Andover Class of 88

Gilbert Family Vacation
Chapter 3: My Aunt Edna



Every chance you get, tell people that you want to live. No matter what the circumstances (location, time of day, what you ate for lunch), tell people you want to live. Because I’ve never had a Urinary Track Infection (UTI), but I’ve come to understand they can be very painful. Recently, a beautiful young model in South America developed a UTI that expanded into her blood stream. Doctors tried saving her by cutting off her hands and feet. I’m uncertain how dismembering someone helps with painful peepees, but that was the medical thinking at the moment. Dismembered and peepeeless, the model died within a week.

My mother has had complained about aches and pains for a long time but refused to go to the doctor until one evening (only three weeks from the start of our vacation) the urge struck her to such a degree, she gladly took an ambulance ride to the first doctor they could find. As she was diagnosed with UTI, the nurse asked her to measure her pain on the scale on 1 to 10. Her unfortunate response was “The pain is so bad, I wish I were dead!” And thus the dilemma. In today’s modern age of high technology and big thinkers, one can not wish they were dead (even due to UTI) unless, through obvious conclusion, they have suicidal tendencies. By law of the great state of New York, such a statement prompts a psychological evaluation.

When it comes to purchasing cars, I am much smarter due to a story a friend sent me: Confessions of a Car Salesman. I have learned car salesmen make you wait so the salesman can control you. I guess that is why you have to wait so long at the emergency room: they want to have control over you. They want to beat you submissively until you can not longer question the $10 Advil.

Even though my mother’s ambulance arrived to the hospital at exactly 5:15pm, it wasn’t until 1:00am that my mother was diagnosed with UTI and given her first dose of antibiotics. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Remember my mother’s rabid attempts at suicide when she arrived at the emergency room (complaining about the pain)? That requires a trip to the county psych ward for the psychological evaluation. My mother’s second ambulance ride was to St. Mary’s in downtown Rochester. As they loaded her into the ambulance at 1am, after 8 agonizingly long and terribly boring hours waiting at the ER, I only had one thought on my mind: “I wonder if Taco Bell is still open for Fourth Meal?” Because if a man is to stay awake all night, he needs Mexican substance.

After a satisfying Taco run, I allowed my GPS to steer me into the deep bowls of the city. This was clearly not a neighborhood I would want to be caught in after sun-down (much less after 1am). After parking in a very scary parking garage, I couldn’t find an unlocked door into the hospital. “This must seem odd,” I thought, “I am trying to break into a mental institution.”

I stood at the main entrance waving my arms frantically to a security guard within. He seemed un-phased (probably due to how normal my antics to get his attention must have seemed to him). “You have to go to the emergency entrance,” he explained.

“How do I get there?”

“It is on the other side of the hospital,” he motioned with his hand. After walking completely around the entire city block in the cold dark of night in a neighborhood I should not have been in, I reached the emergency room entrance to find that same security guard that coldly greeted me before. “I am glad you found it,” he waved me inside while looking around the parking lot, “This isn’t a very safe neighborhood, you know?”

‘Then why didn’t you let me take the way you took?’ I thought, but did not say.

Mom had already been taken in, and after passing through two security check points, I was allowed to see her. I had to leave all my belongings at one of the security check points because the crazies might take them from me and use them. I considered removing my belt because someone might tackle me, rip it from me, and run off to hang themselves. But I’ve recently lost weight and know the belt was my pants only savior from gravity – I pulled my sweater down to hide my belt from the guards and decided to take my chances.

I found my mother in a large brightly lit completely white room. There were only two items in the room – an uncomfortable gurney , and a TV within a wood plexi-glass cage. From the hall way came screams and incoherent babble from the other guests. If you weren’t crazy before entering this place, you had a good fighting chance to become crazy before leaving!

The entire visit to the psych ward was because my mother failed to tell someone she wanted to live. Instead, she admitted the pain was killing her. Therefore, I must repeat and plead with you – please, at every turn in your life, tell people that you wish to live. Anything less and you risk a short trip to St Mary’s in the middle of the night.

As we waited for the psychologist, I asked “How long do you think you’ve had a UTI?”

“At least 2 or 3 months,” she admitted. 2 or 3 months? At least? I get ornery if there isn’t an ample supply of 2-ply Extra-soft Charmin, and she lived with this for 2 or 3 months?

A psychologist interviewed my mother and determined she possessed the appropriate amount of insanity to be released. But by now it was 4am, and I needed to get up for work in 30 minutes. I was just glad to get to bed before I needed to get up!

The next day, I visited my mother to see how she was doing. She seemed unsatisfied with her eleven hours of medical car. “I still don’t feel very good,” she admitted. Oh no. We are set to leave in only three weeks. I don’t like where this is going!

Holiday Roooooo oh oh oh oh oh oh oad. Holiday Roooooo oh oh oh oh oh oh oad.’