Psych-sleep at the gum show

Andrew Hicks

I’ve been staying at my mom’s for five days now. She’s been a wonderful, selfless companion this entire week, and it’s been good to reconnect with her wisdom and humor on a daily basis. After she read the Misery sledgehammer post, my mom actually burst through the door with a sledgehammer, demanding to know if I’d been out of my room. That’s prop comedy! I didn’t even know there was a sledgehammer in the house. Don’t mess with mommy, man.

My grandma, her mom, used to make my mom call her every night at 5:30 to check in and tell her about her day. My mom takes a more laissez-faire approach to her adult son (me), and both of us could be better at staying in touch on the phone. It’s great not to feel like a smothered mama’s boy, but my mom is probably my greatest underutilized resource. Her opinions and advice are like gold to me. I need to go to the well more often.

This week is by far the most consecutive time I’ve spent with 12-week-old Silas. We’ve occupied the same perches since Monday – me on the bed, pillows propped up behind my back and under my cast leg, him in the car carrier atop Sarah’s old baby stroller. The 20/20-ness of hindsight* makes me wish we’d picked a more gender-neutral design for our baby travel set than the flowery pink of the Graco “Emilia” pattern, but the stroller serves its function nonetheless.

I have just enough mobility to reach for Silas, reach for a nearby diaper and wipes, reach for the hand sanitizer, then reach for the baby bottles with pre-measured distilled water so I can add the pre-portioned formula. We eat, burp, use the bathroom, sleep, and repeat.

Silas this week has turned into a big smiler, too. He’s becoming a master of the tight-lipped grin, the one-sided smirk and the full-on gum show of delight. He smiles at dad, he smiles at grandma, he even smiles at the goofy stuffed frog with the see-through bubble belly full of what look like mini-Chiclets.

Baby Silas is also a master of the fake-out nap, or as my wife Tiffany calls it, psych-sleep. He eats, I hold him, and eventually he gets fussy, which he always does when he’s tired. I put him down, rock the stroller back and forth, and his eyes shut in peaceful slumber. I rejoice, and I pull out my laptop and get ready to hunker down to some serious writing.

Ten minutes go by, I get about half a sentence in**, and Silas wakes back up. “Surprised, daddy? I was resting my eyes, ya gullible galoot! Your job’s not done by a mile! WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” He builds up to his big cry, actually. It’s more like whine, whine, silence. Whine, whine, silence. Whine, whine, whine, WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Taking care of a baby that weighs less than a United States Bowling Congress regulation ball*** is mostly busywork. So one thing I’ve been able to do this week is watch a whole lot of DVDs on my laptop. There’s no TV in the room, which means no sitcoms, no reality shows, no commercials and no complaints from me.

I’ve been raiding the archives of the county library, which so far has turned out to mean “mostly lower-profile movies from two years ago in the C+ to B+ range.” I haven’t seen one that’s truly brilliant or mediocre yet, just in between. Which is satisfying enough. If anyone’s interested, this is a list of what I’ve watched, from best to Still Pretty Good: Get Smart, Taking Woodstock, Outsourced, Extract, Baby Mama, Swing Vote, Charlie Bartlett. I could write a nice, entertaining paragraph on each, but that would make this post overlong and way off-topic. And Silas is going to wake up very soon, I’m sure of it.

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Before I sign off, this is my tenth post, which makes me a double-digit blogger. I really couldn’t have done it without my amazing family and the, what, like 20 of you that actually read this. Thanks to everyone who’s supporting me and offering feedback on this creative endeavor.

In celebration, it’s time to introduce the following feature to Dad’s Daytime Diary:

BABY PICTURE OF THE DAY

Silas, never too young to rock

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* = Tiffany and I were pleasantly surprised to get pregnant together once. We were never expecting an encore. Apparently, that’s what happens when you don’t use any form of birth control. Tell your friends.

** = Yes, it takes me ten minutes to write a half-sentence. It’s a run-on sentence, okay?

*** = Use a baby to bowl a 300 game, and you will receive a USBC patch. And a lengthy prison term. And probably many well-deserved beatdowns.

