thinking skills. You figure that if it wasn't completely, literally true then no one would bother to write it down.

What I really enjoy -- other than the indignation of old folks who have little time left on this Earth but choose to spend their last, waking breaths questioning my sanity -- is the palpable fear that's contained in those e-mails. Now, when I say this, I don't mean that I actually get off in some sexually-perverted way on your fear, just that it's interesting to note just how frightened many of you are at the thought of your children completely abandoning you just as you begin to enter your Terminal Incontinent Stage, and think I've just given then a How-To-Manual on how to treat a sick parent,or a Permission Note to mistreat you.

Apparently, this is a common worry amongst the Lived-Longer-Than-They-Ever-Deserved-To-and- Collected-More-In-Social-Security-Than-They-Ever-Paid-Into-It demographic. Yeah, I know: you're entitled. You fought Hitler.

If I have to explain it again:

1. My mother is not, and never was, circling the bowl. She only had a knee replacement and is/was in no immediate danger of dying, unless she took a header down a flight of stairs. However, she was never left alone, and had no intention of ever approaching a staircase in her condition.

2. She pissed me off with her incessant whining, so I blogged about it. Then again, she's been pissing me off with her constant and ungrateful whining for 44 years now, so I can't imagine why I waited so long. Even at that, I was here, taking care of her. People who have no class, empathy, or sense of obligation don't do things like that. Like my sister who only lives eight blocks away and couldn't be bothered to do more than make a daily phone call, and my brother who might as well be on the side of a milk carton. More people have seen Bigfoot than have seen my brother in the last three years. Got anything to say about those ungrateful and disrespectful children? Didn't think so: they don't blog, after all.

You should read all the e-mail I got from 'kindred spirits' (i.e. other children taking care of sick parents) that ran the gamut from 'I hear ya! These old folks suck!' to 'Do you think I should ask the doctor to give Dad a Hot-shot and just be done with it?' Now you tell me, just how bad was my post, or my actions on my mother's behalf? Compared to some of those lunatics, I'm a friggin' saint.

If this fear preys on your mind in your final days, instead of worrying about me and my mother, you should start worrying about what kind of monster you've raised, or perhaps start making amends for having been a rotten parent before it's too late.

By the way, my mother will eventually die so poor she won't even be able to pay attention, let alone her bills in years to come. So I certainly didn't do it to get a bigger piece of the inheritance, as some of you have suggested.

3. She received the absolute best of care that I could provide. I fed her, washed her, changed her dressings, administered her medications, saw to her comfort and otherwise fufilled every whim, wish and need, no matter how fucking stupid, time-consuming, retarded, unnecessary, or annoying. I've done the research: in at least seven states, the kind of crap she pulled would have been grounds for justifiable homicide. I paid for all the Visiting nurses she needed, and have paid for physical therapy twice a week for the last two months.

4. I warn everyone who comes here that they're liable to be offended. I don't care if I offend people because, believe me, no one gives a shit if they offend me. Those of you still following the New York Times link were warned by the author of that post that you would probably be offended. You are owed no apologies, and since most of you asking for one (why?) will soon be dead, anyway. Good luck getting one.

5. The absolute LAST thing I need is to be lectured to by complete strangers. Especially ones who apparently don't understand what they read, or who rub hemorrhoid cream into their hair because they had 'A Senior Moment' only three minutes earlier, and then get on the computer.

6. I DO NOT HATE THE ELDERLY. Only the whiny old bastards who won't help save their country the cash and finally let slip this mortal coil, already. In fact, I only wish every goddamned day that my grandparents were still here, because they were the only people who ever gave me any guidance, or who talked any horse sense. My mother, incidentally, will only be 65 this August, so technically, she's not elderly at all. She just behaves as if she is.

7. Yes, I use a lot of foul language. Like you never have in the 3,000 or so years you've walked the Earth? Just deal.

Other than that, I'm happy to see you. Enjoy your (unfortunately brief) stay.

ObamaCare in Microcosm...

Don't they have fucking NyQuil in Britain?

This is your future if ObamaCare is not repealed, and if genuine, real, needed reforms of the Nation's Healthcare system continue to be delayed by politics, sloganeering and posturing.

Nationalized healthcare systems do not work for the simple reason that supply and demand can never be adequately judged by nameless, faceless, anonymous, parochial bureaucracies given the contradictory missions of providing the Best for the Least, with no penalties whatsoever for abject failure in this endeavor.

After all, how do you punish a Government Ministry? What does bankruptcy mean to them? Unemployment? Personal ruin? It's the government, and it has the resources (it takes them as it needs them, you know) to reinforce it's failures -- often to the point of complete lunacy.

You need a free market system to do these things. Only a free market system can do them.

Otherwise, you get a hospital system that is bursting at the seams because of the fucking flu.

Here in New York, we pretty much all catch the flu beginning in December and hold onto it until March or April, picking up all sorts of other viruses and infections along the way, and somehow, civilization doesn't come to a screeching halt, nor are the hospitals stuffed to overflowing with people who should be home eating chicken soup and watching I Dream of Jeannie re-runs on the couch in their Snuggies.

The secret weapons in our arsenal? NyQuil and Tylenol Cold and Flu.

Here endeth the lesson.

Barking Up The Wrong Tree...

A few weeks ago, I posted a rant about the trials and tribulations of caring for my mother after major surgery. By some trick of fate, that post became a cause celebre amongst a certain set, and the next thing you know, I'm being interviewed by the New York Times. The gist of the post was that my mother was a pest, and I was merely pointing out that professional caregivers probably do not get the accolades or respect they are due. Because if given the choice between setting myself on fire and having to care for a crazy woman with a martyr complex and an insatiable need for sympathy again, I'll be the guy in the street with the gas can and Zippo.

That post has brought me a lot of attention; not only have I gotten offers to write freelance humor pieces because of it, but I have somehow become the guru of choice for exasperated and desperate people who seem to think that I'm some kind of authority on how to take care of difficult parents. I must be -- I was in the New York Times, you see.

Here's a sample of my mailbox, every day, for the last five weeks (and liable to continue because people are still coming in to read the original):

"Hey Matt, read your story, great! But, I was wondering if I might get your advice. See, Dad is 86, and has trouble controlling his bowels..."

"Could you please tell me what I should do? I'm almost at the end of my rope..."

"...you may joke about killing your mother, but I'm thinking of killing myself...."

"Mom no longer recognizes us. There's nothing in her eyes, anymore. She just looks at us "strangers", and tears run down her cheeks. She's lost, confused, and frightened, and there's nothing we can do about it. How did you communicate with someone in this state? Please help!"

"...waiting for the inevitable is worse. I may be a bad son for saying this but this bedside vigil stuff is for the birds. I wish she would go already, and let the rest of us get on with our lives. What do you think of that?"

That's on a GOOD day. The rest of the time, it's people who want to regale me either with their (ultimately) pointless feel-good stories, that always end with: "hang in there, buddy!", or scold me for being such a heartless, insensitive pig.

In one of those mysteries of human nature and the inner-workings of the brain, different people somehow manage to read the same thing, but come away with different interpretations. I don't know how this happens, but a simple internet post managed to become:

1. A Professional Credential; I am now qualified to speak on all matters pertaining to Elder Care, or at least, some people think I am. Whenever I remind people that I know absolutely nothing about this subject, beyond my own experiences, it does not seem to register. The Times would not have given me the time of day, otherwise, they think. I can make no appeal to logic, cite no example, make no point, that is not summarily ignored because folks want to believe that I'm going to solve their problems with impossible parents, or help them through the slow agony of waiting for a loved one to die.

