BlitzBlog

About 10 years ago, my family and I used to spend a week or so on Cape Cod at the end of every summer. We usually rented a house in Chatham, about halfway out, on the outside of the elbow. About 35 miles farther out, at the very tip of Cape Cod, lies Provincetown, or in the local vernacular, P-town.

Chatham is a quaint little tourist village, with a good choice of beaches for families, but for any serious whale watching, one must get a cruise out of P-Town.

In contrast to Chatham, P-town is what could be considered the Key West of the north. It is a funky and fun hotbed of counter culture, and more specifically gay culture. It is a haven for the gay community of both genders, and everything in between. And it is all on display, from the most suggestive of t-shirts, to the tightest of short shorts and thongs (and that’s the guys we’re talking about). It is Flame City, and has probably a dozen drag clubs on it’s main, well…drag.

So this particular summer, on our last night on vacation, Kate I took the kids for a 5:30 whale watching cruise. The boat arrived back at the pier at about 7 or so, and took a walk downtown, which is along the waterfront. Kate had 4 year old Sarah, while I strolled hand-in-hand with my 7-year old boy Zac.

At about this time, on most summer evenings, dozens of drag queens start making their appearance on the downtown street, mostly handing out their show’s mini flyers, hawking tourists to come see the show (This year’s main theme was Big-boned Barbies). The outrageous neon costumes, feathers and boas and 6″ platforms, with so much make up they actually do like like women, some even kinda……well, hot.

So we’re walking in the street, which is closed to traffic and is busy with people. Zac and I are walking, and about 30 feet ahead of us we notice 3 queens in full regalia strutting their stuff, handing out flyers. Zac says to me, “Dad! Look at those ladies!”

I look down at him and say, “Look at them closer Zac.”

He peers at them as they walk, and his gaze returns up to mine. He looks at me quizzically.

I smile and say in a low voice, “Zac, they’re not ladies.”

Zac’s eyes widen and he turns back to look at them again, and exclaims for the entire street to hear, “THOSE ARE MEN!?”

I can hear about 50 people crack up, all knowing exactly what Zac is talking about. The 3 queens all stop and turn on their heels, hands on hips, in cartoon dramatic fashion, like Ru Paul on a Paris runway. They spot Zac and all scoot on their platform sandals over to us. They all squat down and start fawning over Zac- how cute he is, blah blah blah- all while he’s looking up at me and Kate, who’s seen this all transpire and had just caught up with us. Zac’s eyes were a mix of delight and confusion, and we all just smiled at him while he absorbed this onslaught of attention.

After a minute, the queens said their goodbyes (air kisses!) and went off to continue their hawking. We continued our stroll, and not long afterwards, Zac asked me, “Dad, what’s with those ladies? I mean, men. Why do they dress like that?”

I told him it was for a play and it’s called burlesque. It’s supposed to be funny. “Did you think it was funny?” I asked him.

“Well yeah, kinda, but kinda weird too.”

I replied, “I know what ya mean, man, I know exactly what you mean.”

Later on, after Kate and I put the kids to bed, we started to pack for the ride home the next day. Kate mentioned that she was pretty sure that in second grade, they still write a “what I did on my summer vacation” essay pretty early in the year.

“We’re going to be getting a very interesting phone call come September.” she said.

It’s a strange thing, holding someone’s hand, the other resting on their chest, while they take their last breath on Earth.

My dad died peacefully on Wednesday afternoon with my wife Kate and myself on either side of him. The last thing I know he heard from my lips was, “I love you, Dad. You’re the best.”

He was 93 and after 6 months of dialysis, he decided that was enough. He said the treatments weren’t making him feel better, they were only keeping him alive. And for the most part, he felt lousy. I understood completely, and told him so. And then I took the next 7+ weeks off to be with him.

Dad’s doctors couldn’t say how long dad would live. Anywhere from 2 weeks to a year I was told. (I suppose in my dad’s honor as a lover of gambling I should have started a pool, but it’s too late now).

Surprisingly, for the first month, Dad seemed to be doing better than he did while taking the dialysis 3 times a week. When he was in treatment, he’d have good days and bad days, with seemingly no correlation to when he had a dialysis session. But once he’d stopped the treatments, his energy seemed to even out. While he wasn’t feeling great exactly, he was strong enough to climb the 7 steps up to our dining room from his bedroom and join us for dinner.