Crass leg cast stories

Tiffany, my wife, thinks my blog might have become too crass. She points to two consecutive posts that use the word “dump.” I counter that, of late, I’m writing about desperate times and desperate measures. I’m confined to my bed 90+% of my waking hours. A dump* is a break from this routine and, thusly, a positive answer to my ongoing question to myself, “What was interesting enough about my day to write about?”

When I’m all healed, I will go back to writing about taking poetically beautiful walks in the warm orange sunshine while staring longingly into the panoramic blue sky and Illinois corn fields. Till then, I’ll write about the accidental dribbles that escape the not-quite-wide-enough mouth of the pee jug**.

All that was a build up to the following story, which will surpass Merely Crass and fall into the domain of Supremely Gross. Skip three paragraphs down if you have a low threshold for the disgusting or are currently eating a large, extra-saucy bowl of spaghetti bolognese.

Here goes: My mom told me she used to work reception for an orthopaedist in the plaster cast days. A patient came in, complaining of discomfort and a mysterious, overwhelming odor. The nurses took him into an exam room and cut a window in his cast to check things out. The smell got exponentially worse as the nurses discovered a treasure trove of maggots. Crawling in and around his open wound. Feasting on the mangled flesh.

The moral? It could always be worse. Don’t bitch about having to spend a month in bed, having food brought to you while you watch ’80s SNL clips on YouTube.

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…and we’re back.

Yesterday, I visited the ortho doc who performed my surgery. My splint was removed, and it was my first chance to see the swollen, bruised mess of stitched-up incisions on both sides of my left ankle. I should have taken a picture to share, but, you know, I don’t like to get gross in my blog. The doctor proclaimed everything was looking “pretty damn good,” which is complex medical lingo I don’t completely understand but sounds promising.

I spent most of the visit bonding with the nurse, who removed my stitches, taped me up and put on an actual leg cast. It’s amazing how much easier it is to converse with strangers when you have a wife and kids as catalyst for ice-breaking. These types of talks used to go, THEM: You married?  ME: No, I sleep until four everyday.  THEM: Got any kids?  ME: No, kids suck. I go out drinking all night, every night.  THEM: <evil eye>

This fiberglass cast is the exact same type of cast I had when I was nine and fractured a metatarsel in my right foot. Kids, when your mom and dad tell you not to ride your bike without your shoes on — listen! It wasn’t so bad, though. My healing metatarsel and I stayed inside and played computer games during gym class while the rest of the kids were outside running cross-country.

That might have been the exact moment when I reached the “Fit or Fat?” fork in the road and permanently went down the wrong path. Looking back, I think the fork in question was stabbed into a giant breaded pork chop smothered in brown gravy.

Having a cast on again reminds me of a bad dream I had 23 years ago, while I was on the mend. In the dream, school was in session. We had just started taking a very important standardized test on one of those “fill in the bubbles” sheets scored electronically. My leg was itching like crazy, consuming all my attention. I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed my sharpened #2 pencil and jammed the eraser end down into the cast, scratching up, down and all around like crazy. It felt amazing.

Then I reached down a little too far and lost my pencil in the depths of the cast. I freaked out. It was the only pencil I had. How was I going to get the pencil out? How could I finish the test? I couldn’t get anyone’s attention. The other kids were consumed with their tests, and my teacher was at her desk, reading a book while her Sony Walkman headphones blared. Strains of Cutting Crew’s “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight” wafted through the classroom as I waved my arms wildly and screamed at the top of my lungs.

Wow, what a relief as I woke up, realized it was only a dream and ran off to the living room to enjoy a large bowl of Fruity Pebbles and an episode of “Heathcliff” I’d already seen a dozen times.

I made most of that up, incidentally, but I do remember scratching my leg with an upside-down pencil and being worried that it would fall into the cast. So that flight of fancy was at least loosely inspired by a true story.

Oh, my wife also said this blog is not staying true to its premise — namely, that it’s here to chronicle days spent taking care of my kids. With this entry, she’s absolutely right. I don’t even mention Sarah and Silas until the very last sentence.

