The Po Show

Quick Trip Home

I've been back for a week now, and it actually wasn't even a trip home. I went straight from LAX to UC Irvine Medical Center (which is in the City of Orange, strangely enough. Shouldn't it be in Irvine?) and never left the OC (not the fun, beachy, sun- and scandal-drenched OC of the popular series I've never seen). I was two freeway exits away from Disneyland, which was bizarre. We stayed at the Anaheim Embassy Suites, which was overflowing with families on their way to the Happiest Place on Earth.

I was in one of the more somber places on earth, the waiting room for the neurological ICU. My family (there were many of us there most of the time) mainly shared the waiting room with another family, whose family member was in critical condition. His sister slept there the whole time, in a hard chair with a Pooh Bear fleece blanket. We would smile at each other, swap chairs back and forth as one group received more visitors. The morning I was leaving, their person died. The sister who had been sleeping in the waiting room cried, and packed up her stuff, and they all left and didn't come back.

There was a family who came in and out, not spending much time sitting in the waiting room. Their family member was a 20 year old boy who had fallen from a balcony and severed his spinal cord. His brother told my sister that they had all always been jocks, played a ton of sports, and they couldn't bear to tell him he was going to be a paraplegic. He was having ghost sensations in his toes, and thought he was going to be fine.

Many other people came and went, and I never heard their stories.

And then there was us, waiting in the room for my brother. They had all been there for a week and one day. My SIL Yoshiko, who had never gone home and was staying at a hotel across the street. My nephew David, who drove up from UC San Diego and had stayed the whole time, trying to cram for his finals. My mom and my sisters, who had driven back and forth for several days. My BIL and my sister's son, who had driven down for the day. My SIL's brother and his inlaws came by soon after I arrived. They brought food. My SIL's mother had already brought tons of food as well. My brother's other two sons were in Oxnard, sick with stomach flu. My nephew Kenny drove down the morning I'd left. He's the baby of their family (20 years old) and he had taken the whole thing the hardest.

We would take turns going in to see Kaz. We would pick up the phone in the hallway outside the ICU and ask to be let in. We would wash our hands immediately upon entering. Two people could go in at a time.

My brother was in the bed directly across from the door. He had a million tubes stuck into various parts of his body, with a million bags of various liquids hanging from the IV pole next to his bed. The monitor above him showed his heart rate and BP. His head had been shaved in the front, and the hair was growing back. My sister said he'd looked a little like a samurai when it was shaved close. The drainage tube sticking out of his head, with dark blood in the line, and the feeding tube in his nose were the most noticable and disturbing things about him. They had to keep him restrained because he kept trying to pull out the feeding tube, and had once succeeded.

But when I first walked into the room the restraints were off, and he was eating a cherry popsicle. He was holding it himself, trying to navigate it around the feeding tube and trying to coordinate his movements so he actually got it in his mouth. My SIL was delighted to see him eating, as it was the first solid food (if you can call it solid) he'd had in over a week. He'd had tea, and some jello. The jello was green, his favorite flavor of jello. My SIL jokingly asked if he had requested green.

I didn't know what to say to him, and didn't want to cry seeing him in such a state, so I got cheery and overly jovial, the way people do when they're really uncomfortable and don't know how to act. I talked about my flight being cancelled the day before because of all the snow, and that I was glad to see him sitting up and looking so well. And I was, because I'd heard so much about how terrible things had been, and this was such a huge improvement.

But it was still very disconcerting, and soon I said that I'd see him later and let someone else come in and see him. This was always a pat excuse for not staying in the room too long at a time, that I was allowing someone else to come in. That and the fact that many times we'd go into the room and he was sleeping, so we wouldn't stay. In a way it would be a relief.