But inevitably, his virtually non-functioning kidneys allowed his blood to turn septic, and his energy level began a drastic decent about 10 days before his death. Interestingly, on the morning of the day of his death, while he was very uncomfortable and couldn’t seem to find a position in bed that allowed him to relax, I never gave any thought to today being The Day. His breath was wet with fluid in his throat, which had happened before, and I thought it might be a few more days before he finally passed. (I subsequently learned that this is what they call the Death Rattle).

At about noon, Kate came home from work. About the same time that the hospice nurse Teri and home health aid Marie came by. I’d been sitting with Dad for about 3 hours that morning, so I took the opportunity to to take the dogs out for a walk in the woods behind our house.

After about 10 minutes, I was heading back and I heard Kate calling my name. I somehow just knew something was not right, but I also thought for some strange reason, that if I ran, it would cause dad to be dead when I got to the house. Nevertheless, I picked up my pace and walked quickly through the back door. Kate said, “He’s gonna go, Matt. Any minute now.” I was surprised but stayed calm, and we both sat down on the edges of the bed at Dad’s sides. His color was more pale than I’d ever seen, and his breathing was barely evident. Kate cried and stroked his face and head. I held his hand and gently rubbed his chest. After a few moments I could no longer feel any movement in his chest, and his hand was slack. I looked at Kate, then at Teri and Marie. Teri leaned over and put the stethoscope on Dad’s chest, then looked at the clock. She noted it was 12:32, and said, “I’m so sorry Matt.”

Kate and I stood up and held each other and cried. We’d known this day was coming, so it wasn’t a shock, but it made us no less sad.

Now, 4 days later, dad is buried, tucked safely into his grave on Friday morning. It was a lovely ceremony, and despite the circumstances, good to see my extended family and friends who showed to pay respects and give us emotional support.

But today is also Father’s Day. My first without my dad. And while I love being the center of attention, I wouldn’t mind sharing the spotlight for just one more day.

I’ve always said that a person is either a result of their parents or a reaction to their parents. Most of us are probably a 90/10 mix of the result/reaction formula.

In my case, I am more reaction than result. My Dad was married 4 times in his life. He had 3 kids before he was 23 from his first marriage. He waited 10 years and then married my mother, to whom he was married for 17 years. About 4 years after they divorced, he got hitched again, but it turned out #3 was crazy, literally, and the union was annulled. Another 4 years down the road, and boom, he took his last wife, and after 9 years, they divorced. I guess after that, he’d learned his lesson, as since then, he really hasn’t come close to a 5th honeymoon. Unfortunately, at 92 years old, he’s not rich enough to attract a gold-digging cookie. Charming enough maybe. Rich though, no.

The interesting thing about Sid’s wives is that they were all the same woman. I met them all at one time or another, and it seems my dad is a twisted version of John Derrick (who’s wives you might recall- Linda Evans, Bo Derrick, and Ursula Andress all looked uncannily alike. Basically it seemed he just traded one wife in for a newer model). While Sid’s wives were certainly not in the league of the 3 Mrs. Derricks, they all were highly polished, 5-lbs of make up and hair spray before ever venturing out of the house, big-boobed, mid 20th century JAPs. Even their personalities were very similar. I guess either Dad never learned from his mistakes, or he’d start missing the last wife but couldn’t go back, so he found the next closest thing. Who knows? Maybe he just had a compulsion to give away half his assets every 20 years.

In reaction to this, witnessing it as I did growing up, I always knew in my heart, that I’d marry late, and be as sure as I could, that it would stick. In September, I’ll be married to the same gorgeous woman for 20 years, and while she sometimes needs to hit me with the frying pan, I’m reasonably confident we’ll still be together in another 20.

As for my Dad and the concept of “family,” while he was always tied to his 3 siblings, he was never really close. Not so much that he’s see them more often than on holidays and family functions. And with him being divorced, my Mom and I never really had that “family around the dinner table” tradition. It was usually just me and her, me home from practice or school, she from her job.

So, now, at my house, dinner is a must-be-at event. Granted not every night, but I’d say we all sit down together 5 nights a week. Sometimes it’s a bit rushed, squeezed between social engagements for my kids or Kate or myself, but still, it’s a major part of our family life.

One of the traditions at our dinner table, on Friday nights, we light Sabbath candles (we’re Jews, if you didn’t already know) and go around the table, mentioning what we’re each thankful for, and what mitzvah (good deed) we’d done that week. It’s a nice way to take stock, and to see what’s going on that’s important in each others’ heads and lives.

