The Travails of George continued in Huntington Beach. Still closeted in bed two of room 136, Mel is is still eating and walking. The city undertaker removed two to the gurney earlier, but Mel fights to stay alive by moving and eating.
The other day I had a fight with the social worker. She has done nothing to move Mel into a bed and care home. Chris wished for me to do the leg work when that is her job. ""I will compromise with you Mr.." I cut her off!
"You job is to get him into the bed and care, but I will do you a favor. Make a few calls to make sure there are openings and will take one with Brother's Mel's ailments.
"I will give you a list and you do it!"
As you can see, there is a lack of transparency, and accountability at the Sea Crest Health Center. They still do everything the old fashion way. Why I can't even get a list of his medication. Do they wish I get a power of attorney. No! I am throwing it back into their face.
With a heavy inversion layer of muck, pollen and mold it has been a struggle to breathe, much less walk anywhere.
Huntington Beach has no transportation system like San Diego, Carlsbad or Los Angeles. The rails from the Red Line train have been severed for a long time. It takes me four buses and two trains to visit my daughter in Los Angeles. Yesterday morning i needed to ventilate so I took the 29 Metro bus to the Buena Park Train Station.
I climbed aboard the nine thirty Metro headed for Los Angeles. I arrived at about ten and walked to to the underground to pick up the Purple Line. I got off on Seventh Street and took two staircases to street level.
Outside now, the sky opened up and I could breathe. There was no inversion layer but just like when Moses parted the ocean, I could walk without straining my lungs. The westerly winds were just what the good-old-doctor ordered.
I ordered two microfilms of the All Star Game held in Chicago in 1940 and J-Pegged the pictures needed for my Schindler Story. I couldn't help but see the damage done by the German bombing of London and a caricature of Joe Stalin lynching Trotsky. Trotsky had been assassinated in Mexico must prior to Chicago's All Star Game.
Inside the bathrooms, the homeless wash and do everything that they would do if inside their own bathroom: washing socks, brushing teeth and spending a long time in the toilet compartment. It is a friendly library.
At one o'clock I decided to go to Santa Monica, but not ride the merry-go-round, just see how the Expo line has changed the demographics of Santa Monica. The Rapid Purple bus took me to Fourth Street where I walked down Colorado and joined the multitude of folks who had arrived by train, skateboard, bike or car.
I felt like a football game would be played on the beach, instead crowds huddled everywhere. Thursday Night would have a live band, but more than that, Santa Monica was the attraction. I went to the bathrooms next to the gymnastic apparatus and took-it-all-in. Next to me a many dressed in a costume played with some kind of a spider. Across was a man who climbed the ropes and dangled on the bars with his feet.
"What kind of a spider ya-got there?"
"Baby scorpion...It is non lethal...Mother is home. She eats grasshoppers, dead mice and just about anything..found her in Simi Valley under rocks."
Just then I heard a thunder of applause.
A man was swinging from one ring to the next and so forth and then returning The man who had assailed and climbed the ropes came over and saw something moving. He ran after a sand mouse. Now as it was getting late and the Hot Dog on a Stick had a line of over fifty people. I decided to return on the EXPO LINE.
I spent a total of $1.50 to return to Huntington Beach with a new found energy. But my day was not over. At the Pacific View outdoor patio, a man played the violin like nobody could to thunderous ovations. I took it all in until my seven fifty five 29 bus arrived and I treated myself to a Brothers Five hamburger.
Friday, June 23, 2017
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Still Alive in Surf City
On Sunday, I entered Mel's room to find him comatose -- or it seemed that way. I could not have been more shocked. I thought he might be dead. No matter how hard I tried to elicit a response, there was none.
I called in a LVN to take Mel's vital signs and was told she would come in about thirty minutes. Mel's dinner plate of two hot dogs had gone uneaten. The nurse came in and told me his blood pressure was normal.
"Earlier I asked him to take his medication and he refused."
"Now how can he take his medication if he is out cold?!"
Mel could not speak. I left him at about seven and returned my apartment. I wondered if I would be called when the coroner showed up and prepared for a cremation. I read that the cheapest one could cost about six hundred dollars. Of course my sleep had been fractured. Back early the next morning at the Sea Cliff Health Center, I moved to room 235 B. He could speak and I was able to help him sit up.
