CHAPTER 2 - MEET THE PARENTS,IT'S REAL

It has been a week. Rather uneventful, if you don't count my broken fingers,and IF you can call a "Trauma Ward" uneventful!
I am guessing that because the ward was new, they had not yet installed the television sets on the floor for the patients that were on the "rotisserie". Therefore, I laid on the floor, under the stryker frame so when Bob was "Bun's up" I could talk to him. As he was on a lot of pain medication,he would often drift off. I would do the same....On the floor, under the frame, so when he awoke there would be someone there.
I understand that medical personal are not trained in detailed observation of anything other than a high temperature or smallpox welts, but you would think that they would notice a 150 pound broad,asleep on the floor under an open frame with a naked body on it. That particular chapter in the book was omitted.
The nurses came in to rotate the "spit" and rolled the stryker frame to get a better grip. No one even yelled "FORE". She grabbed the crank and rolled the damn thing over my hand. Well, I yelled, but it wasn't "Fore". More like something from a Jack Nicholson movie(late night). Within five minutes my fingers were the size of Bob's butt!
The good news was, I was in a trauma unit, The bad news was, I hadn't been admitted,3 fingers counted as an incident and the poor nurse was more upset that I was. A little ice,a roll of tape and two aspirin. The attention to BOB resumed.
Because of the way Bob fell off the rock pile,into the pine needles, he had a lovely pattern of pine needles stuck under his skin,on his backside. It was a blessing that Bob had lost the feeling in this particular part of his body, and because I(for obvious reasons) gave up getting under the frame, I got a pair of tweezers and began removing the sprills. Bob and I would bet on how many I could pull out in and hour! Should have kept them. Could have made a pillow, just like Grandma used to pawn off on us. Please understand, One has to get VERY creative to pass the time in a hospital room. That was about to change.
Bob called his parents........
After the primary wailing and moaning,they decided to come to New Hampshire.
Bob called Braniff and arranged tickets for them and arranged for a friend,Walter, to pick them up and bring them to the hospital.
Walter has never to my knowledge been "rear-ended" . I firmly believe that to date, no has been able to get close enough to him on ANY road, to rear-end him.
Walter,a private pilot, treats the speedometer in his car like the airspeed indicator in his Bonanza! BUT! Bob maintains that he is a wonderful and "Safe" driver........Uh Uhl Blessedly, Bob had the surgery on his back the day before Bob(the Elder) and Rose arrived at the hospital. It had now been a week since the injury, I hadn't been home yet,My Mom and Dad were also in route to the hospital. Please bear in mind, I had never met Bob's Parents.......
Mother Rose-New Jersey Italian to the core! Not a hair out of place,dressed to the nines and trembling in her real leather heals. The poor dear, I thought it was
the fear of seeing Bob as a para. NOPE......lt was the ride with Walter! You guessed it, he made the 45 minute trip from Logan airport in about 34 minutes.
The more he bragged about" what good time" they made, the more Rosie quaked! Her teeth were rattling in her head and the hearing aid was whistling Dixie!(but her hair stayed firmly in place-It was amazing). I emt them at the door, introduced my self and started towards the elevator. Guess who's there? My Mom and Dad. I politely introduced them to Bob and Rose. You know how mothers can be, they hugged.......Bad mistake. Now both of their hearing aids were going off, teeth rattling, with a bit of foot stomping it could of been a tribal war dance at the Boston Pops. Bob(the elder), Dad , Walter and I suffered through the oscillating and teeth clicking for three floors! All four of us praying the elevator would stop between floors.....
Bob's quiet sedated existence in the King Unit was never to be the same.......
That very day, My cousin, Barbara was admitted to the King Unit for a knee replacement. She was right next door. She is not part of the normal , Mom, Dad and 2.5 kids family, She is part of an entire clan! And a wonderful clan it is. One can NEVER classify the Irish as a mopey bunch. Her visitors became Bob's visitor and visa versa.
To accommodate the influx of people, they would split up, then like cosmic choreography, they would pass each other in the hall and switch rooms.Bob and I both needed a drink!
Bob asked the doctor about having a beer. Doctor said he could have anything he wanted and wrote orders to that ~ffect. This place was "MAGIC". The very next meal, a bottle of "Bud" showed up on the tray. The real magic was the next morning when the "Bud" showed up on his breakfast tray!
It was against hospital policy to have a cooler in the room(Germs,you know).
SO we put all the excess beer in the toilet tank(to keep it cold),augmented with a few six-packs, we could now accommodate the visitors in style!
Once, Walter found out about the "Beer cooler", he passed the word to all of Bob's Braniff co-workers, who proceeded to show up with Jack Daniels for Bob, Johnny Walker Red for me,...... I was running out of places to hide stuff. The toilet tank only held a 12 pack, and Bob only had a small suitcase.....We managed.
It appeared that things were looking up. Bob seemed in very good spirits and Rose's teeth had stopped rattling and her hearing aid stopped imitating the Philharmonic. Then the Spinal chord repairman showed up.
Doctors do dampen the spirit. The results of all test,surgery, etc. were final. Bob was a paraplegic, and according to the doctors own words, Bob's arms were too short to be a paraplegic,therefore, his life was going to very difficult from now on.......1 guess it was like saying you're stupid cause your eyes are to far apart.
How are you supposed to react to that. "So what's new?".lt was the first time since the fall that we got to laugh.....
I'm not sure the doctor knew what exactly to do with us., So he left.
Bob was then fitted with his new Teflon body suit,finely carved and velcroed in a lovely off white to compliment his hospital pallor. The armor was finely tailored
Bob's figure,bearing in mind that every detail must be just so and every movement must be met with a cry of anguish. It was a high-tech version of the whale-boned -corf)ets of The queen Victoria, herself.