Today is Last Tuesday.

Today, I got to the hospital at 7:30 a.m. My brother told me to get there at 6:30 a.m., but I am Medusa in the mornings, so 7:30 a.m. was my compromise.

Come to find out that 30 minutes earlier, my dad had pulled the NG tube out of nose. That’s the tube that was draining his tummy because something was blocking his intestines. I don’t know what NG stands for.

He hated that tube. We basically made them superglue it to his face so he couldn’t pull it out. But when I got there, he had ripped through the tape and yanked it out.

 So maybe it would have been better if I had arrived at 6:30 a.m.

They were trying to put it back in, but he was having nothing to do with it.

“Can you help us? Can you talk to him, please?” the nurse wanted to know.

I wished really hard that my brother was there. This is his job.

“Daddy? Daddy, we have to put the tube back in.”

He was not having it. His tongue was huge and swollen, because he hadn’t been able to drink anything for a week, because of his intestines or something, or maybe because his kidneys were failing, or maybe because the tumor on his shoulder was the size of  large grapefruit, or maybe because the cancer has metastisized to his entire skeleton in a matter of days. I can’t remember. Anyways, his tongue was huge and swollen, and he did his very best to tell the NG tube to go to hell. His swollen response was, “Hell, no. Only if Dr. Gordon says I have to.”

So I went out in the hall and pretended to call Dr. Gordon. I think my brother would have actually called Dr. Gordon, but I was too chicken. So I went back in the room and told him that Dr. Gordon said.

So, in came the nurse to try and guide the tube back down his nose. My job was to hold his arms down.

It didn’t go well.

They couldn’t get the tube in because he was fighting so much. He was shaking his head and he turned all red. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” he said to me.

The nurse left.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” I hugged him and laid my head on his shoulder, but it was hard to stay there and not tug on any other tubes, so I couldn’t stay there long. I massaged his hand instead.

But by this time, I knew.

We had to go down to the OR later to get a pain pump inserted into his spine. I can’t remember where my mom was. She got to the hospital probably around 10 or so, or maybe eight, I can’t remember. I think she went to lunch during the OR trip. She said she’d been doing this with my dad for years now, which was true, and we didn’t need to go down there with him. But I called my brother and he said to go, so I did.

In the OR, they tried to fill his pain pump with morphine. My dad is allergic to morphine.

“No,” I said. “N-O. He is allergic to morphine. You can’t give it to him.”

“Well, I already ordered it from the pharmacy,” the surgeon said.

I was flabbergasted. What a bitch.

“Well, then we need to cancel that order and fill it with something else. Not Dalodid, he was on that last week and it wasn’t good.”

“Well, I’m going to have to chase down the order if we’re going to cancel it.”

 What a bitch.

“We don’t have a choice. Do you want me to run to the pharmacy? I’ll do it myself.”

At this point, my dad piped up, with his swollen tongue, and his huge frustration at being patronized. For some reason, people talk to sick people like they’re babies or incapable or something. My dad was the smartest person they probably ever met. I’m not sure where they got off treating him that way.

“I have told you people a thousand times,” he choked out, “no morphine. I get headaches, I’m allergic to it, you people are not listening. No morphine.”

It took him about four solid minutes to get that out.

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I got it.”

“There are no notes on his chart that he’s allergic to morphine,” the surgeon said.

“Make one,” I said. “And he needs one of those red bracelets that says he’s allergic to morphine. And we need to cancel the pharmacy order right now. Point me to the pharmacy. I’ll do it.”

The nurse said she would take care of it. I thought that was nice of her.

I was really glad I went to the OR with him.

I waited in the waiting room for an hour. The procedure was supposed to take 45  minutes. I finally asked about him.

“Oh, he’s done, they took him back up to his room.”

Um, hello?

I ran back up to his room and assaulted his nurse.

“Diego, he can’t have morphine. Did they fill it with morphine? Are you sure? Please double check. No morphine.”

My mom was in the room by that time. Diego promised me there was no morphine.

Last Tuesday was also the day that Dr. Gordon came to visit in the afternoon, and I hit him with the hard question.

“He’s been here for a week,” I said. “He’s not getting better. He should be getting better. What’s the situation? What’s the status? What does this mean? Why isn’t he getting better?”

I broke down in front of Dr. Gordon, which is exactly what I didn’t want to do. It was my job to manage the situation. I couldn’t break down.

“You’ve been here everyday since Friday,” he said. “Why don’t you take a day off? Don’t come in tomorrow. Rest. He’ll be ok.”

“No, I need to be here.”

I didn’t want my dad to think I didn’t care. I didn’t want to miss a day, because he might think I was being flippant about the situation. And if it were me, he would not have missed a day.

“You’re not doing your dad any good. Just rest. Take a day and sleep.”

My mom agreed.

“But you didn’t answer my question, Dr. Gordon. He’s not getting better.”

He gave me a really complete answer about kidneys and bowels and cancer and pain, blah, blah, blah. Dr. Gordon is a really good doctor.

But they all agreed that I should take the next day off. So I left the hospital that night around six, and my mom stayed with him. I slept until 2 p.m. on Last Wednesday, when my mom called.

“Dr. Gordon wants you to come down,” she said.

“What? I thought I was supposed to take the day off.”

I was not excited about going back to the hospital and watching my father die.

“Dr. Gordon feels that your father needs to see you.”

Translation: Your father is going to expire very, very soon, and you are the only one who can keep him alive until your brother gets here tomorrow. My dad and I have always been soul mates, so when someone says, “Your father needs to see you,” needs, not wants, it means “You are the last resort. He will stay alive for you.”

No one had said yet that he was going to die, but I knew.

I drove my brother’s car to the hospital. He had left it there after we drove home from L.A. on Thursday. He flew back to L.A. and was flying back on Thursday, so I had the car. I love that car. It’s an Infiniti G35. It’s a great car.

When I got there my mother was outside in the hallway. I went into his room and she said she was going to the lobby to call her friends. I sat there watching my father die.

Dr. Gordon walked in.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I told you to stay home.”

“My mother told me that you said I needed to come down and see my dad,” I said.

“No, I never said that.”

“Can we go out in the hall and talk with my mom? I don’t want to upset my dad.”

My mom came in the room, so we just talked in there and probably upset my dad. Selfishly, I wanted my dad to hear this. I wanted him to hear what she did.

“Mom, Dr. Gordon wants to know what I’m doing here, which is funny, because you told me that he ordered me down here. It seems that he did nothing of the sort.”

“I thought it would be good for your father to see you,” she said. “And I knew you wouldn’t come unless you thought Dr. Gordon told you to.”

There’s a little girl in the room, and she’s the only one who knows, besides the doctor, that her Daddy is dying. She’s been watching him die and managing his care for days now. She cracked in front of the doctor yesterday. She slept for about 15 hours last night. And knowing this, her mama lied to her to get her to come down to the hospital and watch her daddy die some more, just in case it looked different than the day before. Her mama went out to the lobby to use her cell phone, and the little girl sat with her daddy.

She left the hospital after the conversation with Dr. Gordon. She was pissed. She told her daddy she loved him and that she would be back tomorrow, on Last Thursday.

She went home and went back to sleep, so she didn’t have to think about her daddy dying, or feel hurt by her mama. She waited for her brother to get there tomorrow and take care of things, so she could be the baby again. That’s her job.

Today is Last Tuesday. This is my father’s last Tuesday. In less than a week, we won’t have him anymore. In less than a week, it’ll be a year, and I think I’m supposed to have some sort of peace with it, and that people will treat it with less weight, because it’s been a year.

There is no peace and there is no less weight.

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