"What day is this?"
"Monday Mel."
"I am through!"
"Mel, if you can sit up and eat, their is still life in you."
His hands could barely hold a fork and they twitched. AGAIN HE REPEATED THAT HE WAS "THROUGH".
He went back to sleep, all alone in his room. I knew it had to be the revisit of brain cancer or just too many pills...or maybe a severe depression perhaps. When he had been admitted over seven months ago, a nurse told me he had brain cancer. I asked the head nurse at the head of the hospice.
"Can you tell me what pills my brother Melvyn is taking?" It did not take him long to review his monitor.
He told me that one that began with a B was ten milligrams and quite high. He also told me Mel had been taking Norco for pain. I scampered to the library and on the computer it noted that these two drugs together could cause a coma and even death together.
But what really irked me was that Mel had been celebrating his birthday. Yes he was born on the 27th of May and to honor him, I fed him t-bones and corn for a week. He was strolling,singing and even going outside. Why even his eye lid opened a bit so he could see out of his left eye...His right is totally blind. Mel was jubilant!
Since I knew that his vital signs were OK, and I asserted my concern about his lack of care, I felt better on Tuesday and put away the phone numbers of cremation societies. Too bad that the Sea Cliff was not computerized so I could see how much and for what he had been given. I wondered how many suffered the indignity of an early exit due to too much medication.
I called in a LVN to take Mel's vital signs and was told she would come in about thirty minutes. Mel's dinner plate of two hot dogs had gone uneaten. The nurse came in and told me his blood pressure was normal.
"Earlier I asked him to take his medication and he refused."
"Now how can he take his medication if he is out cold?!"
Mel could not speak. I left him at about seven and returned my apartment. I wondered if I would be called when the coroner showed up and prepared for a cremation. I read that the cheapest one could cost about six hundred dollars. Of course my sleep had been fractured. Back early the next morning at the Sea Cliff Health Center, I moved to room 235 B. He could speak and I was able to help him sit up.
"What day is this?"
"Monday Mel."
"I am through!"
"Mel, if you can sit up and eat, their is still life in you."
His hands could barely hold a fork and they twitched. AGAIN HE REPEATED THAT HE WAS "THROUGH".
He went back to sleep, all alone in his room. I knew it had to be the revisit of brain cancer or just too many pills...or maybe a severe depression perhaps. When he had been admitted over seven months ago, a nurse told me he had brain cancer. I asked the head nurse at the head of the hospice.
"Can you tell me what pills my brother Melvyn is taking?" It did not take him long to review his monitor.
He told me that one that began with a B was ten milligrams and quite high. He also told me Mel had been taking Norco for pain. I scampered to the library and on the computer it noted that these two drugs together could cause a coma and even death together.
But what really irked me was that Mel had been celebrating his birthday. Yes he was born on the 27th of May and to honor him, I fed him t-bones and corn for a week. He was strolling,singing and even going outside. Why even his eye lid opened a bit so he could see out of his left eye...His right is totally blind. Mel was jubilant!
Since I knew that his vital signs were OK, and I asserted my concern about his lack of care, I felt better on Tuesday and put away the phone numbers of cremation societies. Too bad that the Sea Cliff was not computerized so I could see how much and for what he had been given. I wondered how many suffered the indignity of an early exit due to too much medication.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
A Slice of Huntington Beach
Exhausted, yes downright pupped, I slithered into Vons off of Beach and took up a chair. Vons Market sit inside the largest strip mall in Huntington Beach. Mary Calendars is the port hole of this large strip mall. The Target Store and Howards are the main patrons.
A cluster of round tables with chairs graced the entrance. In front of me was Starbucks waiting for a shark and a in house pizza store. Up ahead were Wells Fargo and the bathrooms with a blood pressure machine at its entrance
It is three o'clock and my brother Mel wishes another T-bone steak. It appears that he has beaten brain cancer and his left eye lid is opened now wider. His birthday was the 27th and he turned 76 years of age. Of course with the T bone comes corn on the cob.
But I am tired and hanker for a pizza slice. a couple come in and since I am in no hurry, give them my turn. The man asks me if he can buy a pizza for me and I decline. Things like that just don't happen in Beverly Hills. It is my turn.
"Take a slice with pepperoni on top....How much?"
