SLIGHTLY OFF THE
MARK
Note:
All of the events recorded here really happened, as currently being vetted by
the Guinness Book of World Records (“worst vacation ever”); however, the order
and exact date have been changed, due to author laziness in not recording them.
Day
One: Took three full weeks of vacation this summer! I need it: The only job
that sees more horror than an emergency dispatcher is Joe Biden’s press
secretary.
Day
Two: Stopped at the doctor’s office to double check on the abdominal pain
I’ve been having for the last three months. What? I’m a guy.
Day
Two, evening: What the heck’s diverticulitis? Well, a little bottle of
antibiotics won’t interfere with my vacation. The doc wants me to get a
colonoscopy, so I study up on the procedure with Dave Barry’s humor column and
Jeff Foxworthy’s standup routine.
Maybe living with the pain’s not so bad.
Day
Three: Emily’s endometriosis seems to be acting up, although the pain isn’t
in the same place as before. I make jokes about us both having abdominal pain,
and conditions that end with “is”. It’s a competition! She’s also been coughing
since she started taking allergy medicine. There’s irony.
Day
Four: Chiropractor appointments for both of us. It’s nice to do things as a
couple. Later we sit on the couch with ice packs as a couple and watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Great
musical score, but the pace puts us to sleep. We’ll start our real vacation
tomorrow.
Day
Five: Emily gives up several pints of various fluids to the doctor, while I
joke that my work’s clinic has become a daily destination. Later we go to the
drive-in movies, but bellyaches bother us both. At least we didn’t have to sit
through an odd numbered Star Trek
movie.
Day
Six: Emily hurts too much to go camping. That’s very bad. My ex-Scout wife
lives to do outdoorsy stuff, but we can only manage to build a backyard fire
pit out of old chimney bricks. One shows an indentation from my head.
Day
Seven: We spend Sunday talking about what we should be doing on our
vacation.
Day Eight: The OB/GYN
pokes and prods – Emily, not me – with an increasing look of concern. He should
be concerned: If he causes her much more pain she’s going to send him to a
plastic surgeon. He makes sure we’re sitting down before declaring she may have
a hernia.
WTF? For you old timers, that means
“huh?”
Day
Nine: Emily’s pre-scheduled appointment with a dental surgeon is entirely
unconnected to all the rest … we assume. He explains that her one remaining
wisdom tooth is buried deeper than a congressman’s soul and is cuddling with a
major nerve, and if it isn’t bothering her we should probably just leave it
alone. We paid $99 for this suggestion of inactivity. On the brighter side, she
has two cavities.
Day
Ten: Apparently I’m dehydrated, because the nurse blows two of my veins – a
phrase I find disconcerting. I almost make a joke about her optometrist, but
she’s still aiming a needle at my arm. For the rest of vacation I’ll carry a
bruise the approximate shape, color, and size of the Mars rover crater.
Day
Eleven: Emily’s cavities get drilled, I have a routine cleaning. The family
that stays together … what do you mean, I have a filling, too? And just one?
She “wins”.
Later that day I stop eating. It’s
not my idea: Apparently a colonoscopy involves two days of preparation for a
twenty minute procedure.
Day
Twelve: I take six doses of laxative. Emily mixes Gatorade and another,
powdered laxative into a fifty-five gallon drum, which I have to drink in six
ounce increments over the space of three hours. Then I can sleep until my
appointment the next day. Hah. There’ll be no sleep tonight.
Day
Thirteen: I’ve never worn one of those hospital gowns before. They’re
flimsy, impossible to figure out, don’t cover enough, and are probably
expensive, so I promptly dub mine “Obamacover”. Having had much experience with
medical facilities, I prefer the other side of the cot.
I sleep through the procedure,
including Emily dressing me and my daughter driving me home. Easiest day of the
week. The doctor has removed a polyp near the site of my diverticulosis, a
sentence I refuse to examine more closely.
Day
Fourteen: We’re exhausted. We’ve done nothing, gone nowhere, and
accomplished nothing, but we’re exhausted.
Day Fifteen: It’s now
Emily’s turn to fast. She’s to have a CAT scan, which prompts all sorts of
feline related jokes. It’s just a matter of time before she clobbers me, but at
least the hospital already has my information.
Day Sixteen: Emily’s chest
hurts. Huh. It’s where she had some odd pain as a child, only this time I’m
determined someone will figure out what it is.
Day Seventeen: We meet with
the surgeon, who explains he will not be operating because, according to
Emily’s CAT scan, she has absolutely no problems in her abdomen or pelvis.
We’re back to square one. It’s like playing Monopoly for two weeks, only to
land on a Chance card that tells you to start over again from scratch.
Day Eighteen: I try to think
of some last minute fun thing to do, but it hurts Emily to ride in the car and
I think I’m getting a sinus infection … and I’m having some after-effects from
the colonoscopy. We’re having a Staycation.
Day Nineteen: Another poking
and prodding session, by an old doctor who seems interested in actually finding
out what’s wrong. He thinks Emily has an injury to the cartilage around her
sternum – thus the chest pain – probably made worse again by her recent
coughing. It’s called Tietze’s syndrome. No, seriously. Recovery is a slow
process: My wife, who normally loves nothing more than to get out into the
wilderness all summer, is pretty much stuck at home. I offer to let her hit me,
but she declines. Maybe I’ll start making puns again until she unleashes some
stress-relieving injury.
Day Twenty: We schedule
another appointment with the girl parts doctor about her abdomen. I’m going to
threaten him, or bride him. Probably threaten, as we’ve plowed through our
health savings account for the year.
Day Twenty-one: I insist to
Emily that tomorrow we’re going to go out and do something fun and vacation-like.
She points out that I have to go back to work tonight.
After all those needles, it’s the first
time in three weeks that I cry.
