What makes people think they can give meaningful support to people with irregular needs? What is support exactly? What\u2019s it mean?<\/p>\n
I have leukemia and a support group has been recommended to me. Wow, I thought. I just asked a few questions. What in my behavior triggered the nurse\u2019s recommendation? I could only answer that with the thought that the medical hocus-pocus that lies ahead for me is going to be a tough ordeal. <\/p>\n
Talking about my feelings honestly and candidly never worked too well. I once was married to a clinical psychologist and my son became one, too. I\u2019m sure they could tell you some stories if they were allowed to. Let\u2019s just say that I became their biggest motivation to continue training and complete their PhD\u2019s. Doesn\u2019t everyone dream about killing themselves?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve known a few real sick people, and old people who had been warehoused in Elder Care joints. I would visit them. They looked like crap. Their bodies were shot. Once in a while, I would be in their rooms while some attendant or relative came by to visit. They would talk real loud, coo and use their singsong voice during the health queries. Sure he\u2019s deaf and in a diaper, but he\u2019s not a baby, I would think.<\/p>\n
Their sick old people bodies looked like crap, but they were still in there. I would treat them like I always had. Yes. And even play tricks on them. I\u2019ll give you an example.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an old woman that I visited in her room at an old age home. Over time she kind of lost it. First came the stroke and then a downward regression of stuff. Towards her end, her hearing became almost gone and her mind was failing, especially her memory. Well, I would visit periodically and she would complain that I didn\u2019t come to see her often enough. I\u2019d look around the room, find something like a recent bunch of flowers, and then say, \u201cWhatdaya mean? I just brought you those flowers two days ago.\u201d She\u2019d stare into space. You could tell she was really concentrating on conjuring the real story of the flowers. Most times she would narrow her eyes towards me and say, \u201cYou\u2019re full of shit.\u201d We would laugh every time I pulled it on her.<\/p>\n
On another occasion I visited, Vinnie, an old friend while he recovered in the hospital. He had a stroke. His face and eye on his left side was affected, some motor skills and walking, too. I began our visit by reading his chart to him. Says: Stroke caused by heavy marijuana use. Do not administer any drugs.<\/i> Jeepers. No wonder you look like shit. They\u2019re not drugging you.\u201d I winked and said, \u201cMaybe I should bake you some cookies and bring them on my next visit.\u201d<\/p>\n
He began to laugh and then said something that sounded like a language used by some Star Wars character. So, I started to converse in, what I thought, sounded similar. We talked like that for an hour, neither of us giving in to really try to communicate. Boy, that was fun.<\/p>\n
Jeepers. I just had the thought that perhaps Vinnie wasn\u2019t kidding. I hope not. Hmmmm. I wonder what he was trying to say?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a guy named Tim that I knew who was dying of Cancer. He\u2019d been in and out of the hospital and the folks there had nothing else to cure him with. I visited him at home where he wanted to die. I warmed him up by sniffing the air and asking if he had leprosy because he smelled like it and I thought the Catholics had a cure for it. And when his wife came into the family room where he laid on the couch, I stood and put my arm around her. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about Alice here. We plan to go on a Hawaii vacation right after your funeral. Ain\u2019t that right, Honey?\u201d Tim laughed, coughed, and eventually reached for the oxygen mask hanging on his neck. At his funeral, Alice told the other mourners about the joke. Maybe it was her delivery, but I don\u2019t think everyone got it.<\/p>\n
Is this the kind of humor I can expect in these support groups, or will they give me the old baby talk routine? I wonder. I\u2019m not one that does well with listening to other people when they talk about their ailments, handicaps or fears. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m not sympathetic; I just read the writing on the wall. I ask them, \u201cWell, what did you expect? \u201cDid you think you would live forever?\u201d So I don\u2019t think anyone needs to slide another folding chair into the circle. I\u2019ll handle this on my own. Thank you.<\/p>\n
My meaning of Support is to drug the hell out of me when the pain starts, or maybe even before. The hospital nurses have a quiz they administer every time I have an appointment with my doctor. One of the reoccurring questions is: What\u2019s your pain level? They hold up a chart from 0 to 10. When I run out of gas. When I look like crap and my body is shot. When I know my visit on this planet is almost over. I\u2019ll be ordering the #10 on the menu and entertain myself with my sick sense of humor.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s support to me.<\/p>\n