Open every door

2003-09-27 - 9:08 p.m.

I didn't write an entry yesterday and that's probably a good thing. Yesterday I was too horribly devastated to want to do anything at all. My grandfather was not improving. His mental status was terrible. I'd figured I'd killed his independence by recommending he have this surgery.

But today he was tons better. When we walked into his room this morning he totally knew who we were, where he was, and why he was there. He was pretty much back to his old self. And he was for a good four or five hours. I think we probably overdid it, though. We didn't let him rest, we just kept talking to him and we wore him out completely. When he started nodding off we left him and went out to dinner. Apparently while we were gone he woke up completely disoriented. When we walked in he yelled, "Oh thank God! You've saved my life!" The sitter had him tied to his chair with a sheet around his middle. I don't blame her at all--he was being completely uncooperative with her. It took quite a while for us to get him reoriented to the wheres and whys, but over all, he was doing much better today. I again have hope that he will make a complete recovery. The powers that be have my full gratitude.

Yesterday I made a trip back to Sacramento from San Francisco just to pick up my computer. I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle while I was away. I had to drive to the UPS headquarters out in Rocklin. I stopped by home to pick up a few things and to have lunch and while I was there I typed up my last three entries which I'd written in that old-fashioned pencil and paper way. Then I drove back to San Francisco. That's quite a bit of driving, especially considering the traffic. I recently read that Sacramento has the meanest drivers in the country. I wonder on what basis they made that conclusion. Most likely to cut you off? Least likely to let you in? Most likely to give you the finger? I don't know, because seriously, when I get into San Francisco I have to switch driving modes to my not-so-nice mode. I think I'm an expert San Francisco driver now, though. Go ahead, double park in the middle of my lane--doesn't phase me! Don't ever let me turn left anywhere--I can make right turns up the wazoo! Parallel parking on a 25% grade? Pshaw, no problem! That's right, bring it on!

So I have my computer back. It's empty, of course. They installed a new fan and replaced my old hard drive. It came back with just Windows ME on it. I've upgraded to Windows XP again and installed Microsoft Office, but that's basically all I can do from here. Still no internet access.

We're spending nights now in my grandfather's house in Santa Rosa. It takes a little over an hour to drive from his hospital to his house, but it's not too big of a deal. We aren't staying as late as we used to because he's less disoriented now. The first night he was out of the ICU he was really disoriented in his room. Not only that, but his roommate was really disoriented too. And the evening nurse during the week was an idiot. Plus she was busy pumping the poor guy full of Haldol when all he really needed was someone to talk nicely to him and reassure him. The last thing Grampa needed was a hit of Vitamin H, so I certainly wasn't going to be leaving him alone with her.

I also had an incident in the bathroom in the hospital lobby yesterday. As I was walking into the bathroom I noticed someone follow me in, but didn't really pay much attention. I remember thinking that she looked like she may have been born with a Y chromosome--she was rather masculine looking, at least from the corner of my eye. I went in the stall and did my thing. Hypochondriac me was thinking how there might be something wrong with me because my pee was smelling a little funny, but then I left the stall and discovered that it wasn't me after all. This woman had pissed herself. She was standing in front of one of the sinks. I went to the other sink without really looking at her and started to wash my hands. That's when she said, "Excuse me, can you help me?" Of course we all know I'm a big idiot. It didn't even occur to me that she was hitting me up for money. When I'm in a hospital and someone asks me for help, that's generally not what they're looking for. I said, "What do you need?" She began giving me some cock and bull story about how she had been up in the ER (she showed me something disgusting on her boob to prove it) and now she didn't have enough money to ride the bus or the train or something and needed some more money to do it. She pulled out a very crumpled dollar bill and told me she only had a dollar and she needed $3.75 to get wherever she was going. Like an idiot I said, "Oh, you want money?" Which of course immediately put her on the defensive and she began crying and saying how she really did need the money and blah blah blah. I told her I didn't have any cash on me (the truth) but she didn't believe me and sobbed louder and pointed to her boob and basically trapped me there at the sink farthest from the door. Then I remembered I had thought it would take three bucks to cross the Bay Bridge and it had only taken two so I had a spare buck in my pocket. I pulled it out and handed it to her. Of course then she became profusely thankful and hugged me. I said, "Ok, you're welcome, let me go." Again she became defensive and wailed that she really did need the money, pulled up her shirt to show me the gross thing on her boob again, and also mentioned the fact that she had wet herself. She moved to hug me again, but this time in so doing she opened up just enough space that I could slip by as I held up both hands and said, "Ok, stop." As I walked away from the bathroom I checked my pockets to make sure the hugging bit hadn't been a cover up for a bit of pickpocketing and made mental notes to myself that next time I've noticed someone has wet themselves at the sink, to just skip the whole handwashing routine until a more suitable situation.

I had a weird dream last night, too. I can't remember too much of it anymore though. The dream was the type that is more like a movie because I'm not actually in it. I remember it starred Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp, and Anthony Hopkins. There were also these two kids. A boy about ten and his younger sister about eight. It was rather "Others"-esque. The kids were in a big mansion. They had been dropped off there by Mel Gibson, their caretaker. Their instructions for life were, "Open every door. Look in every hiding place. Even the hiding places inside the hiding places." They kept repeating these things over and over. They eventually found a bunch of other kids in the mansion around the same age. The boy decided they had to kill all the other kids. The girl didn't really want to, but eventually decided he was right. So they lured all the other kids outside and killed them and dumped their bodies in the moat that was around the mansion. Unfortunately for these two kids, the last two other kids to come out didn't quite die. They chased the two main kids off and then went to get the police chief, Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp tried to find these kids for thirty years. Meanwhile Johnny Depp got old and gray and the two other kids grew up. They finally decided to look for the kids in the moat by draining the moat. I guess their caretaker turned into Anthony Hopkins when he got older. The two kids were in the moat, but it turns out they hadn't aged any because they were already dead. They were ghosts or zombies or something. They were hiding in the foot or two of remaining water in the moat as it was being drained away and Anthony Hopkins was telling them over and over again, "Open every door. Look in every hiding place. Even the hiding places inside hiding places."