In the year that my dad has been living with us, his turn at this ritual has usually been to say “At my age, I’m just thankful to be alive.” He says it with a tossed-off frivolity, but it has always irked me that he would never stop to look inward and give a truly thoughtful answer, as the rest of us do. My kids have done this since they could speak, so why couldn’t he? What happened to the myth of The Wisdom of the Aged?

So two weeks ago, at Friday night dinner, it is my frail old dad’s turn to say his “thankfuls.” We’re all prepared for his standard line, but he quietly shocks us by saying how thankful he is to be “surrounded by a loving family, and to know that he’s well cared for.” We all looked at each other quizzically, but kept our surprise to ourselves, lest we make too big a deal out of this momentous inward reflection. Dad repeated this same thankful last week again.

I wondered why he decided to take the time to speak up in these past weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that my dad has finally learned something. He’s watched my family interact for a full year, living with us, and sees what is truly important, and maybe even what he might have missed out on. And while he might be wistful that he spent his life bouncing from marriage to marriage, with (except for me) very few parenting duties, I think he’s finally happy to have experienced what it’s like to be part of a traditional, emotionally healthy nuclear family.

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

“Rosebud.” the dying Charles Foster Kane whispered.

“I’m freezing.” my dad says to me.

I’m in the waiting room, ancient 19″ Sylvania hanging in the corner, Citizen Kane playing in the background. I’m alone right now, as my dad sits in one of the 20 recliners, tubes attached on one end to his arterial perma-cath (catheter), the other to the dialysis machine.

I’ve covered dad in the 3 blankets we’ve brought to this place. This place where we’ve come now three times. For some reason, they keep it cold. I don’t know why. Every one of the patients seem to be buried in their own blankets. Why do they keep it so cold? Well, not cold really. Probably a “green” 68-degrees, but would they keep it like this if it were a nursery? Don’t they see that every one of their patients is uncomfortable? Why can’t they turn the heat up?

This is my first experience with dialysis. Dad is 92 and is in renal failure. He was hospitalized for a week or so, until he was strong enough to go home and start going to this outpatient dialysis clinic about 20 minutes from our house. The treatments last three hours leave him drained and tired. His first treatment here, last Monday evening, was disastrous.

You see, renal failure generally shuts down the urinary system, and being on dialysis, patients are advised to limit their liquid intake, lest they drown in their own fluids. However, for some reason, dad is a rare dialysis patient who needs to urinate about every hour. This presents a problem when one is bonded to a machine for 3 straight hours.

So Monday, dad felt the urge to go. He told this to one of the nurses, but apparently the urgency of the situation was lost on her, as she didn’t return with a urinal bottle nor the rolling privacy screens for dad to relieve himself. By the time they got the screens set up, about half an hour later, they realized they had no proper urinal bottle. Whatever cup they handed him was too cumbersome for him to handle, and well, by the time I returned, dad was sitting in his slowly-drying old-man pants.

I felt horribly guilty for leaving him alone, but dad is fiercely independent and insisted I not sit with him for the three hours, and that all had gone well in the hospital dialysis sessions, so he insisted he’d be fine. I went out to the waiting room, checked on him after 20 minutes, (”Go! I’ll be fine!”) and then went out to run some errands.

So we drove home, me in my guilt, he in his humiliation and exhaustion. He said to me, “I don’t think I wanna do this again.” “Dad,” I answered, “You don’t really have a choice.”  “Whaddya mean? Maybe if I take a few weeks off, I’ll feel better and then I can go back.”

Obviously dad did not realize the direness of his situation. “Dad, you won’t last a couple of weeks without this.”

“Get outta here.” he replied in disbelief (or denial).

“No Dad, here’s what’ll happen- you’ll start to feel weak and tired, worse than you did before you went into the hospital. Except it won’t get better. It’ll keep getting worse. Your blood will turn to poison and start shutting your organs down, until one of them is your brain and you start losing your mind. Eventually you won’t be able to get out of bed, and after that you’ll spend a week or so unconscious until you die.”

It was a cold thing to say, but he had to know what kind of decision he was contemplating. He was quiet after that for while. I broke the silence, “Dad, give it a week. We’ll go back Wednesday night, then Saturday, and by next Monday you’ll see if you’re feeling better.” He nodded and then went to sleep for the rest of the ride home. Me, I cried a bit.

