Probably Nothing
May 10, 2022
Dearest Solomon,
I’m sitting here on a bed in the hospital. A few hours ago, I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe like there was a weight on my chest. This had been happening here and there over the past week and I have been noticing it more and more.
This felt worse and it scared me. I went upstairs to ask your mom what she thought, but you guys were out getting a haircut. All your grandparents were downstairs, but I didn’t want to alarm them. So I called up a doctor friend to get his advice. He recommended going in.
I was going to drive myself, but Grandpa insisted that he would drive me. I was grateful. I passed Grandma Patsy, who was on the porch with Rex. I told her I was going to the hospital. I thought maybe I should give her a hug just in case. Instead, I took one long look.
Getting in the car, feeling my heart and now my stomach, in my throat, I couldn’t help but think what if I won’t come back. I thought about you not being there and me not getting to say goodbye to you or your mom. I thought about passwords, my last letter to you, and all manner of random things faster than light. I just thought, what if. What if? Your grandpa was in the back of my mind already.
The process here has been quick — no one was there and I breezed right in. Within 10 minutes I had my blood pressure and an EKG done. Ten minutes later, I was already in a room with a consult and an IV put in and several vials of blood off for tests to see if anything was amiss. At first blush, no one was worried, even me. Ten minutes later I had a chest x-ray. I chatted with the Vietnamese doctor and gave him a recommendation about a new Vietnamese bakery we just discovered in the neighborhood.
The head doctor came in to let me know it would be a couple of hours. Her first impression is some inflammation from the viral infection I have. Maybe it’s reflux. Likely it’s nothing more, but we’ll see in a bit. So I am waiting.
I wish I could say it is just a couple of hours. I wish I could say the weight on my chest is gone or that my head isn’t killing me. I wish my jaw wasn’t hurting. But most of all, I wish I wasn’t so depressed. My health has been on my mind for weeks, this is just the ugly truth about it.
A couple of weeks ago, my battle to manage my heart on its own feels like it ended. Despite all the diet, training, and care I have put in for decades, my cholesterol has become unmanageable on my own. After 20 years of resisting statins, hoping, nay, knowing, I could do it on my own, I conceded that I couldn’t. I started them a week ago and it felt like an utter defeat. I know it’s probably nothing, but it feels like running in the opposite direction my whole life was just running in a circle to end up in this spot.
When your Grandpa Cecil was in his forties, he was first diagnosed with his diabetes. He had always suffered from heart issues, having open heart surgery in his thirties. But later in his forties, high blood pressure and his cholesterol lead to him going into the hospital first for blockages, then for stents, and ultimately for his untimely passing.
The last part of his journey started around my age. Am I starting mine? For all the optimism and hope I preach, inside I am always fighting these devils. These fears, whether rational or not, weigh on me like the weight on my chest right now. We are not the same, my dad and I, but here we are.
I don’t know if the insomnia I have had for weeks, or the sluggishness and loss of motivation to go to the gym is because I am sick, tired, depressed, or all of the above. I do know it’s been draining in every way, most of which I haven’t spoken about to anyone. It feels like defeat. It. feels like doom. It feels like destiny.
Being here, thinking of you, and knowing how I feel, made me realize something terrible. I realized how selfish I have been all these years. In all these letters and mental debates I have with myself, never once did I ever step into my dad’s shoes on the last part of his journey. Never once, maybe out of fear, did I try to imagine his last days and moments. Never once did I feel his pain, until now. I’m so sorry, Pops.
I am sure Pops left the house that last time assuming he would come home soon. I know the last time I saw him he brimmed with the confidence he would be home soon. But that, as usual, may have been the strong exterior he always had, that he always felt he had to have.
That was Pops, always optimistic it will be fine. Always able to find a solution. Trying to be strong for us all — I dunno. That sounds like me. That feels like me. And that is the saddest thing of all — I never saw me in him until I was laying here in a hospital bed.
I made it home tonight. I wish I had something more telling or poignant to share with you tonight.
I came home, changed my clothes, hugged your mom, check on you and my mom, and am finishing this letter before I get to bed.
I started these letters so that if I was suddenly not here, you would be left with no doubts or surprises. I’ll go to bed tonight filled with both. But at least I’m home.
Love Always,
Dad