Sorry, but I'm not your man. I don't do sympathy (except for children and dogs). I can empathize with some of you, to a certain extent, but I don't have any answers for you, nor do I share your pain. I can't counsel you on whether or not it's good idea to have the doc give Mom a "hot shot", or pull the plug on her. I really don't want to hear about your ancient father's bathroom habits and how they annoy you.

Also, I don't really give a crap about your life story. While I'm certain that your childhood memories of Sunday picnics, baseball games and fishing trips, hold some sentimental value to you, they hold none for me. Why it's necessary to write your autobiography before you get around to the question of "so, do you think it's okay to leave Dad alone for a couple of hours a day while I get coffee and do my shopping, so long as I lock him in his room?" baffles me.

First off, I don't care what you do with your father, so long as you aren't hurting him or plotting his demise. Otherwise, it's not my concern. I have my own problems, thank you. Staple him to the wall while you go about your business, if that's what you think you need to do, but don't think I'm encouraging or excusing that sort of thing. I'm getting the impression that people who think this way don't want advice so much as they want someone to justify their questionable behavior or thought processes. You think I'm bad with what I wrote? I'm getting e-mail from people who would lock an elderly person in a closet, consider leaving them in the care of young children while they go off and gallivant, or who just might chain their mother to a radiator so that they can go to Starbucks, or take in a movie. Considering how many admonitions I got, I wonder what my detractors would have to say about these people?

Secondly, I'm not giving you any eldercare advice, anyway -- I'm not qualified to do that, after all -- so save yourself some typing and possible Carpal-Tunnel.

2. Proof that I am The Biggest Jerkoff on Planet Earth; and this on a planet that I am forced to share with the likes of Al Gore, Barack Obama, LeBron James, Tom Brady, Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, and the cast of Jersey Shore? I'm a bad person with no sense of shame or decency, who was disrespectful to his mother, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some are shocked that such a respectable publication like the New York Times (I wonder how respectable it is now that Krugman pretty much shit all over it reputation this past week) would give me any publicity, and I must be a morally-reprehensible person.

"Oh and by the way...", my super-sensitive respondents will always add, and then it comes: paraphrased " I'm a much better person than you", and then they cite some long-winded and totally disconnected example of their superior powers of "caring". Fuck you and the horses you all rode in on. People like you are almost as bad as the insufferable douchebags who think being able to quote Scripture makes them better than everyone else, and assures their place in Heaven.

Everyone has different ways of coping with things. Everyone has differing levels of patience and tolerance. Those of you with incredibly high levels (perhaps you are high to begin with?) of both should take this piece of advice from me:

Everyone else secretly hates you. We normal people, the ones with normal emotions --not you Bizzarro Vulcans -- we seriously think of killing you. Sometimes, some of us actually get together and discuss how we're going to do it, so as to get as many of you as possible in one fell-swoop. We figure we'll start with the ones who can't shut the fuck up about how much better they are than anyone else so that the rest will get the message and lay off.

3. The biggest mistake you can ever make as a blogger is to directly answer somebody's e-mail. Unless you absolutely have to. I have lost count of how many I have answered (badly) on this topic, but it seems that there's a percentage of people who write to you who don't want answers as much as they want a dialogue; they just want to talk to you. More like AT YOU. A good many of them don't even bother to consider what's been written back, because they'll respond in a repetitive manner, asking the same questions over-and-over, or making the same points in repetition. A good number are simply thrilled that someone answered them, at all.

The messages I truly despise are the "kindred spirit" e-mails, the "oh yes, I know all about that...don't have to tell me! I know exactly what you're going through..." routine. Suddenly, a complete stranger and I have some deep and meaningful connection because we have had an (arguably) similar experience. At least they like to think so, and these folks, too, want a dialogue. A one-sided dialog, usually. They wear out the "I" key on their keyboards, I'll bet. If I had the ability to wish people like you out of existence, I most certainly would.

Only slightly worse are the pathetic cases who ask me out on dates, because we have the common experience of taking care of a sick and difficult parent. This gives us a bond, they tell me, so any potential relationship would be starting out on a strong foundation, and we'd have something to talk about (and some of you, really, put your clothes back on!). In psychology, I think they would liken this to the formation of a Trauma Bond, a situation wherein two people who have shared a, usually horrific, experience -- experienced it at the same time, together -- form a partnership wherein they look almost exclusively to each other for support, encouragement, safety, security, and so forth. Each sees the other as "the only one who understands what you've gone through", and is therefore, the only reliable person in your little world.

The problem with Trauma Bonds is that they usually disguise or mingle with other mental issues; people develop co-dependence issues, they withdraw from the rest of the world, there may be self-esteem issues involved, and they may develop damaging or even dangerous repetitive behaviors if the bond becomes the central focus of their lives. People in Trauma Bond situations certainly have trouble forming relationships. People exhibiting this behavior have even been known to plan, and carry out, murder-suicide pacts, believing they are helping each other deal with their pain.

Yeah. I need a woman like this like I need a hole in the head. I don't care how much money you have, how many liquor stores you own, what you can do with your tongue, or how many of your girlfriends will watch/join in. Been there, done that, vis-a-vis crazy bitches. No thanks.

So, let's recap for the retarded amongst you:

A) No, I am not an expert on Eldercare. Never was, never claimed to be. If you need advice, seek professional help; I'm liable to tell you things you don't want to hear, that won't work, or which might put evil thoughts in your head.

B) I write what I write. I usually never apologize for it (why should I?), and I'm not particularly concerned about whether some of you like it or not, nor am I concerned about your personal opinion of yourself, or your exploits in eldercare. You're probably a douche in real life, and lying to me anyway, just to present yourself to the rest of the world as something you're not because you have serious self-esteem issues. Get psychiatric help.

C) No, I'm not dating you because we've both cleaned a bedpan once. Stop sending me photos (unless you're actually hot, of course). No, I don't want a relationship with some chick who's already scheduling our nuptuals around Mother's funeral, and Father's next round of radiation treatments.

This has certainly been a learning experience for me.

Update: If you need help dealing with issues surrounding the care of an elderly, or seriouisly ill family member, please check out www.thefamilycaregiver.org. They have the resources and expertise to help you through what is a difficult and stressful time for all involved.

Because Even Morons Can Sometimes Learn to Use A Computer...

A few weeks ago, I attained a (very) small measure of internet fame with this post on my mother's post-operative recovery. The original blog post was linked to in the New York Times Healthcare blogs, and beyond the "Holy shit! I'm really in the New York Times!" period of absolute shock, I didn't give much thought to it afterwards.

But,there's still an absolute ton of people following that Times post back to my blog, which means it's probably still rather popular, and so I decided to see what people were saying in the comments section over there. Idle curiosity, and all that. Two particular comments jumped off the page, and should be addressed here for entertainment's sake.

The first one:

It figures that a systems programmer would feel especially overwhelmed by this task. They tend to be systematic thinkers rather than empathizers. There's no program you can write or system you can invent to solve these kinds of problems. His main coping technique is useless. No wonder he's losing it so badly.

Spoken like someone who probably has a shelf full of dusty-and-unused Self-Help books, and who believes that Dr. Phil's brand of McDonald's Drive-through psychology is exactly what the world needs more of. Actually, I was not overwhelmed by the task of providing care; the feeding, bathing, arranging pillows parts were not that difficult. No, the difficult part came about because my mother is a raving lunatic. I happen to know this, because I have first-hand experience of her vast array of mental disorders which begin with clinical depression, take a long detour through OCD, with a little sightseeing at the Monument to Narcissism, and finally come to a screeching halt at Anxiety Complex.

