Chapter 6: The Hospital Calls

If you are just joining this blog, you might want to start at the preface and work your way up or you'll be missing major details :-)

So folks, you really ready for the rest of this story? This is where things get complicated and awful. Oh...you thought it was bad enough already?? I wish. We have only hit the tip of the iceberg, and the boat will sink slowly into the icy cold waters of this drama. So, if you have been living in a nice cozy bubble and your life is pretty, comfortable, and smells of vanilla year-round, now is the time to stop reading. Your life will remain untouched by this madness. The rest of the story is for those of us that have seen darkness in people and know the true meaning of  "silver lining"- those of us that are not afraid to swim in the deep end.

But before I continue the story, I'll give you some cliff's notes since so much has happened already:

-Dad was put in jail. We found out it was for not paying the courts on a judgment against him for scamming a contracting job
-Crack whore calls mom when Dad is in jail, who is in a hotel nearby waiting for my dearest Daddy.
-Dad's friend Julian bails him out of jail. Who the hell knows why.
-Dad stocks the pantry with Y2K food and leaves with the crack whore and $3 in the bank for my mom.

I haven't spoken to Mom for more than a few seconds since I've been slammed pulling 20 hour days rushing to get all my holiday merchandise to my clients, oh and being a mom too. But Mom has been texting me updates while I fail to help her wade through this mounting family drama:

November 26th
Your dad didn't show for Thanksgiving. Kids have been quiet and teary eyed all day

December 5th
Your dad is still working in Chicago. Its been 2 weeks since he left

December 7th
Dad is coming home Wed

December 8th
Dad says he's too sick to fly. Coming home Thurs

December 9th
Dad says he's sick again coming home Friday

December 10th (late at night)
Dad didn't call till late. Says he's been throwing up all day. Not coming home today. He didn't give me money before he left

December 11th
No call yet. Not answering.

December 13th
"Hi Mom. Has he called yet?"

"No. Not yet. He's not answering his phone either," Mom tells me.

"Yeah I know. I've been trying to call him all day."

"You know he has done this before but its usually over a three day weekend that we loose track of him. He said he was so sick though I just hope nothing happened. I'm starting to get a little worried. Its really cold there right now," Mom tells me.

"You said he's in Chicago?"

"Yeah. Why?"

" I think its time to start calling hospitals. Remember a few months ago when he didn't call forever and then he ended up being in the hospital?" I remind my mom.

"Yeah, that was weird," she replies.

"Okay Mom I'm gonna make calls."

This is the part where if you were watching a movie you'd see a montage of me with an open phone book busily dialing and scribbling on a yellow notebook...but then the screen would get all foggy and dark because I'm about to experience a memory and you are along for the ride...cue FLASHBACK...

My phone rings.

"Hi Dad. Where are you? We've been trying to get a hold of you for like 2 days," I blurt out.

"I'm in the hospital baby," he replies calmly.

"WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED!" I exclaim.

"I don't know. I was driving the car and all of a sudden my heart felt like it was going to explode. I couldn't talk or breathe. I thought I was having a heart attack. Dennis rushed me to the hospital and they have been doing all kinds of test on me."

"So was it a heart attack?" I ask.

"They don't know. The doctors think it was because I drank a soda and two of those energy drinks and my heart just couldn't take it and spasmed out."

"Oh my God Dad. Why did you drink those things? And you know how I feel about soda. I thought you stopped drinking soda?" I question like a scowling school teacher.

"Baby I was just trying to get this job done and I'm exhausted. I need to get it done so I can get home. But baby it looks like I"m going to be released later tonight."

"Wait. When did this happen?" I ask.

"Yesterday morning," he responds. Yesterday morning was like 30 hours before this stupid phone call.

"What?! Why didn't you call us Dad?!" I reply with an edge of anger.

"They've been doing tests since I got here baby, and when I first got here they gave me a shot that knocked me out for a while. And to be honest, I've had to wait until the nurses left because I'm saying I'm someone else," he tells me nonchalantly.

"What? Someone else? WHAT?" I ask as my train of thought is completely thrown with that little tid bit of information.

"Well, yeah. It was going to put us in the poor house, so Dennis said I could use his insurance and pretend that I was him so they bill the insurance and not me. I've been forgetting all day and when the nurses come in they've been calling me Dennis and I've had to get used to his name."

"OH-MY-GOD. Dad that's totally illegal. And who is this Dennis guy? Why would he let you use his insurance? Isnt' that like insurance fraud or something?!"

"Not if you get caught its not. But the good thing is that with all the tests they found growth on my thyroid."

The thing is, my dad is a really good verbal magician. I didn't realize until recently that he's super good at misdirection. Of course I would forget about the crazy insurance fraud, or the unlikely story that Red Bull gave him a heart attack, or who this Dennis guy is that is crazy enough to let someone use his name for expensive hospital tests. Forget all that shit. What is this growth?! For the love of God, could my dad be sick? Like cancer sick?

"What does that mean Dad? Is it a tumor?" I question with waves of concern flanking my deductive reasoning skills leaving the logical portion of my brain crippled.

"They don't know. They're doing some more test on it. They're sending a biopsy out and I'll have the results in a week or so," he tells me.

"So it could be cancer?"

"Well, yeah but don't go there yet. Lets just wait to see what the test results say. Okay baby I have to go so I can call your mom now. I love you baby doll."  (Anyone wonder why he didn't call my Mom first? hmm.)

"Love you to Pop. Call me later okay?"

"Alright. Bye."

Now imagine the screen going black again as we slowly fade into real time. There I am sitting in front of my phone book with a full page of scribbles on my yellow pad of paper. Okay lets be honest, I don't own a phonebook and I don't know where paper is in my house let alone a pen. I only use crayons for writing purposes... I totally used google and my iPhone to call the hospitals...but I digress. Here's what I discover while you were enjoying my fancy flashback. There is not a single human being matching my Dad's physical description or name in any hospital in Illinois.

Now I'm really starting to worry too. What if something horrible happened? Could I live without my Dad? What would I do if he died? Okay maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. He's only been unreachable for 3 days. We will find him. Right?

Oh by the way... we never heard about the results of the growth. Never found out who this Dennis dude is and why he would let my dad use his insurance. And come to think of it, if one gets a biopsy on any internal part, doesn't it leave a mark? A scar? A cut? We didn't see any of those either. And anytime we asked about the hospital visit or the tests,  it was another wave of the verbal magical wand to distract us. What is my dad up to?