Of Water Coolers and Umbrella Drinks

When Kay and I got to Wolf’s apartment last night, she was very tired. So tired, in fact that she turned on the TV and promptly fell to sleep, gripping the remote. It was fine for the first hour. I enjoy the TV show “Frasier” and even though I’d seen the episodes before, I didn’t mind watching them again. However, when “The Golden Girls” came on, it was time to change the channel. Kay was still asleep so I tried to slide the remote out of her hand. Not happening. I tried again, a little more forcefully. She had the remote in a grip of steel. So not happening. She finally woke up a couple of hours later and turned the TV off and we both went to sleep.

Kay and I spent most of today with Dale. He wasn’t as uncomfortable as he has been, mainly because of the Versaid they gave him while they did the bone marrow biopsy, but I can honestly tell you he’s seen better days. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

This has been a difficult week for Dale. On Monday he had a colonoscopy, on Wednesday he had a spinal tap and then today he had the biopsy. When I suggested he take the weekend off, he agreed and said he was going to tell the doctors that his dance card was full.

Kay and I did our best to entertain Dale, and for the most part we succeeded. We talked about growing up and all of the fun we had when they would come to Absarokee on the weekends and in the summer. We talked about catching (and releasing) water skippers, and tubing the rapids of Sheep Creek (if you can call 4 inches of quickly moving water rapids, that is).

Even though he is not allowed to have food or water right now, he talked about my mom’s cooking for hours. He went on and on about her homemade milkshakes, the juiciest cheeseburgers in the universe and platters of tater tots. He kept making a fizzing sound, telling us he was craving a Coke, with LARGE ice cubes. But eventually he came back to the one thing that he truly wanted; an ice cold glass of water.

Over and over he said that he was going to buy a water cooler, the kind that you put a 5 gallon jug on top of. He was going to set it up right next to his lounge chair at home and have ice cold water within reach day and night. It was good to hear him focusing on the future.

The drugs were making him kind of “la-la” and he napped in between discussions, but it was a good day all-in-all.

I gave platelets this morning and it might have made me a bit loopy. I looked over at Cousin Kay and she was fiddling with her shoelaces. They were strange looking, to be sure and I couldn’t stop staring. She told me that they were special laces that didn’t have to be tied. For some reason the sight of them and the thought of them cracked me up and I started to giggle hysterically. I couldn’t stop. I laughed until I snorted (yeah, I know…what an attractive visual) several times, and by the end of it all the cousins were ready to schedule a psych evaluation for me.

I talked them out of sending me to a nut house and into going to the Islands. We made a pact. Once this is all over, when he is healthy and well again, we are going to take a cruise to Mexico. When we get there, we are going to sit by the beach, Dale and Kay on chairs in the shade, and me on a towel in the sun.

We’ll be sipping umbrella drinks.