After my initial phase of discomfort with having to do things which one would rather not do, if given the choice -- like injecting your mother with a daily dose of blood thinners (in the stomach) which might actually kill her without great care being taken, or washing a parent who is quite capable of doing so herself but decides that the opportunity to play helpless victim is too great an opportunity to pass up for the sake of garnering pity and sympathy -- the actual "doing" part of the process becomes quite easy, if repetitive and annoying.

The issue, which this particular commenter missed because she was in a rush to pontificate about what a superior douche she is, is that beyond a certain point, it's not about medical necessities; it's about milking the situation so as to scratch the itches of her own neuroses. If she doesn't call my name out and have me respond every 20 minutes, she's afraid I've packed my bags and left her alone. If I do respond, then there had better be something for me to do, because otherwise, she'll have to answer that most basic of questions"What did you want?", and have no answer for it. If she doesn't have a reason to have called me beyond this fear and anxiety, and she doesn't have a medically-necessary reason for calling me every 20-minutes, then she must invent one to avoid looking foolish or pissing me off, because Narcissists do everything short of murder to avoid looking foolish.

Once the initial list of necessary "must do's" quickly exhausts itself, she must invent another list of "must do's" which have absolutely no connection to her health, immediate comfort, or necessity, but are intended to ensure that I'm not leaving her alone, or which play to her selfishness and compulsions; hence, "when you get a chance, go chop the hanging branches off that tree outside", or "as long as you're up, would you check to see if there's any canned peas in the pantry", when she knows damned well there aren't. And that's when the branches and the canned peas, or lack thereof, don't actually consume her every waking thought, because my mother is a compulsive worrier over the pettiest of details (that's the OCD talking).

It's not about her needing me to take care of her as much as it is her needing me to take care of all the stupid bullshit that keeps her up at night because she's a crazy woman with far too much time on her hands and no distractions. She's been seeing "professionals" about this for over 20 years, and it doesn't seem to have helped any. Either she's an extremely rare case, or psychiatry is bullshit.

And no, my 'coping mechanism' is not to systematize or write a computer program; it's to vent, usually with humor that could be considered 'dark'. This is a far sight better than my old 'coping mechanism' which was to drink...heavily (I was the best goddmaned functioning alcoholic you ever did see!) , or my even more-primordial 'coping mechanism', which was to punch someone in the fucking face because my goddamned fuse was so short, and I was probably drunk, too.

Then there was this gem, most-likely written by someone with a permanent menstrual cycle, and a community-college degree;

Nothing against the frustrations that family caretakers experience on a daily basis-- I am 24 and have not yet experienced it, but as a child, I watched my parents deal with my grandparents' declining health--and yes, I understand that it is immensely difficult. But I have a pretty serious issue with this piece, and it is this: Why is a respectable publication like this one giving any sort of publicity AT ALL to an angry, small-spirited man whose writings you openly admit "include offensive references to an array of groups and institutions, including various immigrant groups, unions, the giant bank that was his former employer and the entire third world?" Especially one whose name we are not given? What ever happened to credible references and sources?Roman Polanski, Mel Gibson, and "Matt N.," ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing displeasure-- who cares what they do, as long as they keep entertaining us?

Well, as it was explained to me, the reason why the Times "gave" me publicity was because I had given voice to an opinion and viewpoint that the Times would normally not present. Now, if you accept the validity of anything the Times has to say on any subject, then you have to accept that it has an obligation, the right, and even a responsibility, to make public opinions which you might find angry, small-spirited and offensive. That's what newspapers DO, after all, or are supposed to. If you want to be protected from the opinions and thought processes of other people, I suggest you find a nice tent in the Mojave, lose the cellphone, television, and laptop, and assiduously avoid all human contact.

As for "credibility", just because the Times didn't use my last name (something I specifically asked them not to do), it doesn't make me any less credible, nor does it make my opinions/views any less valid. News organizations routinely make use of "unnamed sources" or "sources speaking on condition of anonymity", and I wonder if you call the validity of their views and facts into question? Or is it simply views and facts that you disagree with or find distasteful that aren't "valid"?

I think I already know the answer to that question; it was contained in the first sentence of your reply, when you said "I am 24".

I'm thinking that's pretty close to your I.Q., as well, Sweetcheeks. Hopefully you have big breasts and know what to do with your tongue, so that some man will come along and relieve you of the responsibility of having to take care of yourself.

Otherwise, the responses were mostly supportive, sympathetic, or along the lines of "Goddamn, I wish I had the balls to say that!"

I've said it before, and I shall reiterate for those who may have missed it: I really don't give a Tinker's Turd for what anyone thinks of me. I know who and what I am, and I'm pretty happy with it, and don't feel the need to show my soft-squishy-feminine side to every asshole who demnds or expects to see it. If I were a heartless bastard incapable of empathy, I wouldn't have been at my mother's bedside. That, somehow, always goes unnoticed and unremarked, because people who want to give an opinion without thinking it through are legion. The point was to screech something that makes them feel as if they are superior human beings, possessed of more 'empathy' and 'caring' then everyone else.

They are the Saints, you see, The Special Ones, the Light-Bringers, Our Moral Superiors, and the rest of us are shit on their shoes. I have taken the time, and wasted the bandwidth, to point out the glaring idiocy and logical inconsistencies in these replies, not because I had to, but because there is some slim hope that having had your stupidity identified for you, you might be able to the necessary take steps to correct your issues and, therefore, lead a productive and happier life. You don't have to thank me for it, either, and just in case you haven't learned your lesson and will persist in your fatuity, then you can go expletive-deleted yourself.

(because a couple of people were upset with the language,too)

F*ck Feelings...

A new blog (in the sense that I'd never heard of it before), is F*ck Feelings.

Thanks to Conservative in The Closet for turning me on to this. It's not only a laugh riot, but it leads me to believe that if only more so-called Mental Health Professionals were as blunt, direct and honest with their patients, there'd be less mental health issues, and we could take 500 or so ersatz despression "cures" -- the ones that will only merely delay,or perhaps even expedite your eventual suicide -- off the market. It might even reduce healthcare costs.

I'm adding F*ck Feelings to the blogroll.

And speaking of C-in-C, you really should stop by her site, too. Because she's fucking brilliant!

Snowbound!

There is approximately 3 feet of snow outside the front door this morning. I don't think it actually snowed that much, but the wind has piled drifts that high just about everywhere. I can see no cars on the street;the streets are unplowed, and the parked cars are buried except for little bits of color, or perhaps a side-view mirror sticking out of the drifts.

I was just saying to my nephews on Christmas Day, that it would be a good idea to rent a snow-blower from the local tool rental in anticipation of this storm, so that we could spend the first day afterwards making a killing on driveways and walkways, but they had no enthusiasm for the project, and then I didn't get the chance to actually put the plan into action. Now I'm kicking myself: the opportunity to make several hundred dollars (cash!) this day has gone right out the window.

I wish Al Gore were here right now so that I could push his face into the snow. I'd grab him by the back of his toupee, and hold his head inside a drift, and yell "What was that about global warming, Fuckface!? Huh? What was that about fucking polar bears?" Then I'd bitchslap him a few times and send him home crying to his mother. After I took his lunch money.

Oh, and speaking of mothers...