He was talking quite a bit, especially on Monday morning when I saw him. He was disoriented, but trying so hard to strike up conversation. He joked frequently, and it was bizarre to watch. He'd say something funny, with a completely deadpan face and monotone voice, then a pause, then he'd smile briefly, like puppet strings were pulling up the corners of his mouth. He wanted to go home, he said repeatedly. He wanted them to let him get up and go to the bathroom. Alternatively, he wanted to take a real piss in a urinal. He wanted to know where he was, what this building was. He was very surprised when I told him he was at UCI, though he had been told several times before. He introduced us to his nurse, whom he said was Chris from Oregon (we asked, and the guy's name was Steve and he was not from Oregon). Mostly though, he wanted to go home. He said it had been too long.

So the majority of the time I was in CA, I sat in the waiting room with my family. It was nice and comforting, and just plain nice to see them. I know they'd all been sitting and waiting for many many long days, but it was a pleasant visit for me. I got to hang out with my sisters without having to worry about my kids, and that was really nice. We all went down to the hotel bar and had a drink the first night I was there, and we talked and talked. We felt slightly guilty to be having such a good time, considering the reason we all were together, but we all truly enjoyed ourselves. We even went shopping at the mall across from the hospital the next day, so I could get some presents for my kids (paid for by my mom, who tried to give me $80 to buy them something!! I slipped $40 back in her wallet when she wasn't looking). We have never ever all gone shopping, just the three of us. It was a quick trip, but my sister Micki found a silk dress she needed to wear to a wedding for $9.99. Everyone said it was my being there (shopping goddess that I am).

The morning I was leaving, we arrived at the hospital and were told that Kaz had been having trouble breathing, so he was back on the ventilator. My nephew Kenny had driven down, and was seeing his dad for the first time in a week, and it was terrible because the last time he'd seen him, he'd been on the vent, and now he was again. In between, he'd been doing so well.

Kaz was asleep when we went in, and I watched as a tech did an ultrasound on his head. Then the neurologist asked if my SIL was in the waiting room, so I went out too because I wanted to hear what she had to say. She told us he seemed to have aspirated some food, and was exhibiting bronchitis, so they weren't going to let him eat again for awhile. She thought a feeding tube in his stomach would be kinder than the one he'd had in his nose, so they'd put that in. I asked some questions about his blood pressure and the ultrasounds they'd taken on his brain, and she said everything looked promising in the scans, with little sign of vasospasm. As she was talking, my sister made a comment about "all the big words," and I realized that I had sort of been a wasted resource, since I hadn't been around when the doctor was explaining anything, and I could actually understand medical terminology. But she was very good about rephrasing things so that they all understood, so it was okay.

I went back in and Kaz was still asleep. A phlebotomist came in to take a draw for blood gasses. They hadn't been able to get a catheter into his wrist, so they kept having to stick him, and they were arterial punctures so that sucked. His whole arm was purple. The tech couldn't get the stick and my nephew Kenny was watching the whole thing, so that wasn't good. Kaz sort of woke up as he tried again on the other arm, and he noticed we were in the room.

When he realized that Kenny was there, he really became alert, and he was desperately trying to talk. No sound came out, of course, because he had the ventilator in, so he became increasingly agitated. It was horrible to see him try to talk, and Kenny was trying to understand what he was saying. I let the doctor know he was agitated and she said they'd sedate him further.

Then it was time for me to leave for the airport, so I told him I needed to go back to NY, but that when I saw him again, he'd be so much better. That the next time I saw him, he'd be home. Then I said "I love you, Kaz" and he looked right in my eyes and mouthed "I love you too" with great emotion. We had never before said "I love you" to each other. Then I left.

Kaz got out of ICU two days ago, and he's doing well. He's sleeping better, without all the hustle and bustle of people coming and going from the ICU room. They hope that he can be transferred next week to a hospital in Thousand Oaks, so that will only be 15 minutes away from my family. That will be huge improvement.

As for what the future holds, how disabled he will be, how well he will recover physically and cognitively, it's too early to tell. Everyone has been focussed on his being alive, and improving day by day. But I got to see for myself that even under the most dire conditions, he was still himself. And that's what really matters.