The Oppenheimer Report 7/29/13

 

Dad Taylor is still in about the same condition as he was in last week, with perhaps some minor improvements. While we keep our hopes up, he still cannot swallow and now the question becomes, how do we provide him with sustenance long term? Right now he has an NG tube running through his nose into his stomach, but this is only a short term solution for delivering liquid food (somewhat similar to Ensure). So far two attempts to insert a PEG, or feeding tube in his stomach have been unsuccessful. To complicate matters, his out-of-control roommate (who was moved after the incident) yanked out his NG tube a few weeks ago, necessitating the insertion of a new one. As well, he has tried several times to pull it out himself, probably because it is terribly uncomfortable. Inserting an NG tube is not an easy procedure, and has caused him some distress. He has had the procedure done three or four times now. The next option for the longer term PEG insertion is a more invasive surgical procedure, requiring a general anesthetic, and this is of course more risky. We are not even sure yet if a surgeon will consent to do it, and there are no easy decisions at this point.   

There is a distinctive odor which emanates from the stroke ward, and every morning when I walk through those double doors it hits me like a junk yard wind in summer. It is the subtle perfume comprised of human waste, disinfectant, medications… and body odor. I noticed the body odor the first day I was there and thought to myself, “don’t these visiting friends and family members wash?” Then it dawned on me. As I was running myself ragged, transporting people to and from the hospital, arranging for meals, dealing with household hassles, the banking, the bill paying, and the thousand loose ends which were left unattended to when we rushed down to Toronto three weeks ago, I hardly had time to eat, much less to take a shower. After a few days that caught up to me. One day, shortly after we arrived in Toronto, as I sat on Bayview Ave. in the humid summer heat, in what seemed like a never-ending maze of road construction, detours, and traffic jams,, I realized that I had BO, and did not have time to do anything about it. When I had the chance I addressed the problem, and put a deodorant stick in my backpack for future ten second body fragrance tune ups. While hardly a substitute for a shower, perhaps it would somewhat mask my future odiferousness (is that a word?). On the high crisis days – and there have been plenty of those in the past three weeks - an extra half hour of sleep trumps a shower. And yes, I have since found time to wash, as things have “settled down” to a nervous waiting game.  

It seems that there have been periods in my life when troubles converge in a perfect storm that threatens to drive me out of my mind. One of those periods was 1978 just after I had just graduated from college. My dad was diagnosed with colon cancer and was firmly convinced he was going to die. I began my new job at the family real estate firm, where everyone likely hated me because I was the privileged son of the then absent president. To ice the cake, my older sister, visiting my ailing dad from out of town, experienced a severe brain hemorrhage and fell into a coma for about three weeks. The neurologist told us that it was unlikely she would ever walk or talk again (she was driving a car within 18 months). My mother and I were left to tend to her two young boys, who did not understand what was wrong with their mom, as we dealt with my father’s myriad of post- surgical complications, and visited my comatose sister in the hospital every day. That was one messed up summer. I became something closer to a man that summer, and the experience steeled me against lesser travails to come. There were so many little annoyances that cropped up concurrently that summer. For instance, I remember the painters who were painting the next door neighbor’s house, dropped a bucket of white paint on our driveway which splattered all over my mom’s black Buick. In that time of family crisis, when so many things went wrong in s short period of time, I remember my mother and I laughing about this accident as we wondered, “What next?!”

In Royal news, it’s a boy! Kate had her baby boy, and they have named him George. Why not Tony, or Iggy, or Felix? King Felix has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Two notable train wrecks in the past several weeks: First there was the Lac-Megantic, Quebec train wreck which involved the explosions of tanker cars, killed 47 and left a big hole in that town. Then, last week about 80 died and many more were injured when a high speed passenger train derailed in Spain. The conductor has been arrested for negligence because it was reported he went into the turn where the derailment occurred at around twice the speed he should have been travelling. Yikes! Was there a mechanical failure, or was this guy related to the captain of the Costa Concordia?

Back to the hospital.     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/22/13

 

Dad Taylor has shown some miniscule improvement, most notably that he seems to acknowledge his loved ones. He is still mute, we do not know what he is thinking or if he is thinking, and he is still essentially paralyzed on his right side. This is a very confusing time for our family, because lthough the neurologist has painted a grim picture of Dad Taylor’s future, we have already seen clear evidence that he can understand us in some basic ways. Shauna and her mom are worn out, and there is little I can do to help them through this troubling time.  

After two weeks in the stroke ward, one becomes familiar with the inmates. There is a lot of down time for family members waiting in a hospital, and we have begun to talk to some of the other patients and their families. Tom down the hall, a man I’d guess is in his late sixties, lives up north not far from where we live. Shauna told me he introduced himself as “Lord Tom,” but lest I think he was a Royal, he confided that any putz with sixty bucks can buy a square inch of land in Scotland online, fill out some paperwork, and become an official lord. Sounds fishy to me, but it would not surprise me if he is right. Lord Tom was in the early stages of hip replacement surgery when he had a stroke during the operation. The doctors had to cement his mangled hip back together, the one they were in the midst of sawing apart. They sewed him back up, and sent him down to Sunnybrook. Needless to say, Tom was in excruciating pain and he was screaming and ranting whenever the morphine ran out, which it often did. I felt badly for his bedmate Boris. Then again, Boris was fairly well out of it and did not complain much.

