The Po Show

Phone Call

I still can't believe it. My brother called me on the phone yesterday!

I was folding laundry and the phone rang and I picked it up and this male voice said, "Hi, I'm back." I couldn't think of who the hell it was. "Hello?," I said.

"Hello, I'm back," he answered. I paused, because I was thinking it was Ross' dad, but couldn't figure out why he was telling me he was back. Was he saying he was back in Minnesota? Because I thought he hadn't left yet?

"Oh, how are you?," I finally said, getting ready to pass the phone to Ross. But then the voice said, "Hello? Can you hear me?" And I realized, oh my god, it's Kaz!

I sprinted to another room where I could hear better, and effusively told him how great it was to hear his voice. He said he was feeling a lot better. My mom told me last Tuesday that he'd had a shunt put in his head last week, because the rehab center doctors felt he wasn't progressing as well as he should be, and he was still so tired all the time and getting frustrated with his lack of improvement. I commented on that now, that I'd heard he'd had a procedure.

He said that the procedure had really helped, that it was like night and day. He had so much of his memory back, and he could talk so much better. I was getting overly effusive, and realize now that I was practically shouting into the phone at him, but I tried to say how excited I was to hear him sound so great, that when I was there he'd been talking, and that was great because everyone had said that he hadn't really been talking before I came, but that he hadn't sounded like himself, that it was like there had been a curtain down in front of him, and I was so happy to hear him sounding so much more like himself now.

I think my verbal deluge overwhelmed him a bit, since he said, "Okay, well I was feeling better so I just thought I'd give you a call." And I told him to take care, and that it had been great to hear his voice. And it really was.

After I got off the phone, Ross commented that it was probably the first time my brother had ever called me just to say hi. It was. We've never had a chatty relationship at all. He called me when my mom had her surgery to remove her colon, to tell me she was doing okay. He would call me at my mom's place when we were staying there to tell me he was bringing over something, or that he wanted me to get something ready for him to pick up. But he had never called just to chat.

I'm really amazed and exhilarated that he did.