Waiting Room

Waiting for Ruth. I could call. I will call soon. Meanwhile, I made a nice picture for T. It's a picture of the Sphincter of Oddi, which to me sounds like something out of StarGate. I wonder if he's going to need another operation. I wonder if his family will actually be better than useless if he does need to have surgery again.

In just the last 3 years, they've had at least three major strikes and that's only if I consider medical fiascos . Then there are the numerous non-medical episodes. I'll list the more obvious ones. There's The Anti-Christmas, Cholestasis Bachelor Party, The Most Uncomfortable Futon in the World, and Daddy Thinks You're Failing Grad School. I'm not even counting the things they've done exclusively to me, like Very Secret Santa.

Regarding their uselessness in medical situations: T's a type 1 diabetic. There have been and will continue to be medical situations in his life. T's mom had cancer and his grandfather was a doctor. You'd think the family's familiarity with a medical setting would lend them some even passing competence when it comes to being "involved" when T is sick. And they must always be involved. They call it helping. I don't. A visit from even just two of them to a ward or ER room bears a striking resemblance to a scene from a Marx brothers movie. It feels like there should be men with unexplained and comically large musical instruments and imposing women in fur weaving around us as we first crowd near the bed then push our ways into it with comments like "Hey, are you going to just lie there and let us do this to you? And if you are, could you at least move over and make some room?" There should be a bit of snappy repartee punctuated by repeatedly dropped and retrieved objects as his mother and grandmother interrogate the various specialists, techs, and therapists who keep piling in. There should definitely be a befuddled nurse trying valiantly to untie someone who's been playing cat's cradle with the IV tubing as she is jostled about by these zany antics.

Not my problem anymore? I really don't know. T and I have had the breakup talk at least half a dozen times since this past December. It seems like we are rehearsing it. It ends when I stop listing all the reasons why I feel so little joy and so little hope of it. When I get to that point where I realize I am making an airtight case for something I am emotionally ambivalent about, I can't speak. Then it's his turn. The silence seeps in. Sometimes he talks about something else, something concrete and present. Sometimes I get angry when he does that. Lately, he doesn't say much. He might put his hand on my arm or some other reasonably chaste area of my body. And the silence goes on. And usually at that point I say "I don't know what else to say T," and he says "Me either" and that is where I end. I could say "It's over, pack up what's left of your stuff in my apartment and don't come back," but the timing seems so wrong.