Mine was in rare form last night. She's one of those people upon whom television actually works. Let me explain that; if there's an announcement of impending holocaust transmitted over the airwaves, she'll buy it, hook, line and sinker. There will be no personal analysis of the information, no thought given to it's veracity, no attempt to put the announcement in context, no need to go to a different source to verify this or that stated "fact", no critical thinking skills involved, whatsoever. If it was on television, it must be true, and cannot be argued against.

And so it was that last night's overwrought, overdone wall-to-wall weather reporting which would have had you believing the Earth was entering a new Ice Age, worked it's fear-mongering magic upon her. (Just why is it that every local TV station must do this? They interrupt normal programming to give you an over-the-top, fear-injected five-hour weather report -- with other assholes in parkas and microphones standing at strategic locations to tell you how the bread lines are at the supermarkets -- to tell you what you already know: It's snowing outside...a lot).

I happened to be out last night. My friends are in New York from Britain for the holidays, and I haven't seen them for over a year. In fact, I barely get to see any of my friends, at all. They all live in different cities, states, and even countries. A little thing like a snowstorm wasn't keeping me home. Besides, this is New York; unlike most other places that either completely shut down in a snowstorm, or where complete pandemonium breaks out after a light dusting, we New Yorkers can deal with snow. Even two feet of it with 60-mph winds. If you can't, you're a pussy.

Get yourself some boots, dammit.

So, there I am, getting ready to enjoy a lovely evening, with lovely people, and...mother keeps calling their hotel room. She managed to get through twice, but that's only because the first three times she tried she had the wrong number. The Television Weather Report had achieved it's goal of making a winter snowstorm (like they never happen?) seem like the Apocalypse. Mom is now worried that I won't be able to get home, and every minute that goes by brings more dire and dreadful predictions and pronouncements from the Weather Chick on Channel 4 Whom I'd Like to Fucking Strangle Now.

Note to all my readers who may not have known this previously: your local weatherdouche gets his/her information from the National Weather Service. The Weather Service is actually pretty good at collecting information about weather and weather patterns, BUT, despite all of their Accu-weather-this, and Doppler-4000-that, you cannot get a weather report that is accurate to within 4 hours, give or take. This means that the idiot on the television giving you the temperature, and prognosticating over the prospects of rain and snow probably provides information as accurate as you could get by simply sticking your fucking head out the window.

And since his/her information comes from the same Federal Government that pays $400 for toilet paper and considers forced redistribution of wealth to drug addicts, career baby mamas, and people who just plain don't give a shit to be an anti-poverty program, well, you can just imagine how accurate your weather reporting actually is, despite all the super-expensive high-tech whizzbangery involved.

You see, Mom was frightened to death by the doom monger before the green-screen map. However, because she's my mother -- and that means she's a neurotic mess -- what worried her the most was that even if had successfully made the Odyssean journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, I might arrive at a time when the front door would be snowed shut by an accumulation of snow at it's base.

I'll repeat that: my mother was scared out of her fucking skull that I would be snowed out of my own house, and that I just might not be smart or motivated enough to dig through to the front door, if I really needed to. I suppose she thought I would, upon finding the door buried in snow, simply curl up on the doorstep and accept my fate quietly, like a dying Alpha Wolf in those nature documentaries. Or maybe she thought I would stand there for several hours like a nose-picking moron at a complete loss as to what to do, whereupon I would freeze to death. That would be embarrassing...for her. Her friends would all say, "My, how strange...he froze to death just feet from his own front door...The poor boy."

But first, she'd enjoy all the attention she'd get at the funeral.

So there it is; dinner plans shot to hell. My first night out in about a month, wasted. An opportunity to see friends that live 3,000 miles away frittered away; I've been cheated by a conspiracy of foul weather and a mother who lays awake all night in a panic that the front door will never be open ever again.

Maybe I'll bury her in the snow, and let Al Gore off with a Wet-Willie?

Helping Mom "Feel Human" Again...

We're into our third week of recovery. The physical therapist says that Mom should get up and exercise some more, and that short walks would be a nice idea -- so long as we don't over-do it. This dovetails nicely with Mom's re-discovered ability to shower on her own (she still needs a little help into and out of the tub, though), which she says gives her a feeling of being a"decent human being, again". She is regaining mobility at a rate which is greater than expected, which means she gets to do things that she hasn't been able to do for the last few weeks: like look in the bathroom mirror, and notice that them stubborn grey roots have returned.

With the pain and anxiety gone, for now, she can turn her attention from harassing me to an inhuman extent to paying attention to her personal appearance.

So, a trip to the Beauty Parlor is in order. The one she normally uses is within walking distance, so why not kill two birds with one stone and get her a little exercise while she engages in the futile battle to hold the ravages of Old Age at bay? I'll accompany her (despite her protests) because I don't want her falling over in the street, and because there are two public high schools in this neighborhood full of bussed-in Urban Aborigines who's only apparent contribution to campus life seems to be to make the white kids look physically un-coordinated by their superhuman ability to break tackles, or dunk a basketball.

When some of these...ahem...students...aren't under the direct supervision of their zookeepers, they're notorious troublemakers and petty criminals. A fat white lady on a cane who moves at a snail's pace with a nice, plump pocketbook is simply too tempting a target. Low-hanging fruit. So, I decide the best thing to do is to ride shotgun, just in case.

The first indication that this is an exercise in futility is that you realize that there is very little correlation between the name of the place (i.e. Beauty Parlor) and the activities going on within; You know you're in trouble when the "beauticians" are all misshapen lumps who seem to have put their make-up on with a spray gun and spackle trowel, and none has a coiffure that can be considered "attractive" if it wasn't on a Shetland Pony. It seems the only purpose of a Beauty Parlor is to give the high-school dropouts within the opportunity to gossip all day and experiment upon each other's hair and faces, mostly unsuccessfully. I could see before we even entered the establishment that this was going to be an interesting ordeal.

The second indication that something is cosmically wrong is that smell. If I had to describe it, it's somewhere between dead skunk and burning muskrat, with just a hint of decomposing possum. This is the odor given off by the myriad of toxic chemicals that will be combined to give my mother that Cesar-Romero-Redhead color that is so popular with the over-60 set in these parts. You can't spit without hitting one of these bottle-redhead seniors, these days.

So, there I was, sitting silently and impatiently in this heady atmosphere: my mother is getting a hairstyle that I would describe as "butch", and having it tinted with some godawful mess of chemistry that will probably ensure that the patch of ground this place sits on will be declared a Superfund site by the EPA any day now. There isn't a thing to read...well, there is, but you'd have to be Gay to find it of much interest, and since I could give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about "Jennifer Anniston and Chelsea Handler: Budding Romance?", or the problems of getting your sexless marriage restarted with 101 new applications for chocolate syrup and Vick's Vapo- Rub, or whatever they're selling this month, I'm bored out of my skull. (It is somewhat funny to note from the covers of the magazines just what the current mental state of the American Housefrau is these days; if the magazine isn't all about selling fantasy to them, it's all about the sexual desires of the Average Man, As Told by Another Chick. Strange).

I go outside to smoke. I go out for coffee. I amuse myself by looking at the puppies in the pet store two doors down (I'm asked to leave, as this store has experienced a rash of attempted puppy-nappings in recent months). Finally, Mom has had her head re-enamelled and her female crewcut trimmed, and it's time to go home.

Except that it ain't. One cannot get a hairdo, and leave things at that. Only a barbarian would do something like that.

Part of this "feeling human again" ritual involves a second stop at the manicurist's. Point out that this place that just wrecked your hair also gives manicures, and you get a look that could curdle maple syrup; One comes here for a really bad, overpriced hairstyle, but for a really good manicure, you need to go some place else. Some place where there's Koreans, you fool. Some place a further two blocks away.