Then there was the Notebook Couple a few rooms away from us. They appeared to be very old, and the man, who always wore those big, all-encompassing, post-eye-surgery sunglasses, hardly ever left his mate’s side. She looked as if she might be suffering from some form of dementia, and he always seemed caring and attentive. He was there in the morning and did not leave until late at night. On one rare occasion, when the man was not in the room, I watched her for several minutes as she stared blankly at an egg salad sandwich she was shakily holding inches away from her mouth. I wanted to help her, but on top of the fact that the hospital would not allow it, the man was fiercely protective, allowing only nurses to enter the room. I later discovered why he was insulating them when she called me into the room to ask who was in charge. She told me she got better food when she was living in the concentration camp. I had a déjà vu moment and for an instant saw my mom in her advanced stages of dementia. I suddenly felt bad for sunglass guy. It all comes down to the lack of control, and one quickly learns that, in a hospital, one is almost completely out of control. Living with dementia and brain trauma is extremely challenging.

I made friends with an elderly lady named Betty, who was in a nearby room. She was born in Timmons Ontario, in the Great White North. She’d had quite a few strokes which had left her half blind but in control of most of her other faculties. She was funny and intelligent and I think quite alone. She was also unfortunate enough to be in the same room with a guy whom we dubbed Ghandi. He really looked like Ghandi and chanted incessantly at full volume. Ghandi quickly won the most-annoying-patient award, prying the honor away from Lord Tom. I think one of the nurses must have killed him in the middle of the night, because one day he simply disappeared. Everyone had a story, most of them were interesting, and each was living in their own square inch of Hell.

Final notes on the nation-gone-mad department: I could not believe George Zimmerman was found innocent in the murder of Trayvon Martin! Once again justice is deaf, dumb, and blind, leaving me and a lot of other baffled onlookers more than a little concerned about the state of the criminal justice system in America. What is with Florida; if you decide someone is threatening you, you automatically have the right to kill him or her? Talk about a stupid law that encourages vigilantism. And Boston bomber Tsaranov is on the cover of this month’s issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. It doesn’t make him man of the year, but it does seem a little weird and yellow journalistic. Why give a misguided zealot so much press? Is anybody still covering the victims? In Great Britain, The Royal Bun is almost out of the oven, and Kate, the Duchess of Whatever is about to pop out a monarch. There are reports that the Queen has arrived at the hospital today with The Royal Catcher’s Mit.

 More notes from my altered universe next week. Hope you are all enjoying your summer.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/8/13

 

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Written earlier in the week):

This week I begin this report with a discussion about what a gullible fool I am. We bought a couple of those bright green Pocket Hoses you see so heavily advertised on TV, and they seemed like a great idea at the time. In the ad it boasts they don’t kink and they are much more manageable than conventional garden hoses. Of course they came with some kind of guarantee, and what cinched the deal for me was that they use the handyman from Home Improvement as their point man. Naturally, I assumed this was going to be a good product. The Home Improvement guy wouldn’t steer me wrong right? Guess what, he isn’t really a handyman. I should have known as soon as I ordered these things over the phone that something was odiferous in Denmark. The person from Bangladesh who took my order was doing a lot of fast talking in broken English. When I order a Pocket Hose I am theneligible for an incredible discount on the solar powered nose hair trimmers. I said “No thank you, just the two hoses.” But when I declined the nose hair trimmer, there were literally ten other deals which I was forced to decline as well, and the person taking the order was talking so fast I almost slipped up and ordered something else I did not want. By the end of the conversation I was getting really annoyed and almost cancelled the order altogether. Almost. Anyhow, within three weeks my hose arrived, probably from China, and I was so excited. After hooking it up to our outdoor faucet, it seemed to be everything the ad promised it would be. Then it sprung a leak after about three uses. The second hose also sprung a leak – actually five or six leaks – the first time I used it! When I called to complain to the company, which has a Van Nuys, California address but whose customer support is in Tibet, they were just a little too familiar with the complaint. After providing my original order number, they immediately agreed to send two more hoses free of charge (original shipping was $17). My problem is that I now know the product is crap and I have two large useless synthetic piles of fluorescent green landfill, and will presumably have two more to throw out in about three weeks. It’s not as if I’m some Birkenstock-wearing peace creep environmentalist, but even a wasteful sloth like me can be sensitive to my Sasquatchian carbon footprint. I feel taken, I feel violated, and I wish I had not acted so impulsively when I spontaneously phoned PT Barnum Inc. and purged with my little plastic magic wand. Of course I did a post mortem on the internet to find out that I was not the only patsy to be hosed by the Pocket Hose bandits. There were literally 78 pages of complaints listed when I Googled Pocket Hose complaints. As is my motto: Life is a hosejob, but at least it’s a job. Word to the wise, do not waste your money on a Pocket Hose.

