Gangsta Nappers

I have moved down to Houston to be nearer to my parents and specifically to help my father get through his latest cancer ordeal.  It's been great spending time with them but I have to admit that enduring the pounding intensity of the Octogenarian Lifestyle is sometimes difficult. What with all the gangsta nappers and gunplay blasting from Fox News at senior citizen volume.

I particularly am struggling with the "get dad to gain weight diet" which has totally bombed with him but has made me the bomb - Fat Boy that is. I have about 15 pounds of excess uranium or plutonium or something really nasty for me wrapped around my midriff. I mean how many different flavors of premium ice cream and M&Ms and pies and half gallons of half and half for the Frosted Mini Wheats do they have to parade in front of me?  I am not made of stone.

I'm not surprised that Dad's not gaining weight because when I waddle with him down to MD Anderson they draw so much blood that I question whether the founder, Mr. Anderson isn't in fact still kicking if not alive in some crypt in the basements near the radiation oncology death rays.  Speaking of death rays, I can say with certainty that radiation oncologists have absolutely no sense of humor.  All of my Dr. Evil and secret Volcano Basement Lair jokes fell completely flat.  Must be a side effect of all that radiation.  Because I don't care what anyone says, I was funny.

Dad also got a new high tech chemotherapy infusion pump so that they could slowly poison him 24 hours a day.  There is really nothing quite so creepy is sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of pumpers, their "little poisoners that could" going screet, schroink, whoosh, rrrnk in complete disjoint cacophony. With everybody just sooo damn happy to be there.

I consider myself to be pretty tough, really - Ok, knock it off wise guys - but I can't take the kids.  The bald, half starved toddlers with deep circles under their eyes and the exhausted, frightened looks of their parents.  I have several long walk routines that I do to cope with all of the waiting - I think some of the staff think me demented because I pace and pace and pace - but I've had to stop going by the Adolescent and Children's clinic - I actually go upstairs and then back downstairs again.  I just don't want to witness sorrow that I can't do anything about. Not now, not with my father so sick.

So much for the poor pitiful meing.  I've been trying to get out more to get to a lower stress environment so I went to my international high school class reunion.  And I was struck by how old all my old friends looked. I concluded that they must have taken a lot more drugs than me because, damn!  Then I looked in the mirror.  I mean really looked.  And damn!  If I keep decaying at my current pace there is no way I'm going to survive the Octogenarian Lifestyle.