And so we shuffle off at approximately 0.001 miles per hour because now her knee is stiff, to the manicurist. If I was bored to tears before, I'm about to be bored to death. The only consolation was that at least the Korean chicks look better than the ones in the hairstylists. Except that that there's not that many Korean chicks to look at.

Because while the proprietors of the manicurist's shop may be Korean, the workers within are Hispanic. The American Dream in microcosm; the former labor class, Korean immigrants, are now the Industrial Overlords, and the new generation of immigrants, the illegal ones, have taken their place. If you thought the process of a woman getting a hairdo was an ordeal by fire, try sitting around waiting for one to get a mani-and-a-pedi! The truly disgusting part of this hell is that the air is full of fine dust, and it's the particulate matter that has has been scraped, sanded, rubbed, cut, and otherwise stripped from a multitude of feet and fingernails. Every woman in that place wore a surgical mask, and I can see why: I had to wash my coat just as soon as I could, for it was covered in a fine layer of unsanitary dust from some oversized bag of skin's hooves.

Needless to say, I spent the majority of this time outside, in the freezing cold, just to avoid picking up whatever pathogens are in the air in that place.

Eventually, the whole thing is over and we go home. I've had three hours of my day completely wasted. I'm covered in the dead-skin-dust of perhaps 12 strange women's feet. My nosehairs have been burned down to the follicles by the noxious aroma of hair dye. I want to shower and scrub myself thoroughly with a Brillo Pad just to get all that crap off of me. Oh, and it all cost me $75. Don't ask me how.

But Mom feels "human", so I guess that's something.

The Insanity Begins Anew!

Yesterday, it was being "ready" for when the physical therapist arrived. Three hours in advance, armed with socks and shoes. The last two hours prior to the therapist's actual arrival went something like this:

"Where is this girl, already?"

"She's coming at 9:30, Mom. It's barely after 8:00. Relax, she'll be here."

"What's taking her so long?"

"She's usually on time. I have no doubt she'll be here when she said she would."

"But I'm ready NOW! I have things to do!"

"Like what?"

"Oh...shut up! Call her, and see where she is!"

(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I decide that I've had enough and go and blog some stuff).

This morning it is the anticipation of having the staples removed from her leg. The suspense is killing her; she foresees a painful and bloody nightmare of torture ahead of her. The whining has started. The whimpering soon follows, and ultimately, tears. She's frightened. As if having the surgical staples removed is something on the order of an amputation, or worse, a death sentence.

There is no amount of hand-holding, no level of cheerleading, no amount of positive reinforcement that I can offer that can overcome this level of acute anxiety. You can remind her that this is a very simple procedure, something the nurse probably does 50 times a week, a mere routine, and the words and logic go unheeded. You can dispense a Percocet to calm her nerves, and it doesn't work; my mother must the only person in the Solar System immune to Percocet.

But really, it's the anxiety that causes the Percocet to not work. It's the anxiety over something that's pretty trivial that causes this extreme emotional turmoil. Twenty years of being best friends with a psychological counsellor, and my mother somehow STILL has an anxiety problem that can blunt the effects of an opiate. Some friend. So, the conversation begins anew.

"Where is this girl, already?"

"She's coming at 10:00, Mom. It's only 9;00. Relax, she'll be here."

"What's taking her so long?"

"You're not the only patient on her list today. She'll be here on time, and then this will all be over."

"But...I have things to do!"

"Like what?"

"Oh...leave me alone! This isn't easy for me! I know this is going to hurt. I hurt already. My back! My leg! My head! I'm so cold: turn the heat up again! Oooooh, I won't be able to watch this, Dear God -- take meeeeeee!"

(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I've decided that I've had enough, and go and blog some stuff).

Welcome to my HELL. This is almost every hour of every day for the last week. If it isn't the Visiting nurse or physical therapist, it's "where's your brother? He said he was coming last week". If it isn't my brother, it's "Where's the mailman? Dammit, he never comes at the same time two days in a row!". If there's a bright spot in today's insanity -- thus far -- it's this: she at least doesn't have a To-Do List for me this morning. Yet. I fully expect, however, that once the anticipated auto-de-fay-like "ordeal" of surgical staple removal is over, and she finds that her leg is still attached, she'll act as if nothing has happened, as if she were the bravest soldier on the battlefield ever... and decide that I need to call Newark Airport to complain about the aircraft flying over the neighborhood on final approach...and "as long as you're up", do you think you might ___________?"

Stay tuned.

Update: I've just gotten a good glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I look like I have malaria. I have more bags than Kenneth Cole under my eyes. I'm tired, cranky, irritiable, and think I might be developing a menstrual cycle. Still no visiting nurse, and I have been asked to call her twice in the last half hour, because it's 9-fucking-58 and she's still not here. More to follow.

Postscript: The trials and tribulations are now over. I don't have any children of my own (well, none that I know of...wink-wink) but if ever I shall have them, I am now prepared for the excruciating crucible of the Delivery Room. When my Good Lady Wife (as if!) gives birth to quintuplets, I will have been prepared for the blood-curdling screams, the appalling language, the absolute howling of bitter agony.

The service sent a Russian nurse, which in and of itself is no big novelty, but it always makes me laugh. I keep thinking "I have been sent by Comrade Moose and Squirrel to remove staples. You vill comply!" But she's a lovely lady, nonetheless. The process of removing the staples took all of 10 minutes, at most. It was the preparation that was the killer; Mom would not hold still, behaving like a skittish toddler confronted by a pediatrician weilding a foot-long hyperdermic needle. With flames coming out of it.

Once it started, visions of Charlton Heston popped into my head. I see the angry man in snow-white beard and flowing robes, lifting his staff high into the air and calling down the wrath of God upon the wayward Isrealites, the skies darkening, the holy fire of the Almighty called from the Heavens to smite the Golden Calf. The earth shakes. The very air seems to burn. Thunder reverberates in the distance.

She called upon the ancestors;

I want my father!

I want my mother!

Dear God, why do they do these things to people?

Daddy, come and help meeeeeee!

And when it was all over -- just as I had predicted -- you would have thought that absolutely nothing had happened, but she did apologize to the nurse because she was embarrassed by all the carrying on. Big baby! Of course, I get no apology for the ten trenches she's dug into my arm with her fingernails, my Mother suddenly having developed a G.I. Joe Kung-fu grip while she was thrashing about like Linda Blair bathed in Holy Water.

And then she sent me out for a sandwich. She's suddenly ravenous, you see.

A Trip Through My Mailbox...

I have garnered more attention that usual this week, and naturally, this results in a torrent of e-mails. Some are positive, most are negative (I think I've earned at least three fatwas this year!), and many more are clueless. However, most of the clueless ones are sent by well-meaning people who just don't get my sarcasm, or who are unable to read without looking for something to take out of context to grind their personal axe upon.

I usually don't respond to people's e-mail, unless they've made a very valid point, or it seems to offer an interesting argument-via-correspondence.

This week, however, there were some respondents that actually should be answered, if only because there's some serious misunderstandings that have arisen from an inability of some people to recognize humor when they see it, or because they're dumb as a fucking stump, and don't see what is so clearly before their own eyes. More likely, they refuse to see it, because in making the discovery of the obvious they may actually make painful realizations -- about themselves --that they'd rather not.

So, rather than answer each mail individually, I will respond to them, en masse, and knock off a couple of blog posts while I'm at it. I'm about nothing, if not efficiency.