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* = Three consecutive posts

** = Five consecutive posts, I believe

Nurse Ratched’s sledgehammer

My mom is hardcore about making sure I recover from this ankle break. Baby Silas and I have been staying with her for less than 24 hours, and Mom has already turned my tongue-in-cheek suggestion of a service bell on the end table into a reality. I have a miniature copper Liberty Bell, mini-crack and all, at my side. One shake of the bell means I’m hungry. Two shakes means I’m bored and need a new DVD to watch. Three means the pee jug is in danger of overflowing. You know, as of right now, I think the “pee jug” has made more appearances in my blog than my wife has.

My mom is one of the greatest resources I have. She’s devoted this entire week to serving me tirelessly, and I’m very appreciative of it, but she’s taken this tough-love, Nurse Ratched stance against letting me do anything for myself. Everyone else just lets me crutch around as I please and wear myself out. With Mom at the helm, my daily poop break is the only time I’m free of the bed. A couple more days of this and I might start faking bowel movements. I can’t wait to explain that memory to my therapist of the future.

I’m suddenly aware that a lot of people in our society do not have the luxury of taking a comfortable daily dump. I previously thought this to be an inalienable right, but I haven’t found a properly accommodating toilet since my injury. It might be up to me to design a line of roomy, welcoming toilets for the obese and infirm. Doublewide seats, leg rests, Sirius satellite surround-sound, built-in bidets, the whole nine. I’m not sure what the disposable cash situation is for the obese and infirm, but I bet with the proper political palm greasing, I could get Medicare to shoulder most of the burden.

Meanwhile, I’ve started to play around with the idea that my mom is so devoted to my recovery that she’s going to turn into Kathy Bates from Misery. I’ll be typing away on the laptop one sunny afternoon, and the door will open. She’ll say ominously, “You’ve been out of your room.” I’ll say no, I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’ll say, “Andrew, my little ceramic penguin in the study always faces due south.” Then, out will come the sledgehammer. It will be for my own good.

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I need to make a follow-up office appointment with the doctor who performed my surgery. I also need blood work to make sure the anti-coagulant I’ve been ingesting every day hasn’t thinned my blood to the Ally McBeal range*. Even more alarmingly, my pain pills are running dangerously low. When I stay in bed, the pain hovers at a dull, slightly annoying level. It’s like having a giant literal and metaphorical house arrest bracelet on. Except, instead of setting off an alarm at a parole office somewhere, the alarm goes off instantly all through my injured foot if I get out of bed.

I think my medication tolerance has built itself up this past week. The Ankle Bone Incident** is my first experience with popping multiple prescriptions at multiple times of the day. I’m not worried about potential for abuse personally, but now I see how when you’re bored and in pain and confined to your bed, you might want to reach for a little more of Mother’s Little Helper than the doctor has actually authorized.

Here’s a list of celebrities I promise I will not model my prescription drug habits after:

• Elvis Presley – way too fond of Fried Peanut Butter & Banana & Barbituates hoagies
• Rush Limbaugh – called Oxycontin pills his “baby blues”; also, hates everyone
• Michael “Jesus Juice” Jackson – no example necessary
• Marilyn Monroe – sleeping pills caused her to sound like she was half-awake when reading film dialogue
• Heath Ledger – you name it, dude was high on it
• Ol’ Dirty Bastard – painkiller/coke buzz made him invent the lyric “I don’t have no problem with you f***ing me / But I got a little problem with you not f***ing me”
• Pimp C – died from an overdose of sizzurp; I am not making this up
• Anna Nicole Smith – see “Heath Ledger”

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* = I dunno, the rest of her is so thin, I figure her blood is too. And how lazy is this 1998 reference, anyway? Like there hasn’t been a go-to anorexic actress to plug into this sort of talk show monologue punchline since then? One of the Olsen twins or something, right? I need to bone up on my plug-in cultural references. And Ally McBeal and the Olsen girls need to bone up on some baby back ribs.

** = Possible name of bad late-’90s alternative jam band already in existence? I need to bone up on my plug-in cultural references.

