Surgery Again!

*

I am scheduled to have my nasty hernia fixed this coming Tuesday, and I’m frustrated. Ruth is acting like I’m a crazed fool. Of course, she’s always thought of me as her crazy artist, and more recently, gay dad. Peter and Jim, my straight buddies here at THE BIG NEEDLE both think I’m going to die under the knife, and make no bones about telling me I will. Tillie Herr, my next-door neighbor here at Prickly Needle Funny Farm won’t even talk to me because, as she says, “He’s already dead.” She’s “P. O’d” at me anyway because I’m gay.

“The Bible says your kind will burn in hell,” she told me when I first came out to her 4 years ago. I couldn’t help myself, and asked her; “In what chapter, and verse does it specifically say that?” Of course, there isn’t one. So, there’s no point going through all the verses she quoted that have nothing to do with being gay, including the story of lot, since that is about hospitality, not gay angels. They didn’t even have a word for it then. It was a variety of human sexual behavior, not a type of person.

Anyway, my favorite grandson, Adam, he’s the teacher, called me in a tizzy, and said; “Please don’t have surgery, Grandpa. Not at your age.”

“Adam,” I said, “I am still active and plan on staying that way. The hernia is a limitation that could kill me should it become strangulated. “You wouldn’t want me to have emergency surgery that would be far more dangerous than this planned minor surgery would you?”

“No, Sir,” he said.

“Good. That’s settled then.” He decided to take two personal days next week in order to come to Lancaster to stay with me after my surgery. I was so pleased, that I didn’t argue. “Thank you so much, Adam. You are the best grandson in the world,” I said.

The surgeon proposes to keep me in the hospital for one day. They don’t do that with younger people, but he wants to make sure that I get through the first twenty-four hours post surgery without any complications. He also said that it was necessary for me to have someone staying with me for at least two days, so I’m extremely happy that Adam is coming to Lancaster. Of course, Ruth raised “bleep!”

“Daddy! How could you let Adam do that? It’s such an inconvenience for him. I’m right here in Lancaster. Call him back and tell him that he doesn’t need to take off from work. I can stay with you.”

However, I certainly don’t want Ruth staying with me for two days. She will use that as an emotional club to beat me with for the rest of this year, and at least half of 2005. She will clean the apartment, and move everything around. She will throw things out, like my drawings of Scott Merritt. She threw those away last year. She will fuss and fume about everything. No way!

In any event, I guess I’m as ready as I can be for this surgery, though I must admit, I’m a bit frightened now that so many people have predicted my eminent demise.


* ‘Areas of Clinical Expertise Pt 2,” University of Southern Califonia, Department of Surgery Web Site, “http://www.surgery.usc.edu/divisions/nontrauma/expertise2.html#Emergency%20and%20Diagnostic%20Laparoscopy,” Sunday, November 7, 2004, AM EST.



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