me’s blog

Here’s a little anecdote for those who wonder where I get my sense of humor.

One year ago today, my then 68 year-old father had knee replacement surgery.  As most men of a certain age seem to be, he was nervous and somewhat inherently distrustful of the hospital staff.  It wasn’t so much the fear that they didn’t know what they were doing, but rather a more general and understandable concern that goes along with putting one’s ability ever to walk again into the hands of virtual strangers.  Also he was in a Prince George’s County hospital, so while he knew and trusted his surgeons, there were no assumptions or guarantees of stellar care in the days after the operation.  My sister and I agreed to take turns sleeping in a chair in the hospital room for a few nights.  That way whenever he opened his eyes he’d see a face that he knew, and if he woke up in the middle of the night and needed anything, we’d be there to help out.  SuperMom took the day shifts.

While Mom and Amy and I were watching The Price Is Right in the hospital waiting room during the hours immediately following the procedure, someone came in and told us that the surgery had gone well and that they were moving Dad to his recovery room.  A little while later they told us we could go in and see him.  He was not yet conscious, but we sat there for an hour or so until he started slowly opening his eyes.  He was obviously still very doped up and couldn’t even speak, but he did smile when he saw all of us standing around him.

After drifting in and out of consciousness for the next hour or so, he eventuallly began attempting to string sounds together in unintelligibly noble attempts to make words.  As he ambled down the slow road to coherence, some nurses with thick Filipino accents came in to help make sure he was in minimal discomfort.  They adjusted his pillows and his position on them, all the while calling him "Pop" - since he was clearly our father - and asking him if he was comfortable.  Dad seemed to be getting frustrated, which he later told us was because he thought they were calling him "Bob", which led him to wonder if there had been some mixup and maybe he had been moved to the wrong room and was getting the wrong assistance or something.  A valid concern when you’re all doped up and having trouble elocuting your thoughts.

Finally, he managed to emphatically slur together the words, "My name’s not Bob!"

One of the nurses leaned into him and very gently asked him what he would like to be called. 

Dad’s woozy yet perfectly timed deadpan reply?

"’Your Excellency’ would be just fine."

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 7:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.