In this post, I would like to respond to Annabelle, Babs, May and Thomas L, who objected to this post about having to care for my sick mother. They object mainly to the appalling lack of compassion that I seem to show, and they are shocked that I would publish such things about my own mother in a public forum. Some of them are also offended because they're in a similar situation, only their parents happen to be terminally ill, and my mother only had elective surgery, after all. How dare I belittle their experience by complaining about my own petty annoyances? As if we're into some "My Mom's sicker than your's" sort of schoolyard dustup!

There's a word that desribes that kind of post, folks. It's called "sarcasm". And while some of the experiences related within have been slightly-exaggerated for dramatic effect, they haven't been distorted all that much.


So yeah, while I don't have it as bad as some of you (she isn't dying while I stand by helplessly awaiting the inevitable), it's bad enough. I don't expect sympathy -- and never asked for any! -- that wasn't the point of the post; it was that people who care for the sick and inured for a living must be a) insane, and b) given far more respect than I previously would have afforded them.

But just in case you were under the mistaken impression that I'm just complaining for the sake of it, and that no one could be THAT bad, I will say this:

No, my mother isn't EVIL, she's just a pain in the ass. Yes, the tasks she sets me to doing are, in and of themselves, not particularly difficult, but they come sequentially and no sooner have I started immediately upon the first request, when the second, third and fourth requests come flying from her pie hole. I don't mind making her comfortable, or doing whatever I can to speed her recovery (this is my mother, after all), but please, tell me how I'm supposed to take your breakfast order, vacuum the carpets, get you an ice pack AND ask the guys doing construction across the street to stop hammering so loud, or to turn off that godawful table saw, all at once, and right this very second? Because that's what she expects. She's impatient. I hear it all day "What's taking you so long...?"

Or, try this: you've buckled and given in to her request to send for take-out food (the docs specifically told me to watch her salt and fat intake), because she wants something "with flavor for dinner". I, apparently, don't cook well enough to suit her as I am deliberately not salting anything I serve her. Her eggplant parm arrives, and I've done the unthinkable -- and plated it for her. I then get a load of crap about how she wanted it kept in the tin, the idea being that doing so would mean one less dirty dish in the house. As if we don't have a dish washer, and I'm not capable of washing a plate on my own (I don't wash anything according to her tastes and preferences, you see). The idea that there might be a dirty dish, glass or piece of cutlery somewhere in the house, or that they might be laying about in the kitchen sink, drives this woman crazy, so I was dressed down for my sin of using a perfectly-clean plate to serve her dinner on...with an attitude.

I wouldn't be surprised if my mother doesn't put plastic slipcovers over the plates, saucers and coffee cups someday just to keep them perfectly immaculate. I believe they call this "being anal".

This morning brought an entirely new low. I almost lost it, as I'm exhausted. The scene: 6:15 a.m..I'm asleep. Suddenly, I am jolted out of a bed-wetting slumber by a bellow of MAAAAATTTTYYYYY! You would think a moose was being dismembered whilst still alive in the next room. I run into my mother's room, thinking she may have fallen trying to get into the walker, or might be in pain. Nope, nothing of the sort.

She was trying to dress herself, and can't put her own shoes and socks on.

"Why are you putting shoes and socks on Mom? Where do you expect to go?"
"My physical therapist is coming."
"When?"
"About 9:30".
"You do realize that's 3 hours from now?"
"Yes, but I wanted to be ready..."

Her newest pet-peeve is the gnarly old tree out in front of the house, which has a mass of spindly branches sticking out of it which hang over the sidewalk, which must be pruned (there's a landscaper who comes every week, let him handle it). Why this should consume her waking hours is beyond me, and she refuses to explain (I rather doubt that she can!) why it looms so large in her thoughts. I'm just expected to "take care" of it.

Here's my schedule for today (not that I'm asking for any sympathy):

* Make Mom Breakfast, argue with her because I have served something, yet again, that doesn't have salt/sugar in it.
* Bathing Mom
* Help the visiting Physical Therapist (if needed)
* Bathe myself, if I can find 10 minutes.
* Give my mother her once-daily injection in the stomach, set out her daily pain meds, thyroid meds, blood-pressure meds, and what have you.
* Do the laundry (this will require at least two trips to the laundromat, four blocks away, without a car. If I'm lucky, my sister will reluctantly agree to do it for me)
* Try to find a permanent job...again.
* Work on the one (small) contract job I do have for this month
* Make and serve lunch
* Deliver my newspapers (I deliver newspapers in the afternoons to make some extra cash)
* See to Mom's needs (thrice daily cold water basins to soak her swollen feet in, rearrange the furniture because it impedes her walker...again... rub liniment on her aching back from her ass to her shoulder blades, and whatever else she decides she needs)
* Begin Dinner, listen to complaints about how her sciatica is acting up again, stuff pillows under her to relieve her pain, adjust them several times during the course of the evening.
* Clean everything in the house within an inch of it's life. Twice. Because she "knows" I didn't "do it right the first time", like she has X-ray vision.
* Serve dinner, listen to the stream of complaints because it has no salt, and whatever spices I do use don't meet with her approval, then force her to eat the fresh fruit that I (try to) serve her every night. She'll invariably take the bananas, but pass on everything else.
* Help her dress for bed.
* Babysit my four (4) nephews this evening for approximately two hours while my sister and brother-in-law do whatever the fuck it is that they do.
* Prepare for a night of Hell, which will require that the heat be turned up or down several times, pillows be rearranged and fluffed repeatedly, and standing by while Mom makes every one of her dozen or so bathroom trips during the night (the record is 13 in one night).

I have a younger sister who lives 8 blocks away and who's first response to any request is "I have a husband and four kids to take care of, you know", and who otherwise does the barest minimum she can get away with. I also have a younger brother who might as well be on the side of a milk carton; I haven't seen him for the better part of three years, and have spoken to him probably twice -- on the phone -- in all of that time, who swears he'll drop by to see how she's doing... but then never does.

No, I'm not watching my mother waste away from some dreadful disease that fills all who see her daily degeneration in all it's grisly detail with a sense of helpless dread, but that doesn't make my experience any less easy to take.

Excuse me if my preferred method of handling this stress was to blog about it all, with humor, and not, say, smothering her with a pillow.

And yes, I do feel for those of you who have to deal with the ravages of cancer, or a parentin a vegetative state. I was at my grandparent's bedsides when they were stricken with cancer, too, and did much of the same work as I'm doing now. Only they appreciated it, and didn't turn the smallest of complaints into federal cases.

I'm not a heartless prick -- just a harried and exhausted one. I never intended to make light of the experiences of those with parents in far more dire straits than mine.

The Rewards(?) of Caregiving...

Insane blogger becomes frustrated nurse...and gets interviewed by the New York Times!

Go figure!

Anyways, it seems that my rant about my mother and having to take care of her during her convalescence has struck a chord. Initially, this post was picked up by a professional caregiver's website, and reprinted in (almost) it's entirety, suitably edited for language. The next thing I know, the thing gets picked up on Twitter (it's still a bloody mystery to me how that thing works), and then something incredible happens;

I get an e-mail from a New York Times elder care blogger who would like to interview me. So, I figured, what the hell, why not?

And then something even more incredible happens:

I managed to top the Google search list with that post sometime this past afternoon. Just type the words "Lunatics Asylum" into Google, and there I am...Numero-fucking-Uno! I had no idea this had happened until my friend... in England... told me. Then I noticed that my traffic has basically doubled in the last three days (I'm on par for 2,000 or so hits this month, at that rate).

