Don’t F*$% With the Pancreas (Blogisode Eight)

Good Morning!!  This blogisode is brought to you by the letter “R” which stands for RAIN, which it did last night–and the heat broke!  Hooray!  I am back on the balcony by the waterfall, enjoying the nice and cool Vermont breeze, but not for long because in a few minutes I have REHEARSAL, which is also brought to you by the letter “R”.  Rehearsal will be followed by more RUMMAGING around for inteRnet, because (as someone said to me last night) it is maybe a little hard to keep going on a blog while living in a house that is totally disconnected from the modern world.  I do manage to swipe Internet at various places, which makes me a ROBBER.  It REMAINS to be seen how long I will be able to keep this blogging lifestyle up without Internet and while putting up a show.  Expect a break soon, dear READERS, but trust that I will return.

Rehearsal today is in a barn.  For real.  Like, as in, “Hey, Judy and Mickey, let’s put on a show!!”

Cast mates.

Apparently there are more shows rehearsing this week at The Weston Playhouse than ever before, and they have run out of space.  Therefore, FORUM gets to rehearse in a barn for the first week, a barn, which I have heard is “really, really nice”.  I am not sure who rated it so highly–maybe the cows–but I am unbelievable intrigued to see it and am also REMINDING (letter R) you that being an actress is very, very glamorous business .  I think I will take a picture of the barn and post it for you when I get back.  Moooooo!

I’m back from the barn, which is nicer than any apartment or house I’ve ever lived it.  No joke.  Look for yourself.

Super fancy barn.

And this is the view from inside.

Don't come looking for milk in this barn.

Not your typical barn.

Let’s get back to our story.  I’m only on a break from the barn rehearsal and have to squeeze in the blogisode before a music review at 4.

Where did we leave off?  We had Rob drinking resolution fluid–which he eventually vomited up and had to start all over again after being 3/4 of the way through.  We had me trying to sleep, but staying awake due to pure anxiety.  We had phone calls out waiting to see who could come and stay with me and the kids.  We had the Jamaican Woman and the daughter who wouldn’t answer her phone.  Apparently, the last message (as reported by Rob) came very early in the am when she called and left this as a final message, “Angela.  This is your Mother.  I am leaving the hospital and I have no money to take a cab.  You turned off your phone.  You are a very selfish, selfish, selfish person and I hate you.  I am moving out.  Goodbye.”

Finally, we had Hannah coming back so I could take Charlotte to school and then get back to the Rob, asap.

Here we go.  After a squished A train ride to Charlotte’s school and a walk through Central Park to get to Lenox Hill on the East Side, I arrive at the hospital to find that Rob is STILL in the ER. Rob’s dear friend Chris had stopped by (we were headed to his house in Dobb’s Ferry when this all started, remember?) and he helped me as Rob was (finally) moved to a real room at around 11am.

Finally moved to a real room (this is not Rob).

Yes, that makes just shy of 24 hours in an Emergency room.

Things on the 6th floor were much better.  Rob was placed right by the nurses station, and Nurse Betty (names changed to protect the author who doesn’t want to be sued) gave Rob a new pain medicine called Dilodin.  I don’t know if that is how you spell it and I don’t want to take the time to Google, but here is what you should know about it.  It’s the kind of pain medicine that:

1) Just about took away all of Rob’s pain

and

2) Made his eyes roll back in his head and his heart slow down when they gave it to him.

While I am thrilled that he finally had some real relief, it was scary as hell to actually see his heart slow down on the monitor and hear the alarms go off when they gave him the drug.  In fact, Nurse Betty ended up giving him oxygen just to “support” him while the medicine was prescribed.  Because Rob is–shall we say–bull headed, he resisted falling asleep and wanted to play me in Scrabble on his iPad.  Although I encouraged him to sleep, eventually I took him up on it happily, because he is nearly impossible to beat at word games and I figured this was my chance.  Now before you get all smug and judgemental on me that I was taking advantage of him in his condition, you should know that he managed to spell “tranquil” on a triple word score, using all his letters and getting something like 87 points before passing out.  He’s wicked smart, even totally drugged.

Even napping between plays and drugged, he's a Scrabble savant.

The move to the sixth floor, the discovery of Dilodin for pain and iPad Scrabble became a way of life for Rob and I for the next several days.  There really wasn’t a lot they could do for him, he had to just stop all food and fluid–basically anything by mouth–and depend solely on IV’s for all nutrition.  Rob was amazing and a wonderful sport about the whole thing–with one exception.  He asked every single person who walked into his room for a diet coke.  Everyone.  Even the person cleaning the room next to him as his hosts of roommates came and went.  It was clearly on his chart–nothing by mouth–but it became a game to see if he could trick someone.  It got to the point where I would get off the elevator and people would stop me in the hall to say, “Your husband is desperately asking for a Diet Coke.  Doesn’t he know he can’t have one?”  I would try to explain that he as only kidding–but I’m not sure they believed me.  I’m pretty sure he was being constantly monitored in case he tried to sneak out and hit up a 7-11 for a Big Gulp of Diet Coke.  It is kind of funny, if you think about it, that for the 6 days

The object of Rob's affection.

Rob was without food, all he wanted was a fountain drink–and a DIET fountain drink at that.  He didn’t fantasize about food or beg for an Extra Large Dominos Pizza the way most people would, although (I am just remembering as I type this) he did talk a lot about how many TV commercials revolved around food.  He’d tell me as I walked in “Did you know Applebees has a roadhouse steak burger now?”  Or, “Red Lobster has an all you cat eat shrimp fest.

As things slowly started to improve for Rob in the hospital, things at home took a sudden and very serious downturn.

To read the next blogisode go here: http://www.sharonwheatley.com/2011/07/15/dont-f-with-the-pancreas-blogisode-nine/

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