Procrastination and heart attacks

So my 77 year old father had a heart attack over the weekend. But a couple of days later and he’s back at home and still not dead, which is a bonus.

But this is also not entirely unexpected.

You may think this is due to incredible advancements in cardiac care and a fully resourced health system that puts the patient first.

But you’d be wrong.

My dad survived his heart attack because, this is his fifth one, and he’s getting good at them now. The first one was a bit scary – quadruple bypass surgery, chest sliced open, the full open heart nightmare. I can’t help but picture the Swedish chef from The Muppets, ripping bits out and tossing them around whenever I think if it.

It took him a really long time to recover from that one. He was very scared at the time, which is understandable. When he was growing up, i.e. in his day, a heart attack meant you’re dead. No arguments, no reprieves, no - put another coin in the slot and have another crack at it.

You’re dead Dave.

So it’s something of a surprise to him, and indeed to the rest of the family, that over 20 years later, he’s still trucking along, albeit in the slow lane, like an old Reliant Robin with Delboy Trotter at the wheel. During that time he’s amassed a respectable score of four heart attacks survived, three which didn’t require surgery.

I think myself and my family were getting a bit complacent, as he hadn’t had any real issues for quite a while. We all figured he’d gotten into his groove and was just going to keep on trundling along, growing a bit more moss each year, getting rounder and rounder, and slower and slower until he eventually stopped somewhere in the distant future.

And then we get the call that he is in hospital again and they suspect he’s had a heart attack. It was 3am when my mother phoned the ambulance and he was carted off for a date with the cardiologist.

My wife asked the question, with a twinkle in her eye.* “What were you doing at 3am that gave you a heart attack?”* Neither he nor my mother would give us a straight answer, and to be fair, when the question was asked my ears turned off, as a form of self-preservation.

So when the call came through, we dropped everything and drove three hours north to the hospital. By the time we arrived he was sitting up, on the edge of the hospital bed and grumbly. So almost back to his normal self.

He was still in a lot of pain from a bout of shingles (he likes to get all his ailments happening and worked through at the same time to leave the rest of the year clear). But his heart was still ticking along like an old pocket watch that has been dropped in a puddle, chewed on by a stray dog, then spat out in disgust and picked up to be carefully restored by a one armed, blind watchmaker, with a bad cold.

The second hand no longer slices time into tiny equal potions as it marks off the incremental passage of time. Instead it sort of hops forward in randomly spaced intervals, hacking its way through the jungle of time like a desperately lost explorer not sure where he is going, but determined that forward is the direction to go, no matter what.

So what has all this got to do with procrastination, I hear you ask?

We’ll get to that in a bit.

So, at the hospital we stood around his bed, as you do, listening to the chorus of old people hacking out their nearly final breaths in the nearby beds, and asking nurses for this and that, if only to have some form of human contact.
Hospitals are never a nice place to visit, and they’re even worse places to be when you’re sick.

Poor old dad. There he was, surrounded by a bunch of strange old people, who were not well. He was in a bunch of pain, waiting for a doctor to come along so he could get some answers. Wondering why they put him in with all the smelly, dribbly, geriatrics, and why he couldn’t just go home and get some sleep.

Then his dinner arrived, so we left him to it.

That’s a simple sentence isn’t it? And yet it conceals so much.

The dinner arrived on a tray, slapped down in front of him with a cheery, “There you go”. The tray contained a small ball of mashed potato, some vegies and some brown goop with suspicious lumps in it. A teenage boy would have looked at it and asked, “So what’s for dinner?” There wasn’t enough of it to feed a two year old, let alone a man fuelling a dicky ticker and a waist circumference that indicates he’s about as accustomed to small dinners as a wizard from the Unseen University.

My wife, being Greek, and knowing a thing or two about food, was horrified. And while I could understand her reasons, there was no point getting all worked up over it. My dad didn’t want food, he wanted sleep. And to be fair, he’s used to eating anything. He’s even eaten my cooking and survived to tell the tale.