It is 11:53 PM Monday night and we are in Toronto. We got a call Sunday night that Shauna’s dad had had yet another stroke, and this one was far more severe than any of his previous strokes. We have had little sleep and understandably Shauna and her mom are pretty beat up. Syd is unable to speak two days after the stroke and is severely impaired on his right side. He may not recover from this one, but if he does, his health care will become exponentially more complicated. Today, as I was heading home from the hospital to take Jasper out for a walk, the heavens let loose and Toronto had a thunderstorm of biblical proportions. Streets were flooded, cars were stranded on the Don Valley Pkwy, power was out all over the city and people were stuck on the subway during their evening commute. In short, there was chaos in the city. I crept up Bayview at a snail’s pace, through the major intersections without traffic lights, and I thought to myself, this too shall pass. Syd, wherever you are in that mental prison from which you cannot escape, I’m saying a prayer for you on this stormy night.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/2/13

A belated Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians among my twelve loyal readers, and an early Happy Fourth of July to all my friends stateside! Our little lake was lit up with fireworks Sunday night and coincidentally, a lot of people lost their dogs that night. Over the years we’ve had several dogs that were petrified of fireworks. Weather wise it was a bit of a bust up here in the Great White North, but even rain beats a sunny week spent visiting someone in the hospital. I hope my father-in-law is going to recuperate, because this latest stroke knocked the stuffing out of him. Once again, I am thankful we have caregivers in place and more and more it looks as if they are doing a pretty good job. That is the big thing I have to be thankful for this week. All the other stuff is gravy.

Last Saturday, my plumber and local get-off-your-ass-and-see-some-music influence called me and reminded me about the Burk’s Falls Rodeo happening last weekend. It wasn’t really boating weather so I hopped in the car and drove over to the nearby Burk’s Falls fairgrounds to see what was going on. Not much as it turned out. When I got to the entrance gate, the bored girl selling tickets took one look at me and gave me the senior citizens discount. It is the second time this has happened to me locally, and I’m not sure how to feel about this.Still, I never look a gift discount in the mouth. When I drove in there was a bandstand set up similar to the one I described at the Stisted fairgrounds a few weeks ago, some concession stands selling cowboy stuff, and about 100 yards away there was a horse ring and a lot of pens stuffed with livestock. The event was badly under-attended, perhaps because it was not properly promoted, but there was live music before and after the rodeo events, and I’m always up for seeing the local talent. The sound man was a local musician whom I wanted to meet and I had plenty of opportunity to chat with him during the shows. He knows a lot of the best local musicians and is a good guitarist himself. He’s been known to produce, and I’m hoping he can help me record proper demos of some of my songs. I’m in the middle of writing a theme album and I could use some guidance. After the rodeo events were over it was time for the two main acts: Mike Lynch and Jamie Warren. Both were pretty good, and although I’m not a huge country music fan, more and more lately I am impressed with the songwriting. It’s all about telling a story, and the country guys seem to be doing that best right now. I talked to Mike Lynch after his set and he knew my buddy Tim Hicks (Google Tim Hicks' “Stronger Beer” ) because they both hail from St. Catherines in the Niagara region of Ontario. All in all it was a successful outing and I’m glad I went. I only wish more people had been there to listen to the music.

For well over a decade, Shauna and I drove out in Banff, Alberta every summer, and our stay always coincided with the running of the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede is a big rodeo, but we never went. Somehow the prospect of driving back out of the mountains to attend a crowded event down in Calgary was not all that enticing to us. I would have enjoyed seeing some of the musical acts, but frankly, I’ve never been particularly interested in rodeos. That probably has something to do with my parents. They were horse lovers and they strongly felt that some (not all) of the rodeo events were cruel to horses, and probably to other animals as well. Indeed, it seemed as if every year during the Stampede, there was some news story about a bad accident involving the chuck wagon races, wherein a horse was badly injured and had to be destroyed. Mom and Dad also did not like thoroughbred racing for the same reasons. I used to joke that the only reason I might have wanted to attend the Calgary Stampede was to disgust Shauna by sampling the local delicacy, Rocky Mountain Oysters, A/K/A bull’s balls.   

Final notes … It’s wildfire season, and fires are blazing all over North America. There was a tragic story the other day about an entire elite team of firefighters from Prescott, Arizona, the Granite Mountain Hotshots, wiped out when a shift in the wind left them with no escape. Nineteen of Arizona’s finest died in that fire, and no one is sure yet exactly what happened. Those guys were the Navy Seals of firefighting, and they were well trained to handle almost any emergency. In last week’s abbreviated report I failed to mention that actor James Gandolfini, A/K/A Tony Soprano from The Sopranos, died suddenly of a heart attack while vacationing in Italy. I loved that show! Apparently the opposite of the character he played on the Sopranos, Gandolfini was not only a great actor but a generous and humble guy as well. He was 51. Last but not least, Egypt is once again in the international headlines as crowds of protesters gathered once again in Tahrir Square, this time calling for Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi to step down. Sounds like the military is about to step in, and if I can believe the Western Satan Dog media, this is what Egyptians want. Are they back to square one?           Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED