Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Never ask my grandfather "How are you doing?"
That question is an open invitation for him to tell you every little ailment he suffers from, or thinks he suffers from. I guess I should tell you first that my grandfather is a bit of a hypochondriac, but at 87 most people are. To him cuts and colds are like fashion statements and he must have it worse than anyone else. Now before you go all "you should not pick at old people or sick people" on me, hear me out. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't take any illness lightly and are myself a huge hypo. I am not talking about life threatening illness, I am talking about colds,cuts,rashes and the occasional insect infestation.
My grandfather is the strongest man I know. Here is a man who has had two open heart surgeries, has a pace maker and is still more active then most people I know. A few stories jump into my head but the one that really sticks out is a few years ago he drove his dump truck down to the woods behind his house and somehow managed to flip it on its side while he was still in it. So he crawls out of the window and walks back to the house. With blood streaming down his face he asked my father to go back down there and help him get the truck back right side up. The man had a major cut right above his eye and was bleeding and all he wanted to do was get his dump truck back! He finally decided to go to the hospital to have his wounds examined and since then you would have thought he had survived a major war battle.
You see it is not so much the illness but the story he has to go with it. A few years ago he had a hernia operation and he was not satisfied until everyone saw his scare which was in places I would rather not think grandparents had...gross.
Over the past year or so he has taken to finding lots of little things wrong with him so that he can go visit his doctor. He loves his doctor and he was seeing him on average 3 times a week. The latest issue has actually caused some tension between grand and the good doctor. He is convinced that really small bugs are biting his head and neck and making him itch. This news alarmed me a bit because my father and grandfather live next door to one another in the South Carolina sticks. To makes things worse both of them work really hard, get really dirty and have no one to make them clean. Now I am not saying that they are pigs and don't bath, but neither of the two are what I would call constantly tidy. So when I heard of the head bug infestation I was worried I would have to go down there and burn all the sheets and give the two gasoline baths or something. As it turns out, there was something in my grandfather's head alright but it wasn't bugs, it was his imagination. After repeated inspections the doctor found no bugs and told my grandfather to use a gentler shampoo. Convinced that he does have bugs, my grandfather has gone to see another doctor . The last report I received is that the new doctor told him that he could not find any bugs but in case there were there he should use a special shampoo. It is nice to know that there is someone out there patient enough to put up with my grandfather's crazy ways.
This whole situation with my grandfather and his wacky ways snuck back into my day to day conciseness recently when I noticed that my friends and I now tend to discuss our "ailments" as common points of daily banter. As much as I would love to chalk up my grandfather's crazy behavior as him being him, believe me he is nuts and I could write a book to prove it, I have come to the reality that it's just a part of getting older.
My grandfather is the strongest man I know. Here is a man who has had two open heart surgeries, has a pace maker and is still more active then most people I know. A few stories jump into my head but the one that really sticks out is a few years ago he drove his dump truck down to the woods behind his house and somehow managed to flip it on its side while he was still in it. So he crawls out of the window and walks back to the house. With blood streaming down his face he asked my father to go back down there and help him get the truck back right side up. The man had a major cut right above his eye and was bleeding and all he wanted to do was get his dump truck back! He finally decided to go to the hospital to have his wounds examined and since then you would have thought he had survived a major war battle.
You see it is not so much the illness but the story he has to go with it. A few years ago he had a hernia operation and he was not satisfied until everyone saw his scare which was in places I would rather not think grandparents had...gross.
Over the past year or so he has taken to finding lots of little things wrong with him so that he can go visit his doctor. He loves his doctor and he was seeing him on average 3 times a week. The latest issue has actually caused some tension between grand and the good doctor. He is convinced that really small bugs are biting his head and neck and making him itch. This news alarmed me a bit because my father and grandfather live next door to one another in the South Carolina sticks. To makes things worse both of them work really hard, get really dirty and have no one to make them clean. Now I am not saying that they are pigs and don't bath, but neither of the two are what I would call constantly tidy. So when I heard of the head bug infestation I was worried I would have to go down there and burn all the sheets and give the two gasoline baths or something. As it turns out, there was something in my grandfather's head alright but it wasn't bugs, it was his imagination. After repeated inspections the doctor found no bugs and told my grandfather to use a gentler shampoo. Convinced that he does have bugs, my grandfather has gone to see another doctor . The last report I received is that the new doctor told him that he could not find any bugs but in case there were there he should use a special shampoo. It is nice to know that there is someone out there patient enough to put up with my grandfather's crazy ways.
This whole situation with my grandfather and his wacky ways snuck back into my day to day conciseness recently when I noticed that my friends and I now tend to discuss our "ailments" as common points of daily banter. As much as I would love to chalk up my grandfather's crazy behavior as him being him, believe me he is nuts and I could write a book to prove it, I have come to the reality that it's just a part of getting older.
# posted by J.F.Tobias @ 7:28 AM 
