Traveling

 We’re traveling today. Despite the CDC recommendations.  Despite my own trepidations. Logic, epidemiology classes, evidence based practice.  We’re getting on a plane and flying down to Florida, where we will rent a kayak and hie out to the 10,000 islands.  Except for the airport/plane, I think this is a pretty risk free thing to do. The islands are lonely and pristine.

I haven’t packed, of course. I can’t seem to rule my days the way I used to. I just can’t seem to get all that excited about them.  The things that used to really worry me hardly make a dent. Is my surgeon irritated? Is my husband disgruntled? Am I getting fat? A B? Could be!

Maybe the equanimity we associate with Zen masters is just that they’ve reached the point where they “can’t even.”

Mainly we’re going because I think my husband is at risk psychologically.  I don’t think he’s going to kill himself or anything, but he’s pretty despondent. His father is being put on hospice.  He’s 96. Flew B29’s in World War II.  Came home and made a fortune in television advertising.  Managed to piss off the Pulitzers. Watches Fox News. Adores Trump. His kidneys are failing. Well...he’s had a glass of vodka over ice every morning at 11 am for most of his adult life, so no surprise there.  He calls it his “special water.” Even at the assisted living center where he resides he continued the tradition.  Going to brunch with him, our achingly young trans waiter would bring him a glass of ice without even being asked...it was clear they shared an understanding...and he would take out a flask out of his pocket and fill the water glass up.  Now they’re talking dialysis, and the high - end facility doesn’t want him going back and forth.  So he’s on hospice.  Have I told you about the family I married into? They’re shiny, rich and fun, but they don’t much like inconvenience.  To me, it doesn’t seem like dialysis a couple times a week would be that different from the life he’s already living.  I mean...hook him up...turn on Fox News.  Voila.  And I’ve tried to explain that the wackiness they’re seeing is partly a result of his failing kidneys.  They all have degrees in marketing and communication.  I also, to Jay, explained how difficult and painful a death from kidney failure is.  He gets it. The rest...unmoved. His older brother is the executor. And I get that he was chosen because of his success in the business world.  He’s a big power broker in the communications industry. But this dismissal of biology....well.  I guess they’ve all decided 96 years is enough.

I think of my little old lady patients (I have a handful) who take the frickin bus to dialysis. Who find meaning and joy, and persist, despite their swollen legs and aching backs. Who sit and knit for grandchildren while the machine runs.

So I’m taking my husband down to the sea, and we’re going to do what he does best...get into a situation where he has to make something out of nothing.  Camp on the beaches, fend for ourselves. I understand why he was so drawn to the wilderness, now, growing up in that environment. 

Well, that’s my half hour. I guess I’m ignoring biology, too.