I find that absolutely amazing, considering I never thought anyone would actually read this piece of crap when I started it seven years ago. Now, 2,000 hits is paltry by the standards by which "the great" blogs are rated, but I find this baffling from the point of view that this blog was never intended to be a mass-media sensation -- not that it really is. Still, the idea that 2,000 people would look me up just to read complaints about my sick mother -- and perhaps they have similar problems, and can just relate, or they think I might help them with some sort of sage advice? -- is sorta-kinda incomprehensible to me.

So, I might have a line or two in this week's Times Caregiver's blog. I say might because my interviewer was kind enough to inform me that having reviewed other posts here, if she recommended that anyone take a walk around the Asylum, they're likely to be offended to the point of physical illness (my words, not her's. She was at least diplomatic about it). And if there's one thing the sainted Times never sets out to do, it's to turn people on to a point of view that might be considered offensive.

Unless you're a conservative, of course.

The point of the interview was that mine was a point-of-view the Times blog doesn't normally give voice to, or hear. The original post was sarcastic and full of gallows humor, and that's what made it interesting.

Which reminds me; for some reason, the interviewer found it necessary to ask about my political views. Apparently, even your personal story about having to care for a difficult parent is somehow political. Or maybe she was just curious? So, I told her the truth: I'm to the Right of Hitler, and to the Left of Pat Buchanan. She said she wouldn't print that. Anyway, the access to "offensive" material (hey, offensive is in the eye of the beholder!) on this blog might not pass muster with her editor, and that might be reason enough to call the whole thing off. Heaven forbid the Times should turn people onto a nutcase, racist, homophobe, who wants to snuff the elderly, and kill Muslims by the millions, like me, right?

In which case, she's wasted 40 minutes or so of her time.

However, I have to admit, it's all a bit of an ego trip.

As for Mom, she's getting much better, and after a frank exchange in which I've told her that her complaining and whining -- while understandable given her circumstances -- makes me want to set fire to an orphanage, has relented slightly. She has agreed to be slightly less critical, and actually uttered something that might be construed as appreciation for my efforts...just before she asked me to prune the tree out in front of the house. Right after I get the haircut she's been busting my balls to get for the last month.

Sick people have entirely too much free time on their hands. The smallest annoyances and pettiest details somehow manage to consume their every waking moment.

So, the appreciation lasted for approximately 5 minutes, which I guess, is progress. In the meantime, I'm learning that patience takes practice -- especially when the list of tasks and the criticism come just as you're about to give someone a potentially-lethal injection. That's when, I've discovered, self-control becomes a fine art.

Insane Blogger Becomes Caregiver...

...and reaches for his gun.

My mother left the hospital yesterday, having had a knee replacement surgery on Friday, and subsequently whining for three days that she wanted to go home and "be comfortable", as if it is possible to be comfortable with several pounds of titanium alloy with gears and hinges, and 20 or so staples in your leg.

Anyways, the incredible banshee-quality whining of the hospital bed (It's too hot, it's too cold, the food stinks, there's nothing on television, they didn't give me my pain meds ten seconds after I asked for them, 'The Other One' in the next bed kept me up all night, etc, etc.) was soon replaced by the shrill keening wail of a whole new range of conditions to complain about (the medical transport driver deliberately hit every bump on the way home, the seat belt is too tight/too loose, can you turn the heat down then back up, and so forth). And that's before we even got into the house.

I am caring for my mother during her recovery, and I must admit, I'm not exactly equipped for this job. For a start, I have very little patience for whining. I understand that this sort of procedure usually results in the most monumental waves of pain known to anyone not interred at Gestapo Headquarters, but hell, it was an elective surgery, so I don't want to hear it. I already know, and your constant harping on the subject just wants to make me drug you up; I can't do anything else about it.

But, someone has to deal with it, right? I can, to a certain extent, suck it up and soldier on, but it's only been 24 hours and I'm ready to burn the house down.

To begin with, My mother is, and always has been, all of the following;

a. A drama Queen
b. Neurotic and given to bouts of acute anxiety.
c. An attention whore.
d. A sympathy junkie.

And Saint Carol the Martyr, heir-apparent to the Virgin Mary (btw, most Italian mothers behave this way), is making certain she milks this situation for all it's worth. That's when she's not engaging her other great skills in never having a positive word to say about anything, and complaining about everything under the Sun. Oh, and for speaking in sentences which always contain at least two variations of the personal pronoun (I, Me, My, Mine, and so forth).

If you read this blog regularly, you can probably see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in many respects. But really, I got help...

Truth is, there was never any pleasing her, and now that she's helpless and in need of care she has taken this most distasteful personality trait to new and dizzying heights. I'm seriously contemplating murder, but won't do it if only because the insurance company would get suspicious when the required paperwork never turns up and might leave a message on the answering machine.

I'm not even expecting as much as a "thank you" when her recovery is complete. That's just the way she is. It's expected that because she gave birth, I'm supposed to be at her bedside 24/7/365. I'm to take my impending galley-slave existence gracefully and maintain the proper attitude.

Except that She's a Pain in the Ass, and the process of taking care of her is an even bigger Pain in the Ass. It's only 24 hours, and I'm already discovering:

1. That I'm seeing parts of my mother's anatomy that I haven't seen since the day I was born, and which no Son past the socially-acceptable breastfeeding age should ever see. This is embarrassing, uncomfortable and just fucking creepy.

2. My mother is an expert whiner, complainer, and petty taskmaster. If you were to give her a winning Lottery Ticket, a Pot of Gold, and a Ferrari, she would bitch about why you didn't pick any of her favorite numbers, why it's only one pot, and really, couldn't you have gotten a better color and automatic transmission? Whenever she requires something, the dreaded phrase "as long as you're up" is uttered, shadows cross the floor, and a feeling of impending doom overtakes me, because I now know that the simplest of tasks will now become a torrent of petty make-work-for-her-comfort projects that will eat up the majority of the day.

And overnight, she'll be thinking of more stupidity to lay on me the following morning; The Sun is too bright,please close the curtains...oh, as long as you're up....my water is too wet, I need you to rearrange the seven pillows on the bed, and find a way for me to sit at a perfect 90-degree upright angle so that I can watch television and split atoms simultaneously. Oh, and find me some atoms, too.

If that doesn't drive you batshit insane, there's the myriad of tasks that need to be done every day that remind you that being human is often a humiliating and disgusting experience, full of the most unpleasant aspects that we barely think about...until we have to wipe someone else's backside, and there isn't a diaper or a 4 a.m. bottle feeding involved. Don't get me started on the problems inherent in sponge-bathing your own mother.

I'm also discovering that the battery of cuss words at my disposal is quite limited. I once would have thought this absolutely impossible, being able to swear like a sailor at the drop of a hat, and often for no reason, at all. I'm a New Yorker: we use the F-word as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, and often like punctuation, so imagine my surprise when the usual litany of curses muttered under my breath just doesn't seem to cut it, anymore. They don't seem adequate to express my feelings and frustrations, and I'm seriously going to reach for a Thesaurus so as to find newer expressions of fundamental disapproval. I may even have to learn another language.

It probably sounds terrible for a Son to speak of his Mother in this way -- and on a public forum for all the world to see! -- but there is a point to all of this; I'm beginning to have a new and healthier respect for caregivers....even the unionized hacks. They must bump up against the most miserable people in the world every day, and people who are normally unpleasant and then burdened by sickness must be the absolute worst. Like Nazis in heat, I would imagine.