That pee jug’s not gonna empty itself

My nuclear family is spread among three households right now. My wife Tiffany’s back at home, gearing up to start her work week. She signed up for overtime this Monday through Friday, since there’s not any bread-winning going on with this guy right now. No, I lost the bread a week ago. Lay On Your Butt And Pee In A Jug All Day hasn’t been a viable career option since Clinton dismantled the welfare system in the mid-’90s.

Little Sarah is spending the week two hours away with her maternal grandparents, who love seeing their sweet baby girl so much that they won’t mind the extra work and the natural drain caused by chasing and entertaining a toddler all day. That’s the impression they gave me, anyway, and I’ll take it. Tiffany’s parents have been helpful, eager participants in any task asked of them since I came on the scene in 2007. They are the perfect in-laws, and they know about this blog too, as of tonight, so you can bet I’ll continue to say nice things about them.

Two-month-old Silas and I have checked into my mom’s spare bedroom. She too has stepped to the plate in her role as Grandma Hicks, and besides which, she’s taken care of me one way or another my entire life. I don’t feel the least bit awkward having her bring me fluids all day and empty the old pee jug after. All I’m missing is that little silver table bell you ding to demand service at hotel front desks in old movies. I would ding it with a full-on sense of comic irony, but let’s get serious – that pee jug’s not gonna empty itself. And this woman who gave birth to me is willing to do it, because she serves with a cheerful heart. Thanks, New Testament!

Meantime, me and the ankle bone are going to heal, heal, heal. Once I got access to the crutches on Friday, I got this deceptive feeling that I could be more mobile than I could with the walker. Maybe that’s why the physical therapy folks at the hospital thought crutches were so evil. Yeah, I figured, screw the jug. I will urinate in the toilet like a man. And wash my hands after. Then crutch on into the kitchen and make myself some food.

Well, allow me to tell you, just because you can get around on the crutches does not mean you should get around on the crutches. About ten seconds after I become mobile, blood starts rushing to the site of the injury. That hurts. Inevitably, the bum foot bears some kind of weight or gets banged around because, guess what? I don’t really know how to use crutches. I’m self-taught, and my self-teaching usually only improves when I figure out what not to do. Or when my wife sees me practicing “what not to do” and calls me out on it. She’s a real caller-outer.

Tiffany was absolutely, understandably exhausted late Friday night. I wanted a salad, and I wanted it with lettuce, tomato, onion, black beans, turkey, shredded cheese, salsa, ranch and twelve crackers. Tiffany didn’t want to go fill my order. She wanted me to wait until morning to eat some cereal. I didn’t need her. I had my brand new friend the crutches. And a plan. I would pull everything I needed from the fridge and put it on the table behind me, which I could do standing stationary. Then I would sit in a chair and do all the cutting and prep work at the table. Then I would eat. Simple plan in theory. In reality, ten times harder than I’d imagined. My surgery foot was belting out crazy old obscenities I hadn’t heard since Full Metal Jacket. I think I set my recovery back an entire day with that salad. Which was, to be fair, a freakin’ delicious salad.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Silas since my injury. We both have immobility in common. He can’t walk, and he doesn’t have any demon crutches telling him he can. So we hang out in the bedroom, and I do all the basic dadly duties from my perch. Sarah likes to make full use of the upstairs in the house, but at least three times a day, I can get her to come up on the bed with me, sip some juice, and let me read her a book. She wants me to read her the same book three times in a row, which isn’t really my scene, but I indulge her. I get my kid time in, but too much burden has been placed on Tiffany in this situation. Never mind that she’s been pregnant for almost half our marriage.

The one-week dispersement of my family is a necessary evil that, on my end, I hope to translate to lots of productive writing. On that score, it’s good to be back. Right now, I have an enjoyable life rich with material and a brand new perspective. I’ve got the desire, the drive and the confidence. Most importantly, I’ve got the makings of an audience. It’s a humble audience right now, but I have old readers and new readers culled from endeavors past and present. It makes me excited for the future.

