Nasty, Brutish, and Short
Three weeks ago my 27th birthday came and went. I had a marker post planned for that time, all full of longing and regret for time gone by. A few histrionic sentences about how though I've reached the same ephemeral age as every member of the 27 Club, I'll just be another year older by this time next year and will have probably accomplished little.
I may still write that post eventually, but so far this year I haven't had time to dwell on my lack of artistic genius. On my birthday, my paternal grandfather—the only one I have ever known—had to go into the hospital. His cascade of problems started with a case of pneumonia, and finally progressed to him losing a leg. A leg. It was just a lack of oxygen that landed him in the hospital in the first place, and just over two weeks later, he'd undergone an above-the-knee amputation. Amputation. I can't stop wiggling my own fingers and toes, wondering what it's like when your toes are suddenly no longer there to wiggle, wondering where that leg is, previously flesh, bone and titanium that was a part of my grandfather, now medical waste somewhere, somehow not a part of my grandfather.
When I visited DadDad (as I call him) in the hospital a few days ago, just two days post-op, he was in and out of sleep. At one point just after waking, he explained to me that each time he woke, he'd forgotten that the operation had taken place, and seconds later he would be in shock when he remembered that the leg was no longer there. I've thought a lot about that. He echoed himself a little when he said it. “I'm in shock... I'm in shock.” I imagine it's like that feeling that you get when you wake up in a strange place, like you're staying at a friends house or you've just moved, and for a second after you wake you don't know where you are. Except coming back to reality is less of a relief and far more melancholy.
Though this has obviously been hardest on my grandfather, it has been a stressful time for all of us. I feel like I've aged several months in these past few weeks. There was one point a week into the hospital stay and a week before the operation where his doctor was concerned that he might die—which would have been quite sudden from the family's point of view—so the doc checked DadDad into the ICU and summoned all of us to his bedside. That was a long day. I never imagined when I was eating Cuban food on my birthday, when my grandfather had been in the hospital for just hours, that he would be there for weeks, that there would be a near-death scare, and that it would end with an operation that would change his life in a big way, and really a lot of our lives in small ways.
DadDad is currently in rehabilitation in Athens, and no one has any idea when he'll be able to come home. Everyone in the family is tightly wound and at each others throats. On the one hand, it seems beyond ridiculous at this time to sit and ponder my age, how I've lived a quarter of my life or more, how in just a short 58 years I'll be my grandfather's age, and maybe my doctors in 2068 will be telling me that I have to lose one of my legs. On the other hand, nothing seems more important. If I want to keep from ending up there, I can't wait 58 years. I have to start to do something now.
