DEPRESSION, DEMENTIA AND DENIAL

Sitting in the kitchen in Suffolk while the TV blares in the other room. Shades of Becket, except over there the TV is in the room. And at least DK is not glued to The Weather Channel. Although hearing golf commentary, have to say, is only marginally more interesting. 

A day trip to London for DK's memoirs, soon out, and returned, tired, to ringing phone. Bonnie. Peg upset because she can't find all her records or her record player, do I know where they are? I do, as it happens. Record player on the landing, where it's been for three years, and the nine million mostly cracked or scratched to buggery and generally un-playable LPs--gone. Having not sold one at the Famous Tag Sale in Hinsdale in August, they went to Goodwill. Peg and I had gone over them all last summer, keeping out a small pile of ones she loved that I said we would replace on CD when she felt the need. Tom Lehrer, Bob Newhart, Nichols & May, and so on. The classicals she already has on CD.

So then Peg comes on the phone.

Needless to say, she's forgotten we ever had this Important Record Conversation, and was about to launch into How I Throw Everything That Matters to Her Out--when, with no warning, like suddenly swerving off an exit on I- 95 from the fast lane--she says:

"Daddy's death certificate says he died of Esophageal Cancer! I didn't know he had cancer. Why didn't anyone tell me!"

You know those pauses where you're so at a loss for the right words that you need to take a deep breath to try and hold your temper? Well it wasn't one of those. It was more of a "FUCK ME, IS SHE CRAZY? pause, after which I suggested this to her. 

It seems she has no recollection whatsoever of the biopsy my father had a year ago August, or that it was malignant--slow-growing, the doctor said, but malignant--and we were given three options, radiation, surgery, and "do nothing", no recollection that she was beside herself trying to figure out the best course of action, or that she wanted to prevent Odd knowing he had cancer at all costs so it wouldn't worry him, or that the situation was discussed at length, or that there'd been a conference call with me over here in England AND the doctor AND Peg AND Bonnie AND a social worker. No recollection that the upshot was that we would NOT put Daddy through surgery especially since the doctor said at 96 it was dangerous, that we would NOT put him through 4 months of radiation, and that we would, since the malignancy was "slow-growing", DO NOTHING. And let nature take its course. We would get Daddy OUT of the nursing home and back home where he'd be happier. And that because of this cancer diagnosis, coupled with his dementia diagnosis, he qualified for Hospice Care at home, and that is when they came on board and P.S. thank God they did.

I have just filled the past hour going through old emails to forward to Peg via Bonnie to prove all this. Because Peg is having none of it. She says this is the first she has heard about any diagnosis of cancer.

One hour twenty three minutes I spent on the phone, Denis brining me wine and rolling his eyes and muttering. 

My mother remains convinced the oncologist either lied to her when he said Odd had no cancer. I remain convinced the oncologist never said any such thing. 

Peg thinks we are all part of some Grand Conspiracy package, a "big goddamned scam!" 

"A scam," I said. PAUSING. But not for TOO long. "Jesus Christ, Mother. Stop doing this to me. What in hell are you talking about? A scam?? In what way? What for?"

"MONEY!" she says. 

Money. For whom? She didn't say. Oh God. Finally I asked, softly (well, with marginally less irritation in my voice), what was wrong, what was it that was really really upsetting her? And she broke down, and kept saying if she'd known Daddy had had cancer she would have taken him to a specialist in New York. I had to assure her that that wouldn't have solved anything, that we did the best thing for him, that Hospice was magnificent, that he only suffered for a week, tops. Assure her that she couldn't have saved him. 

I promised that as soon as I had finished my work here, I'd come over. 

Again. 

Although, gee, might be needed here. This just in: my son, currently at work behind the bar at the Anchor down the road despite having had no sleep because he stayed up half the night watching some dumb thing on his laptop and eating too much fried stuff too late--just informed me via text that he feels "very hot and a bit dizzy" and "faint" and has just had to go to the loo there and "splash a lot of cold water" on his face because "Mum, I think I might have Ebola. I'm serious." 

How did I turn out so--vaguely normal? Sandwiched between these two.