As expected, Dad was pretty drained all day Tuesday, but surprisingly, still so on Wednesday. This particular Wednesday was the day before Thanksgiving, so the house was a buzz of activity, what with cleaning and cooking preparation and the arrival of my brother-in-law and his girlfriend from out of town. As 6 o’clock approached, when we’d have to leave for dialysis, my dad told me he wasn’t going. “I just can’t do it Matt. I feel weak and lousy. Let’s just wait ’til Saturday.”

“Dad, if you don’t go, you might not make it ’til Saturday.”

He quickly retorted, in all seriousness, “Promise?”

I called the dialysis center and told them we weren’t coming. Their reply was that they’d have to call the nephrologist to let him know, and that he’d probably call us back.

About an hour later, the doctor called. I explained to him how my dad was feeling, and told him what a disaster Monday had been. He earnestly replied,”I feel terrible Mr. Blitz. What you’re basically saying is that our treatment was so bad that your dad would rather die than go back to our facility.” I told him that was spot-on accurate.

He told me that he’d try to set up an appointment for Friday instead of Saturday, and that he would make our feelings about our previous session known to the staff, and that dad would get the royal treatment on Friday. I told him I’d try to get dad to agree to go again on Friday, if at all, and I’d call the doc on Thanksgiving evening to let him know. I told dad about the doctor’s offer, and he said he’d think about it.

It cast a pall over our usual revelry on Wednesday night, knowing that my dad had decided to give up on living. We avoided the subject as much as possible all evening and even after our family showed up for Thursday’s feast.

One of the customs for our Thanksgivings has been to go around the table and say what each of us is thankful for. Usually my wife or I initiate the conversation, but this year, I think neither of us was in any mood. This year, we skipped our “thankfuls.”

By the evening, after everyone had gone, I sat with dad in his room. “So what do you think? Should I tell the doc you’ll go back tomorrow?” He sighed and said yes.

Friday night’s treatment, while better, was certainly nowhere near “royal.”  We sat in the waiting room for a half hour past dad’s appointed time. At least this time we’d only be doing a 2-hour session, and I made doubly sure that the nursing staff knew Dad might need to use the urinal and that they should respond to his needs pronto. Of course, this time I stayed with him, asking him frequently about his need to go. After about an hour and a quarter, he said he had to go, but could hold it. I tried prodding him to go in the urinal we’d brought with us, but he said he could wait. He never looked comfortable, but even after a few times of my insisting he’d be more comfortable if he went, he refused. At least he didn’t pee his pants as he finally skedaddled to the rest room after they de-attached him from the machine.

Dad felt marginally better than last time after this treatment, but still wasn’t thrilled with the dialysis center. He agreed to return for the planned schedule next Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, albeit reluctantly.

On Monday, we went to dad’s regular doc- his GP- who genuinely cares for dad, and who dad also thinks the world of. So I asked Doctor K, “Could you explain to my dad why he’s not feeling better?” “Well, he hasn’t really given it a chance. Sid, you’ve only had one-and-a-half sessions. That’s half of what you should have had so far.” Using a metaphor, he continued, “If you want the medicine to work, you have to take all of it. You don’t take one aspirin and expect your migraine to disappear, do you?”

At this point, I wasn’t convinced Dad was fully aware of his dire situation. I thought that if he heard the truth from Dr. K, he might realize and digest it. “Doc, what happens if he doesn’t do the dialysis?”

“Well, Sid, you’ll feel like you did when you went in to the hospital two weeks ago, but then you’ll start to feel even worse.”

I asked, “How long would that last?”

Dr. K replied, “How long would he last? A month, maybe two.”

I saw recognition in dad’s eyes, and finally I think he “got it.”

That was yesterday. A little while ago, Dad used the urinal about 2 hours into the session with no spillage. Right now, the monitor on the machine next to dad is saying 8 minutes left.

The TV in the waiting room is saying “Rosebud.”

About 2 years ago, after we had to put our old dog, Gogi to sleep, I was sure my family would insist on replacing him pretty soon. (See Izzy Blogs)  We’d already done a “pre-emptive replacement” the previous spring when we acquired Izzy, our standard poodle. I say “pre-emptive,” as we’d all expected Gogi to die within weeks of us bringing the puppy Izzy into our home. But instead, having the new pup around re-energized Gogi, and for a while he overcame whatever pain his arthritis was causing him, and allowed him another year or so to experience his Dog Joy.

So it’s been about a year and a half of owning only one dog, and generally, my lovely wife Kate’s mindset was that Izzy, The Best Dog Who Ever Lived, was all the dog we needed.

But somewhere along the line, she changed her mind.