Walker vs. Crutches? No contest

The physical therapy people at the hospital seemed deadly serious about their proclamation that they would not allow me to be discharged unless I had an approved assisted walking device. Nothing so conventional and unobtrusive as crutches, either. Crutches were not on the approved list. What I needed was a walker. And they were going to hook me up. I said sure, okay, whatever, and I fell back into a light, drug-addled sleep.

A knock came on the door a couple hours later. It was the hospital’s official walker dealer with my shiny metallic wheels. He had an info folder, and he’d taken the liberty of contacting my insurance company to find out how much of the burden they’d shoulder. Results were inconclusive, as was the sticker price itself, but he got me to sign here and here, and initial there, and he was off. I rolled over and went back to dreaming about running half-marathons or whatever.

Now, I would have imagined “Walker Salesman” to be a real Job From Hell. None of your peers take you seriously, you have to make cold housecalls in retirement communities to people who can’t hear you and are living on a fixed income, et al. Not true, it seems. This guy’s got the sweetest gig ever – a captive audience of injured, over-medicated marks who are led to believe their only option is his walker at some price to be announced at a later date.

Fast forward three days, and I can tell you, there’s no practical use to having a walker in your home. The thing is just plain cumbersome and not maneuverable. The getting up and down sucks, the getting through doorways sucks. Take that thing out the front door into the real world, and strangers and friends alike are guaranteed to laugh their heads off while reaching for their camera phones. No wonder old people with walkers seem pissed off all the time.

If you’re ever in my position, dealing with the surgical aftermath of ankle bone popped through skin, find a way to go the crutches route. Several major pharmacies and grocery chains will loan you crutches for a refundable $25 deposit, and they’re portable. If someone laughs at you for being on crutches, they’re automatically the lesser person. Plus you can use a crutch as a retaliatory weapon. You’d need a whole lot more coordination and cunning to beat someone senseless with a walker.

I think what turned the tide for me was lying in bed, nonfunctional leg elevated, and watching a viral clip on “Tosh.0” of a beautiful woman doing an elaborate salsa dance routine with a one-leg amputee who had nothing but one crutch as support. I knew I had to upgrade. I was struggling to use my walker to get from the bed to the heaping plate of delivery pizza in the kitchen, while this one-legged mega-pimp was making his Salma Hayek mambo dreams come true with a single crutch.

My father-in-law drove up yesterday to help with the kids while my wife was at work. I felt uncomfortable asking him to empty my pee jug, but I was only too eager to share with him my dream of crutching my way down the stairs and out to the street to pick up the mail like a normal human being. He was so enthusiastic he put on his cabbie hat and rushed out to Walgreens before I think he realized he was leaving his two small grandkids with an invalid who hadn’t shaved in five days. I held down the fort in his absence, walkering my way to the loveseat so I could feed and placate infant Silas and sing along to those godawful Barney songs with toddler Sarah.

The crutches are worlds better. That’s not to say being in this situation doesn’t still suck. My armpits are a sore mess, and each of my wrists sports a circular skin break the size of a hole punch where crutch steel has worn me away. But I did actually set foot outside in the daytime today. I crutched into the neighborhood barbershop and got myself a trim, and I picked up a footlong Cold Cut Combo from Subway. My wife was with me the whole time, and both legs were screaming at me when we were done.

I’ve been in bed ever since, injured foot propped up. And you know what? When you’re laid up, you have lots of time to read. I got a look at the small print in the walker paperwork. I have 30 days to return that piece of crap with receipt for a refund, for any reason. As far as reasons, you can’t get more all-encompassing than, “Your product sucks, it was forced on me, and I don’t even know how much it cost. Eat it, Walker Salesman!” Hopefully, he can take use my returned walker to convert some other motion-challenged hospital dischargee into a spiteful-assed bitch.

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P.S. The one and only fun thing about the walker – Sarah loved to get in front of me as I was slowly walker-ambling up the hallway and throw all her 23-month-old strength into pulling that thing in her direction. She really exerted herself and had fun with it. Leave it to a little girl to make so cumbersome and obnoxious a chore into something downright cute for twenty seconds at a time.