Waaaay Too Much Information

What would the holidays be without family...relaxing?...enjoyable?...stress free?  Oh, did I say that out loud?  I meant boring, sad and stressful . 

I love my family.  Really.  But based on last week and Christmas of last year, I am thinking of joining the witness relocation program.  I hear Antarctica is lovely this time of year.

You see, the problem is that my parents have thankfully enjoyed good health, my father in particular.  He prides himself on the fact that he has not needed a doctor since he was in the navy, so last Christmas, when tragedy struck, it was, well, tragic.

The day after Christmas, my dad was literally blown off his feet by an unexpected gust of wind and thrown to the ground.  Fortunately, he just ended up with a boo boo on his bottom and a pulled muscle, according to the ER doctor.  And our doctor five days later.  And the x-rays.  And Web MD.  And Marcus Welby.  And the entire cast of Gray'sAnatomy,  and The Practice.

But no matter what everyone told him, he was convinced  he might never walk again...and have to live with us instead of flying back to Florida with my mom.

For an entire week, we had to hear, in great and excruciating detail, about his boo boo.  We were treated to vivid descriptions of the size, location and severity of the bruise.  We lived through his brave attempts to walk five feet without the walker, cane, forklift, or tow-line.  We grinned and bore hearing about the indignity of sitting on a glorified whoopee cushion for meals.

We tried to distract him with the Food Network, Angry Birds and his granddaughter, but nothing captured his attention or imagination the way his boo boo did.  He just knew the doctors were all wrong and he had broken something.  He was sure that he had at least torn a ligament or severed a tendon.  It was the beginning of the end.  He would end up bedridden for the rest of his days, eating gruel and making macrame potholders.

So, to ease the pain (ours), we gave him drugs.  The doctor had prescribed pain pills and muscle relaxants, but the man who was never sick or injured a day in his life didn't want to take them.  We told him it was him or us, but those drugs were going to put someone out of their pain. 

This, of course, opened up a whole new set of issues.

While I am totally consumed with my dog's poops--size, frequency, form and texture--I really, really, really do not need to even know about my father's.

"Do you know that it says here this medication can cause constipation?" he demanded, waving the sheaf of papers at me that now come with every prescription.

"It also says it can cause you to cluck like a chicken or spontaneously break into the dance of the sugar plum fairy, but hey, let's look on the bright side, and maybe it will just make you feel better and your biggest worry will be finding a six-fingered glove for the new thumb that will sprout."

Every day, we got a potty update, along  with dire predictions of being unable to board the plane for home when the holiday ended.

"I'm fine flying back alone," my mother chirped, seeing a light at the end of her tunnel.

I believe our response was something along the lines of, "Look, we love dad to death, but he is getting on that plane if we have to buy an extra ticket and strap him to our back like a piece of carry-on luggage."

Fortunately for everyone involved, he got on the plane.

Last week, it was my mother's turn.  She had a doctor's appointment here, so she flew in the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Monday morning, I drove her to the doctor, and waited for her.  After about a half hour, she came out, looked surreptitiously around the empty waiting room, and said, "I'll tell you what the doctor said later."

Thinking she meant in the privacy or the car or back at the house, I nodded in agreement.  No such luck.

As we entered the elevator, the crowded elevator, she launched into a blow-by-blow account of her visit...which would have been fine had we been at the eye doctor, but we had unfortunately been to a doctor for women's issues.

I am still waking up at night in a cold sweat.

At first, I tried to pretend I was just some poor, random stranger this woman had targeted to share intimate details with.  "Uh huh," I murmured half-heartedly as she used the V word for, like, the forty-seventh time in three minutes.  I wondered what the penalty was for pulling the fire alarm.  I even briefly contemplated actually setting myself on fire.  My mother, oblivious to the lack of response, chattered on.

"So you thought the doctor was nice?" I desperately tried to nudge the subject onto a path strewn with less personal information when I could no longer pretend I didn't know her.

"Oh, yes.  She said..."  And she was off and running again with things that had people bailing out of that elevator like it was a 70's disaster movie, and the director had just called "Action!".

And the best part of it was, it never ended.  Not in the lobby, not in the elevator down to the garage, not in the car, not at Toys R Us where we did some Christmas shopping.  I kept hearing about parts of my mother that I don't even want to know exist.  And there was no escape.

By the time she flew back to Florida, I was waxing nostalgic over my father's boo boo and ensuing poop issues.

Can't wait for Christmas this year.