Using clever psychology and mental trickery, she steered ever more conversations around the dinner table to how Zac, our 16 year old son, really needed a dog of his own. Now let me say that Zac is in all likelihood leaving the house to go to college in a year and a half. He is also the least “animal-friendly” person in our family. (Granted we are an extremely animal friendly family, having at one time or another, owned cats, dogs, fish, cockatiels, turtles, iguanas, ducks, chickens and goats, so the term “least animal friendly” is a relative one).

“So Zac, what kind of dog, if you could have any kind, would you like?” Kate would not-so-transparently query. Zac was non-specific at first, usually mentioning he’d like a small dog. “How small?” we’d ask in reply, “Like Gogi-small? Or smaller?”  Gogi, a Puli, was about 28 pounds- roughly Cocker Spaniel-sized.

“No small, like really small.” Zac replied. “Like a Chihuahua, or a Yorkie.” We’d continue the conversation, always coming back to musing on fun-fantastic mutt-mixes and names like Chi-weiner or Weiner-Danes. We’d muse on why it’s a Cock-a-Poo, but a Golden-Doodle? Why not a GoldenPoo? (Okay maybe that’s obvious, since it sounds more like a fetish act than a dog). Or fun names like a Bulldog-Shihtzu mix called the Bullshihtz.

But it’d always come back to Zac wanting a tiny dog. And this would drive Kate down to her Secret Lair where she’d spend hours perusing the internet, downloading thousands of pix of itty bitty dogs for adoption or sale. If your internet connection has seemed slow over the past few weeks, now you know why.

At some point, this obsession became reality, when she started showing the rest of us pictures of actual dogs that we should look at to consider bringing into our home. It was then when I raised the question of the wisdom of combining some tiny ankle-biter with the 70-pound drool machine that takes up most of my side of my marital bed every night. While I could spend hours regaling one with tales of Izzy’s fabulosity, he does have…um…issues.

So to see how Izzy would deal with a new puppy, we took him along on a visit to The Dog Lady’s house to see some of the prospective adoptees. Two BichaPoos (Bichon Frisé-Poodle mix) and a Cockapoo.

And he was freaked.

He wanted nothing to do with these three little rolling balls of fur, tumbling excitedly betwixt his lanky legs. He looked like the elephant jumping on the chair to stay away from the mice.  We figured that an excitable puppy bouncing off the walls was going to be a difficult adjustment for Izzy. So we thought we’d look for something calmer- perhaps an older pup maybe a year or two old.  We drove off dejectedly, knowing that the search might take awhile.

Three days exactly.

The Dog Lady at whose home we had gone to see the three pups called to beg us to take one of the BichaPoos. That our house was perfect for this dog, and we should reconsider. We spoke to our vet and some of our animal-people friends about Izzy’s anxieties, and we were told that perhaps Izzy’s problem was that he’d just gone on an hour car ride to a place where he was on unfamiliar turf that smelled of hundred of other dogs. Perhaps he’s be more receptive if he was introduced to a new pup on his own turf. We grasped onto this ray of hope and told Dog Lady we’d come down  on Friday with Zac and Sarah (sans Izzy) to have another look.

In short, Zac loved the BichaPoos and we chose the seemingly calmer of the two. Since we had plans that wouldn’t allow us to take the pup right then, and there was paperwork to be filled out by Dog Lady, we arranged to come back tomorrow to pick up the new puppy.

We spent the hour ride home mulling names. We finally decided on Gizmo, for no reason more than it just seemed to fit (and he reminded me of the movie Gremlins), and it’d probably be shortened in everyday use to just ‘Mo. Which would leave us with dogs named Izzy and Mo.

Kate and I picked up Gizmo the next day and came home to introduce him to Izzy. We let Gizmo out of the car and ran him around the yard a bit. Then we let Izzy out and held our breath.

It took about 30 seconds before the two dogs were running and romping around the yard at breakneck pace, playing happily despite their 65lb weight difference. Another crisis averted.

6-days later, everyone in the house is adjusting to life with Gizmo. He’s both mellow and willful, but about as cute as the law allows. Gizmo has spent every evening bonding with Zac and sleeping in Zac’s room. He’s just playful enough for Izzy and the rest of us, and passes much of the rest of the time sleeping and sniffing about his new home. And so far, with very few “accidents.” I’d guess he’ll be totally house trained in a few weeks.  It helps to have a big brother to show him the ropes.

As for your internet connection, you should see an improvement in speed by now. Sorry for the inconvenience.