Either these are the most patient and loving people on Planet Earth, or they all go home, drink themselves silly, kick the dog and beat their kids, just so that they can present the miserably ill with a plastic smile and the impression that they actually enjoy this kind of work. Considering that would make them even more miserable than the miserable bastards they often have to care for, I find that idea highly unlikely.

So, I will simply have to conclude that they are much better people than I am.

I will persevere. I'll get through this, and get Mom back on her feet so that I can go back to my overarching goal in life since the age of 14; finding a way to put as much distance between us as I can possibly manage.

But, damn, if it isn't enough to make you psychotic...

UPDATE: The response to, and popularity of, this post has been amazing. Thanks to everyone who continues to forward it to everyone they know! If you're interested in what's happened since this was originally posted -- plus many more observations related to taking care of the sick folks -- then please click the "Caregivers" label at the bottom of this post!

The Things You See in A Hospital...

One of the reasons why I haven't been around to spew my usual caustic bullshit (and why the caustic bullshit I did manage to spew was, in my opinion, of poor quality due to a lack of attention to detail) is that my mother has had a kneee replacement operation...finally.

I say "finally" because the operation was postponed once, having supposed to have been done Tuesday morning, but for the surgeon calling in sick. Well, in any case, it was finally done this morning, and having spent the better part of the last two weeks hanging around New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases, I've managed to make a number of interesting observations.

By the way, as I list these observations I wish to make one thing crystal clear; the people at NYU have been nothing short of brilliant professionals in all of their dealings with my mother and myself. The level of dedication displayed by the Staff --including the administrators, and right down to the security guards and facilities guys -- has been a wonder to behold. They have really gone above and beyond in a way that one would not expect, if one believed the horror stories told about our"Broken Health Care System" as told by by a communist in sheep's clothing...errr...democrat.

I can, with complete confidence, predict the following;

When ObamaCare is finally implemented this level of quality service, covered by insurance -- private or Medicare -- will simply cease to exist.

Anyways, my observations....

The first one is the absolutly amazing amount of paperwork that one must do at each stage of the process before treatment can even begin. The Legal System seems to have made a concerted effort to innundate the Medical System with a deluge of paper that would make an ardent environMENTAList cry at the thought of all those sacrificed trees. It isn't just the usual range of CYA liability waivers, either; living wills, power-of-attorneys, HIPA documents, scads of disclaimer forms, treatment options that must be individually approved (all with their own range of all the other paperwork), organ donor forms, insurance forms, compliance forms, various releases, Medicare forms, and stuff I never even knew existed. All of it in triplicate, naturally.

I remember someone once telling me that closing on a house entailed your having to write a few hundred signatures. That's Bush League; try all the signatures necessary just to have your own blood siphoned off and stored for the operation...just in case it's needed. That alone entailed a stack of documents a quarter-inch thick.

Now imagine what happens when your surgery is rescheduled, and the 14,000 sheets of paper sacrificed are now invalid because they're dated incorrectly...and they have to be filled in all over again. Even your medical chart consists of enough paper to choke a woodchipper running on nitrous, and there's already a PC next to your bed where the same information is being entered, it has to be put on paper, too (paper, after all, doesn't break or require electricity). Somehow, I get the feeling that most of this is not so much medical necessity as legal make-work. I mean, after you've done you job and chased the ambulance, you might as well stick around for what happens next, just in case you can make another shyster buck, right?

Do you really think that sort of tangled, impenetrable (to me, anyway) sort of bureacracy is going to somehow go the way of the brontosaur when President Odickhead has his Eyedrops-and-BandAid rationing system fully operational? I'll bet it fucking doubles, easily, because there will be another three layers of rubber-stamp bureaucrats to employ at taxpayer expense, and more lawyers. Somehow, the people who have to keep track of all this paper manage to do so in a way I find amazing; I've spent my life trying to get computers to do what these people do (so that they don't have to, and thus, can be made redundant...and unemployed), and I'm telling you there is just no way thatyou can easily automate that sort of system short of a major investment in IT and software engineers that might signify a crippling investment for most hospitals.

If you expect the government to design such an automated system, it would cost three times as much, rely on carbon paper, crayons and cave paintings, probably require at least three chickens killed in a voodoo beastiality ritual, and be engineered in Mumbai, and fail miserably to the point where it would actually kill people.

My next observation has to do with the difference between the quality of Staff at a Private Institution (like NYU) and a public one (like a hospital run by New York City). I've been in city run hospitals before (and I have to admit, the better ones; I've never been in a hospital that serves the Urban Aboriginies...errr...lower-income community, for example), and the difference is Night and Day.

The NURSES were able to answer my questions about specifics, like the medications my mother would be taking, her physical therapy requirements, and made an effort to update me on her condition after surgery approximately every 90 minutes. If the first nurse I was dealing with wasn't available, another one stepped right in seemlessly. They were knowlegable, they were dilligent, they gave a shit. Not like the union hacks at the City-run hospitals, and while I have to admit some of those came close to the NYU nursing staff, the number of those was very small, indeed.

My mother's anesthesiologist and orthopeadic surgeon (Doctor Zuckerman, the Chairman of the Department!) both spoke to us before and after the operation and layed out every stage of the proceedure from start to finish,and answered every question, no matter how stupid. In fact, Doc Zuckerman even cancelled his vacation to stick around this weekend, since he had had to reschedule her procedure earlier in the week, and he's already -- not 8 hours after surgery was completed -- answered a page from my sister to answer HER dumb questions, too. Cheerfully, no less.

I wonder how that will work when ObamaCare makes every nurse and doctor little better than a Teamster?

Another observation; surgeons apparently smoke. An awful lot. When they had some time between patients, you could find a small knot of them across the street from the hospital enjoying a quick cigarette. I guess it's one way they deal with the stress attendant with screwing with people's insides, and at least they're not in the local bars when they have the time. You'll also find the surgical staff out there having a ciggie as time permits, too. Not all, mind you, but a fair number.

Take THAT Mayor Bloomberg! If you had your way, cigarettes would be banned, and those doctors -- the best in New York City -- would be across the street in Stuyvesant Park scoring crack, wouldn't they?

Another thing that I found incredible was the clientele. We're talking people with all sorts of maladies from a torn ACL, degenerative arthritis to shattered spines...and all of them seem to come and go from the hospital with smiles on their faces. I have seen a woman in a wheelchair regularly over the last week, whose spine is deformed in such a way that she sits in that chair like a folded ruler. Her chin, literally, hovers above her feet. She was singing to herself this afternoon (on HER smoke break!) and told me how much better she's gotten since she started going to NYU for her treatments and therapy...rather than the crummy old Veteran's Administration hospital she used to go to (as I understand it, she was involved in a vehicular accident while on active duty).

I can't imagine what sort of care our troops are getting at the VA if a woman in that bad a condition can find it in herself to sing in the process of what I gather will be a very long ordeal of repeated surgeries and various therapies. It's the hospital, she tells me; they do things no one else can, and the people there care about their patients, and their reputations. Heck, within 3 hours of surgery this morning, they already had my mother up on her new replacement knee trying to walk. If she had been in a City hospital, they would probably leave her lying in bed until she was a mass of sores.

If ever there was an example of just how outrageously good our medical system is -- despite all the obstacles, the hassles, the stupid and petty regulations -- NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases is it. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a bum hip, knee, genetic defect, disability or was the victim of a cruel accident. These last two weeks have been an education in dedication and skill.

This is the EXACTLY the reason why ObamaCare needs to be strangled in the cradle.

Thank you, NYU!