You can't do this!

2003-09-20 - 9:48 p.m.

Last night I had dreams in which the themes were always desperation and helplessness. I wanted to write them down first thing when I woke up this morning, but I had nowhere I could write them. I can only really remember one of them now. There were a bunch of people who were putting together a bunch of food to send to needy people in Africa. I knew most of these people personally and they were all my more religious friends. They are all really good people and they all thought they were doing something good for the people of Africa. But only I realized that the food they were preparing was contaminated. I knew that if anybody ate it they would die. At first I just tried telling people. "There's bacteria in this meat, we can't send this." But nobody would believe me. "This meat is contaminated, anybody who eats it will die!" They all just smiled at me tolerantly like I was out of my mind and continued on with their work. "You can't do this! People will die!" They gently moved me aside. "No! Stop! You can't do this!" Still they persisted. "You can't do this!!!" I tried to physically force them to stop but whatever I tried was thwarted gently but persistently. I was escorted outside and kept there, all the while yelling, "You can't do this! You can't do this!" Finally the food was ready and a girl was carrying it in a box up some stairs to be shipped to Africa. In a final desperate attempt, I broke loose from my captors and ran after her. I planned to grab her with both hands around her neck and yank her off the steps. I knew my efforts would be futile, but I had to try. I couldn't let them unwittingly kill all those people. I leaped at her and my hands clapped together around nothingness as I woke up, trying desperately to get back to sleep so I could stop it. Noooooo! You can't do this!!!

Yesterday (my God, was it only yesterday?), my grandfather went to San Francisco for a cardiac catheterization. He was taken there by some family friends and my mom and I drove there a little later. We met the friends in the waiting room about ten minutes before the nurse came in to tell us we could go in to see him. My grandfather is 82 years old. Basically, going into this I knew the results would be one of three things. First, they could find nothing seriously the matter so they would do nothing and send him home. Second, they could find some fairly bad blockage which they would be able to fix during that same procedure with stents. Or third, they would find that things were too bad to help and they would send him home to await a major heart attack that would be the end of him. They rarely do open heart surgery on octogenarians...

Oh shit, I can't do this. I hate this. Grampa is having triple bypass surgery on Wednesday. The surgeons wanted him to stay in the hospital and have it done Monday but Grampa insisted on going home first to make sure the house was taken care of...

This sort of thing is supposed to happen to other people. It happens to patients, not my family! It's like my dream. I want to yell and scream "You can't do this! Leave him alone!" but it makes no difference, of course. He needs the surgery. His left main coronary artery is 100% occluded and the other two are 90%. And he is otherwise in very good health so he should be able to recover from the surgery despite his age. But it's not going to be easy. He's going to be in the hospital for about a week. He could be in considerable pain. I don't want him to have to go through this. Not Grampa.

I wanted to tell some funny stories about my grandfather. But mostly I'm busy bawling like an idiot over here and trying not to let my parents hear me through my paper-thin door.

Everything should be ok. He should have his surgery and recover and then feel much better than before. It should all work out well. But I'm so scared. Grampa should get through this just fine, but I keep hearing this voice asking, "What if he doesn't?"

I've observed open-heart surgery before. I keep having images flash into my head of my grandfather lying there on the operating table with his chest cracked wide open and his heart exposed to all the world.

Being the "doctor" in the family, I'm the one everyone turns to for information and advice. Which is nice to be able to help my family like that, but geez I hate it too. Outwardly around my family I'm optimism itself, but inside I'm scared. Sometimes I just want to be the kid again.

Tigger had the misfortunate of calling me just a bit ago as I was writing this. Lucky her, she was greeted by a bawling Eucalia. I don't think she's ever heard me cry before, and there I was really losing it. Poor girl.

I really wish I had someone to hug me and hold me right now.