The Lord of the Knees
New Knees, Please
For as long as I can remember my mom has had bad knees. My dad would likely say, "it was you damn kids what wrecked your mother's knees and gave her that high blood pressure." The wife and I have been prodding both of them to get "new knees" for years. It's all the rage with old people. My mom finally broke down and decided at the age of 74 that it was time for her to get her new knees. They refused her request to do them both at once but happily scheduled surgery for one of them.
Now my dad has been getting more and more forgetful and worse and worse at driving. According to my mom she was going to have surgery and be in the hospital for three (3) days. She figured my dad would be just fine getting around on his own. The wife and I thought all of this sounded a bit dodgy so we decided to come down for the week to help out. And that is when things started to get interesting.
Paging Dr. Andy
We got in on Monday, the night before the morning of the surgery.
Me: So what exactly are they going to be doing? Do they cut off your leg and reattach it with like some Terminator shit or something?
Mom: Some what? No. I don't know.
Lisa: You don't know what they're going to be doing?
Mom: Well I assume replacing my knee.
Me: Yeah, there are a few ways they can do that. You don't what they're going to be doing?
Mom: Well your brother Andy said they would resurface it.
Me: Andy's not a doctor. Why do you always call him about medical questions? I could just as easily make up some bullshit for you. You should have called me. Why didn't you ask your doctor what was going to be done?
Mom: Well, it's one of those. You know?
Me: Huh?
So we got up bright and early and took her to the hospital. We got there at around 6:30am. Surgery went great and eventually she made it into her semi-private room at about 2:00pm. Please keep in mind that she fully expected zero help from anyone else. My dad was supposed to be on his own for the "three days" she was expecting to spend in the hospital. So of course they scheduled an ophthalmologist appointment in downtown San Antonio for 3pm the day of her surgery.
Turn Here
If you've ever driven in downtown San Antonio you know it's a rat's nest of one way streets and never ending street construction. My dad wasn't all that sure how to get to his eye doctor from the hospital in which my mom was staying so we used my Android phone and Google Maps to get turn by turn directions to the hospital. We got almost all the way there when the fun began:
Google: Turn left in 100 yards.
Dad: I know where we are now. Take the next right.
Lisa: Um, that's a one way street.
Dad: Alright. Take the right after that.
Me: Well the phone says we should be going left…
Dad: Nah. I can see the Nix building right there. Well, not the Nix building but that green building there. That's the building near the Nix building where we park. The doctor is right around the corner from there.
Me: I think we should probably just listen to the directions. It's usually pretty good.
Dad: Right here. Turn right.
Lisa: What should I do?
Me: Fine. Whatever. Turn right. I guess he knows.
Dad: Aw, hell. We need to get over there. To that green building.
Lisa: I can't go that way.
Me: So the phone–
Dad: Here. Turn here.
Me: –has these directions and stuff. They're pretty good…
Dad: What the shit? Where's that green building? I can't see it.
Lisa: Well this street ends I've got to go somewhere.
Dad: The green building is gone.
Me: I'm going to turn the navigation stuff back on. Can we just try listening to it and not second guessing it?
Dad: If I can find that green building again I know where it is.
We finally listen to the phone and get to the place within a minute or two. My dad finally sheepishly admits that we probably should have listened to it all along. He says he's not used to coming this way in the first place.
Incidentally the Nix building has valet parking and a pretty cool man lift that employees can use to get to the two floors above (where the cars are parked). My dad nearly does a faceplant stepping off of a curb that is a foot and a half high. Luckily I manage to grab him by the arm in time. We head up to the office (which is entirely too nice with too nice of a view) and get his business done. It turns out this was a follow up appointment to get the results of some previous appointment. It boils down to them telling him he's fine. They schedule another appointment in 6 months for whatever reason.
Once we're done with the eye doctor it's time to eat again. We hit a Denny's on the way and I have one of the worst sandwiches ever: the Grand Slamwich. It has this sickeningly sweet maple bread on it. Once again I'm punished for trying something new.
C'mon Baby Just Pump It (Louder)
We get back to the hospital where my mom is recovering. It takes a lot of convincing but we finally manage to assure her that she needs to use her patient controlled analgesia (PCA) whenever she begins to feel uncomfortable. She's pretty skeptical because it's loaded with morphine. "When you father had that morphine in the hospital it made him crazy." I resist the temptation to push the button on the PCA every time I'm near it and assure her that different people react differently to different medications. Go figure.
She gets her first post-op meal and shows off her Jello tongue. Priceless.
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