Ups & Downs

This past weekend was quite different from the usual boring existence that we seem to enjoy so well.  My wife & I are at the age where any kind of change is a disturbance rather than something to look forward to with excitement.

It all started around 1:00 Friday morning when Sean woke up very uncomfortable with redness and swelling in his face.   He seemed to be in a fair amount of pain, yet he complained of numbness in his chin, cheek, and forehead.  “I can’t feel my face” he said.   So I prescribed him my usual remedy – a nice hot bath and some ibuprofen.    Unfortunately that wasn’t the cure and we ended up having a battle over what to do next.  I thought a dose of Benadryl was called for, but he thought otherwise.   As usual, I eventually won but even the Benadryl didn’t help.   His pain and redness had gotten worse so we did what we usually have to do.

We got bundled up, hopped in the car and drove through the first good snowfall of the year to the emergency room through the uncleared streets and highway.   I asked him a couple of times “You still want to go?” hoping he’d say “I’m much better”, but he didn’t and he wasn’t.

I’ve become an old hand at hospitals and emergency rooms.  I know enough to take a list of all his medications – how much he takes and how often, and I always have to go through the whole list of medical procedures and problems he’s had.   I carry a little card with me to show the authorities why he just might set off a metal dectector.  It’s a bit of a pain and I always wonder why this information isn’t kept in his file, but it never is.

After the interview the admitting nurse asked me if he had any other problems and I told her “only an occasional bad attitude” and she snapped “Well, I do to”

We got to see the doctor pretty quickly and he diagnosed a “severe sinus infection”, gave Sean a pain reliever and some antiobiotics, and sent us on our way about 3:30.  He slept most of the way home and I had to drag him itno the house and put him back into bed.  I knew he’d sleep until early afternoon and I hoped he’d feel much better.

Everything went according to plan until he woke up around 6:00 AM Saturday and realized it was bowling day!   He loves his bowling league and I hoped he would sleep right through it.   When he woke up and starting getting ready to go I didn’t even try to convince him to stay home.  He didn’t bowl very well and came home worn out and slept some more.

It was then that I noticed we had some serious problems in the bathroom sink drain.  I hate plumbing.  I’m too big and old to lay down under the cabinet and pull out all the stinky gunk.  And I always have to do it twice.   I’m a terrible plumber, a poor carpenter,  I can lay tile reasonably well, but my real talent is in destruction.  I can tear anything apart!

Sunday morning I got up around 5:00 and noticed the house was a toasty 61 degrees.  I guess when it rains it pours and I waited until a decent hour to bother the furnace man.  It always seems to be a Sunday or a holiday when I actually need him, but he came right over and told me “It’s the nature of the business”.

Those were the lowlights of the weekend.  Every single one of them a real pain, but they were offset by something that made me very happy.  I suppose it is only important to my wife and me, but we feel it is a great achievement.

I have a sister who recently wrote about sentimental items that she keeps for no good reason other than she just can’t throw them out.  And I have a niece who works (somehow) in the publishing industry.  She has passed her love of reading onto her children and all of them seem to always be in the middle of some book.   I thought these two little stories fit in quite well with something else that happened this week.

When I was a kid in Toledo, Ohio the city had an “all trash day”.  You could throw away anything you wanted and the city would pick it up during spring cleaning.   It was common that the less fortunate would make their way into the better neighborhoods and take home “new” furniture and clothing.   I don’t think anybody was bothered by this, in fact I think it was expected.

I would also look through neighbor’s trash and found one treasure that I have kept to this very day (for no reason, other than I can’t throw it out).   A 1935 edition of “Treasure Island” inscribed “To Harry Dickey, from Mother and Dad, Christmas 1936″.   What a great book!   Long John Silver, Black Dog, Old Blind Pew, buried treasure, pirates, etc.   I couldn’t put it down and I spent all my spare time devouring every page of that wonderful story.  I even dug some holes in the backyard looking for pieces of eight.  Ben the dog got the blame, but it was all me.

Now when Sean became a second grader he was expected to read 60 minutes every week at home.  He had absolutely no interest in anything I recommended, or any reading at all for that matter.  I pulled out my old “Treasure Island” and said “Now this is one great book!”.   It was over his head, but I’d read a page and then help him with a page.  After the first chapter he got bored, but I told him “Keep going!  It gets better.  You’ll like it”.   So we struggled week after week until he told me “It stinks and I’m done”.  We would finish our weekly reading minutes on such riveting material as Colts.com or Cubs.com or NFL.com or NASCAR.com.

A couple weeks ago I actually caught him reading on his own.  He had gotten a book from  the school library -  his own “Treasure Island” so to speak – “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and he read that thing from cover to cover in about ten days.   I was very proud of him and tried not to show my boredom when every evening at dinner I’d hear about Tom & Huck, and listen to him wonder how Tom was going to get away from Injun’  Joe.

The next week happened to be the school book fair and he stuck me for $36 in books and $2 in erasers shaped like little stacks of baloney and crackers (really).  I figured it might be time to nudge him toward my favorite book again, but he has other plans now.  

“I’m going to read a biography of Mark Twain if I can find it”.

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