Food is just not his ‘thing’. If it’s hot and it’s got a bit of meat in it – not fish, then he’s happy. Add in some nice thick gravy for him to wipe up with a slice of bread, and he’s about as happy as an old man can get.

And again you ask, possibly with some exasperation, what’s all this got to do with procrastination?

Well, it’s one of those things you tend to put off isn’t it – talking to your parents about growing up and thanking them for all the things they’ve done for you. Telling them you love them and appreciate them. Often you just don’t get around to it until they are gone, and it’s too late.

You might have something else really important you want to say, something to get off your chest. But it just never seems to be the right time, and then there is no time because their time has run out.

The pocket watch goes sproing and the second hand lurches to a stop and remains still. No matter how much you wind the damn thing, it never starts again. So you are left with unfinished business, unsaid things, and an emptiness where there should be peace.

I’m good at procrastination. I can never seem to get around to just about anything. Even now, I’m procrastinating. What I should be doing is putting the rubbish out. But I can’t be bothered doing that just yet. So I’ll write a bit more first. And maybe while I’m doing that the bin will remember that it is supposed to be out at the curb and save me the hassle. One can hope.

One thing I didn’t procrastinate about however was talking with my parents, and letting them know how grateful I am for the upbringing they gave me. It wasn’t perfect. A lot of it wasn’t that much fun. But I think they raised me as well as they could have, and I like the person that they made, mostly.

They gave me a good grounding and good values. I look after people, it’s my nature, and I’m happy about that. They also showed me how to have a successful marriage. It’s not all honey and roses. It’s something you have to work at, and often it is hard work. But as they taught me, anything of value will be hard work. And hard work is something I’ve never shied away from. That’s something they gave me, and I think it’s something very valuable.

So when the call came that my dad was in the hospital, there was no sense of dread that he might slip away before I had a chance to talk to him, and tell him about some deep seated feelings that I have been repressing all these years. We didn’t drive up there in a panic, trying to dodge police cars and taking risks on the road.

It meant I could be calm and rational, and do the things that needed to be done, like have a shower first. I was covered in brick dust and spiders. Not really what you want to be sitting in for a drive three hours up and three hours back. Not to mention standing in a ‘clean’ environment with unsanctioned critters in my hair.

I think having had that conversation some years ago also helped my dad. While we were there at the hospital, there were no pregnant pauses, while I struggled for a way to open a conversation about my feelings, in front of a bunch of old women who had nothing better to do than watch our little drama unfold before them.

I could see one of them waving her hand about trying to turn up the volume a bit. A least I think that’s what she was doing.

We joked about stuff and talked about the future, his future, and all the things left for him to do. And then his prison food arrived and we left him to his potato and slop.

The latest update from my mother is that he is sleeping like a baby and dreaming of cruising to Antarctica. And that’s not a bad thing to be doing after a heart attack and brown gloop.

I might even give it a try myself after I’ve put the rubbish out. Dreaming, not the gloop. Gloop is not allowed in our house.

So if you have parents, elderly or not, don’t put off having the conversation with them. It’s not a hard thing to do. Just get started and keep going. You might want to pick your time carefully though. Doing this at 2am while you’re drunk might not yield the results you’d hoped for. Slurring out “You’re the best parents I’ve ever had. I lorve youse” whist mildly comical, is not as endearing to someone on the receiving end, especially if they are sober.
If you like your parents, give them a call, or give them a hug. If you don’t like them, give them a puppy.

Then you can grin to yourself knowing that everything they own is going to get chewed up and peed on. But at least they will know how you feel, and you’ll know as well, and in that you’ll have some peace of mind.

And when the phone call comes, you won’t have to fly into a panic. You can calmly step into a shower, get yourself sorted, and still be there in time to see the goop arrive and listen to the evening chorus as the oldies cough themselves to sleep.