"Food service"

Life has a way of injecting a bit of humor during times of profound sadness and sorrow to lessen the load. Yesterday was no exception. The six of us--Craig, Emily, Dad, Diane, Jill and I, had pulled chairs up around mom, who was lying on her new air mattress atop her patient bed. She was sleeping relatively peacefully, save that of labored breathing. All of a sudden, we heard a knock and the door opened to reveal a familiar uniform--hairnet, maroon apron, you get the picture. "Food service", they said. Now, if this was the first time they tried to give us a full tray of food or a smoothie for mom to eat, perhaps we would have been more patient, but it wasn't. Somehow, somewhere food service didn't get the memo and that knock happened to be the 5th or 6th "food service" we had to deal with. We told them we don't need food anymore, yet, like the movie Groundhog Day..."food service". I finally got to the point where I wagged my arm as if to say, "get the hell out of here". Jill and Diane would (politely yet firmly, as mom would do) "inform" them that we STILL don't need food. Eventually, we dumbed it down to a quick "no". Maybe if we pantomimed it they would get the point. Or, use pictographs: mom+food+stop sign+Mr. T = STOP BRINGING OUR MOM FOOD, FOOL!

Minutes after this event, we heard another knock at the door and before we could even say "come in", one of the cockier neurosurgeon residents entered the room complete with OR scrubs and hat. He quickly said, "oops, wrong room" once he realized who we were. We all started cracking up. You have GOT to be kidding me (insert a few curse words). You can't write this stuff. As Jill said, "maybe he's looking for Mr. Lewis in room 32".

You see, Diane perhaps ticked off this resident when she mocked him. We had been discussing the shunt issue for days, and had been waiting the arrival of the great Dr. Lillyhigh for at least four days when Mr. neurosurgeon -- we only hold baker's hours (i.e. 5:50 a.m.... we're still waiting for the Krispy Kremes) -- popped in for our morning round of "let's do a shunt" (despite our reluctance). Note to self: don't pop in on people before six a.m. unless you're bringin' doughnuts.  We had told the team that we weren't going to make a decision until we had a chance to discuss the shunt with mom's neurosurgeon, and of course, Dr. L.  So, when the neurosurgeon suggested that we go ahead with the surgery, and that Dr. L would be by, Diane quipped back, "is there really a Dr. Lillyhigh?" Evidently, the humor was lost on him and he explained that Lillyhigh was an extremely busy person. (Good for him and his datebook, I say). He then said that maybe he came by when we weren't here and Diane said, "what with his super hero powers", knowing full well that mom was rarely (if ever) left alone. Each morning since that day, the neurosurgery residents would wander into the room in the wee hours of the morning and inquire about the shunt, even though we (the oncology team, neurology, and Dr. Lillyhigh--he finally visited and was quite kind and informative) decided to hold off on the shunt for some time. Tuesday, as Mom's condition worsened and things looked imminent, I told the oncology team to send a memo to neurosurgery to stop coming by, that "we are kinda over the shunt issue". That made the resident's "wrong room" blunder a bit more hilarious.

Shortly after the neurosurgeon incident, and a few minutes after Emily and Craig left for the afternoon, guess who paid us a visit? "Food service..."

Mom would have cracked up.

~E