A Tale of Two Grandpas (As Told by the Lying Down Comedian).
There are at least two living grandpas in my immediate family and one of them is me.
The other grandpa is my father, who is often known as great-grandpa.
At the moment we are both at the hospital. I am at Cedars Sinai (henceforth “CS”) recovering from my second cervical spine surgery within six weeks.
Dad is at Ronald Regan medical center at UCLA, (henceforth “Ronnie”), recovering from a fairly serious foot infection. I still harbor a hope of assuming his mantle of great-grandpa at some day in the future, but that remains to be seen.
There are a number of similarities between my dad and me, and many differences. I will hereafter refer to my dad as “MD” even though he is not a doctor (the doctor in our family is my son, his grandson, Steven).
Boy, has Steven been busy over the past six weeks. On March 27th, after thoroughly consulting with Steven, I was wheeled into the operating room (henceforth “OR”) of CS. My spine surgery was a total success – especially when you ask my surgeon.
While I was home recovering, MD decided to upstage me (in Steven’s world known as out gurney-ing me), and developed a somewhat serious foot infection. He was checked into the emergency room at Ronnie.
I promise you that I (to be referred to as either “I” or “me” – which are absolutely delightful words) did not have a relapse (henceforth referred to as “ouch”), or I upstaging dad (henceforth “IUD”) to go to the OR on purpose. (I am currently on pain medication and knew what OR stands for ten seconds ago and now I don’t.)
I do not mind that the main responsibility of caring for us in the hospital has fallen onto the shoulders of Steven and my wife. I am the perfect patient because I follow instructions, have enormous patience (at least to begin with), and MD does not.
For example, MD yells at the nursing staff regularly. I scream at the nursing staff irregularly. He desperately wants to get out of Ronnie whereas I kind of like yelling at people at CS. My view of the Santa Monica Mountains is superb, though the food here leaves something to be desired – such as seasoning without anything other than pure salt (henceforth “PS”). He likes to complain to as many visitors as possible. I prefer to have no visitors and to allow them to suffer terribly on my behalf, in silence, in the comfort of their own homes.
Another significant difference – MD has given up two or three times and called his caretakers to provide sleeping pills so he could die. I, on the other hand, while being wheeled at 30 miles per hour down CS halls, may have seriously thought about my own mortality, but upon arriving at the OR where the operating team seemed to be having so much fun – decided not to interrupt the joy of their Saturday morning by dying, even if the surgeon might have claimed later that, despite my demise, the operation itself was a miraculous success.
MD may escape from Ronnie tomorrow. I will be allowed to enjoy the haute cuisine of CS until Thursday or Friday or for as long as I can eat the stuff.
It is said that great comedians transform their pain into humor for others to enjoy. This blog has bounced around like my pogo stick blog from February of last year and I am dictating it to an editor (henceforth “ED”) with the hope that this will be the start of my long threatened, but not yet realized, ambition to become the world’s first and best lying down comedian (henceforth “FAB”). I plan to be writing additional blogs for many years, which, hopefully, will not be as funny as this one because – as Adlai Stevenson famously stated after losing the 1956 presidential contest to Dwight D Eisenhower – “I’m too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh.”
Talk to you next week. I’ll be home by then.
PS – I was dictating this blog to ED when my ear, as it often does, touched the mute button on my phone. I apologize because you’re missing the best part (henceforth “TBP”).
Alan
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