"I take out two bills from my wallet and removed change from my front pocket and dribble coins on the counter .
The young red-headed-kid surveys his guest, me, and points to a lonely pizza on a display case.
'"Keep your change. This one is on the house."
Well now, I am real tired and hungry after a busy day in downtown L.A. I smile and accept the gratuity. The slice of Huntington Beach tastes scrumptious. I devour it and have a bit of thirst. I wonder of all of my missing teeth had something to do with the free cheese.
Yesterday, I spent all day screaming at a gopher for the manager of insurance at the L.A Board. At least I came up with the name of Hironimus. But now with an inversion layer, I paid a good price for this trip.
I then rechecked my blood pressure and it was a cut below high, and for me it was good enough. I then proceeded to the meat department and surveyed the beef. I bought a nice looking T bone for eleven and change for my brother and a ugly sister for me. I also bought some cherries, two heads of corn and a drink.
Two lines were flooded with customers, and the one I chose seemed to have a personality at the cashiers helm. The old man, my age, was bent over without a hair on his polished head. He was deliberate and took an extraordinary amount of time with the two patrons ahead of me. It was my turn and I produced a hundred dollar bill from my wallet. I gave him my Vons card and he examined the bill.
"Looks mighty old. Need to check to see if Ben Franklin is good. We've had nine, yes nine phony hundred dollar bills lately."
The tall Mr. Clean returned and ironed out my change I took my bag and sat down. I drank some fluid and then dug into the cherry bag. There is something about chewing on a cherry and spitting out the seed.
Now that pizza slice and the pure air inside Von's gave me a lift to get back to my apartment and cook the steak for Mel...That night back at the Museum of Wax, Mel ate the T bone and then some. The food at the Sea Cliff Health center skims the pots of what is needed for survival. Mel not only ate the meat but the part of the bone.
A cluster of round tables with chairs graced the entrance. In front of me was Starbucks waiting for a shark and a in house pizza store. Up ahead were Wells Fargo and the bathrooms with a blood pressure machine at its entrance
It is three o'clock and my brother Mel wishes another T-bone steak. It appears that he has beaten brain cancer and his left eye lid is opened now wider. His birthday was the 27th and he turned 76 years of age. Of course with the T bone comes corn on the cob.
But I am tired and hanker for a pizza slice. a couple come in and since I am in no hurry, give them my turn. The man asks me if he can buy a pizza for me and I decline. Things like that just don't happen in Beverly Hills. It is my turn.
"Take a slice with pepperoni on top....How much?"
"I take out two bills from my wallet and removed change from my front pocket and dribble coins on the counter .
The young red-headed-kid surveys his guest, me, and points to a lonely pizza on a display case.
'"Keep your change. This one is on the house."
Well now, I am real tired and hungry after a busy day in downtown L.A. I smile and accept the gratuity. The slice of Huntington Beach tastes scrumptious. I devour it and have a bit of thirst. I wonder of all of my missing teeth had something to do with the free cheese.
Yesterday, I spent all day screaming at a gopher for the manager of insurance at the L.A Board. At least I came up with the name of Hironimus. But now with an inversion layer, I paid a good price for this trip.
I then rechecked my blood pressure and it was a cut below high, and for me it was good enough. I then proceeded to the meat department and surveyed the beef. I bought a nice looking T bone for eleven and change for my brother and a ugly sister for me. I also bought some cherries, two heads of corn and a drink.
Two lines were flooded with customers, and the one I chose seemed to have a personality at the cashiers helm. The old man, my age, was bent over without a hair on his polished head. He was deliberate and took an extraordinary amount of time with the two patrons ahead of me. It was my turn and I produced a hundred dollar bill from my wallet. I gave him my Vons card and he examined the bill.
"Looks mighty old. Need to check to see if Ben Franklin is good. We've had nine, yes nine phony hundred dollar bills lately."
The tall Mr. Clean returned and ironed out my change I took my bag and sat down. I drank some fluid and then dug into the cherry bag. There is something about chewing on a cherry and spitting out the seed.
Now that pizza slice and the pure air inside Von's gave me a lift to get back to my apartment and cook the steak for Mel...That night back at the Museum of Wax, Mel ate the T bone and then some. The food at the Sea Cliff Health center skims the pots of what is needed for survival. Mel not only ate the meat but the part of the bone.
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