Tick Tock

As we sat in the surgical waiting room, time seemed to slow to a crawl. I was aware of every sound, smell, movement and person sitting around us. But, as aware as I was, I also had the feeling that I wasn't really there- I was in another's shoes, the saddened, swollen-eyed daughter of another man who was in the fight of his life.

This wasn't really happening.
This surely was not happening to me. To my father. To my family. To my life.

I hadn't slept last night, I kept having nightmares about my father laying in a morgue, grey, cold and dead, but somehow still able to open his eyes and look at me, expecting, waiting, hoping. This accident was already haunting me and haunting my dreams.

I thought back to the nightmares and shivered.

Looking around I could see my grandmother mindlessly knitting to keep her hands from shaking. Her small body engulfed by the round, plastic of the chair- her short legs stretched out in front of her on the end table littered with torn magazines and day old newspapers. My grandmother's boyfriend sat stretched out in the chair next to her, eyes on the television that hung on the wall. My mother sat next to me with her hands in her lap, looking forward, and every once and a while glancing over at me, checking on me, caring-like she always has. My uncles sat talking with my aunt, occasionally laughing or making a joke and then suddenly realizing what they were doing...laughing! At a time like this! Sometimes I wonder who invented those rules, those social-norms or codes of conduct we all grow to learn and know and follow, blindly.
It was this my mind toyed with instead of concentrating on the horrific circumstances at hand. Why can't we laugh in a surgical waiting room? Is laughing or making a joke about a deceased person really going to make a difference? Is laughing going to "jinx" the surgery or make the dead somehow more dead? No, those rules are there to make the living happy. To make the living feel that they are being respectful and appropriate. Well I always had a problem with being appropriate.

I looked at the clock, 9:15am. My father had been in surgery for two hours.
We had no idea how long he would be in surgery, or if he would even awake afterwards.

So much was uncertain.

I looked around the room, suddenly remembering how angry I was that my boyfriend was not with me. He worked late last night and just could not get up and be at the hospital for a 7am surgery. I knew maybe I was being too hard on him, I mean really we were only sitting here waiting, its not like there was anything he could really do. But still I felt like he should be here, to be with me, to support me.

John and I had been dating for over two years. We were high school sweethearts, meeting at the young ages of 15 and 16. We learned a lot while we were together- we taught each other what it was truly like to be in a relationship with another person. We took each other's virginity, we shared each other's secrets. We supported each other through the adolescent turmoil that every teenager experiences- but no matter how close we were, no matter how good our relationship seemed on the surface there was one major matter that separated us and would eventually tear us apart. I was growing up and John was not.
I loved him though, just the same, and still do. But there comes a time when you realize that love really is not enough. It is not enough to sustain a relationship, or undo horrible things. Love is not enough to see you through a financial hardship and love is certainly not enough to bring a loved one back from the brink. It would take me another 4 years before I realized this.

John was very much into being young and irresponsible. He worked a 30 hour work week, spent his money on luxuries like DVDs and Video Games and had little responsibility. He lived in his parents basement with his surround sound system and often smoked pot and played video games until the early morning hours. Despite all of this though, he treated me rather well. He lavished me in gifts and spent time making sure I was happy. He held my hand when we rode in the car and took me out to dinner at least twice a week. He was a good boy, or at least he tried to be what he thought was a good boyfriend. He really did. It is now, looking back on things, that I realize John was as good to me as he could be. But, alas, it was not enough.

"Oh, what the hell!" My uncle yelled, tearing my attention away from my own thoughts, "The damn lid..."
My eldest uncle lept from his seat wiping coffee down the front of his black, Calvin Klein t-shirt. The lid of his coffee cup had come off while he was taking a sip and spilled coffee down the front of his shirt.
My aunt caught my eye and we lost it.
We began giggling and as the pressure of the giggles rose we broke out into full laughter.
"Oh, that's nice," my uncle boomed, clearly embarrassed and angry at the same time.
This only made us laugh louder.
I glanced at my aunt once again who held her hand clamped over her mouth, her green eyes showing above her palm opening wide and shutting again as another laugh erupted, "Don't look at me!" She screamed and closed her eyes, her head shaking.
I titled my head back and laughed, looking at my grandmother, who herself had a smirk and was visibly trying to hold back a laugh, torn between upsetting her son, laughing with her daughter and granddaughter and being appropriate in the surgical lounge.
My mother threw me a dirty look and slapped my thigh, "Rachel!" she hissed.

"Oh, oh- sorry Uncle Ron," I said still laughing, "but that was funny."
"Yeah well, it better not stain," he said grouchily as he took his seat again and grabbed the nearest newspaper.
My aunt erupted again and doubled over in her seat, grabbing her stomach.
"OK, Alicia- enough, it wasn't that funny," Ron snapped.
My aunt looked at him in the eyes, and nearly crying from laughter said, "Bet ya wish ya didn't wear your Calvin Klein shirt today, huh?" she snorted, as laughter erupted again.
Ron ignored her.

After all of the laughter had escaped me I looked again at the clock: 10:05am...three hours. When was this going to be over?

My father's relationship with his family had been turbulant at best. His relationship with is brothers was one of a combined love, resentment, competition and incompatibility. My eldest uncle Ron, openly disagreed with my father on many issues. They openly argued and held deep resentments from their childhood. Ron always felt my father told him what he should do, but did not lead with example. He felt my father was a hypocrite, and my father felt he lacked conviction and gusto- both were right in one way or another. When it comes right down to it my father and Ron were far too much alike, and as they could not identify their own faults, they were quick to identify those faults in each other.
My father's relationship with his youngest brother Jerry was bit different. He felt compelled to protect Jerry, to be his savior- and he often was there for Jerry when he needed it. Of the three Jerry was the kindest, the most slow to anger and frankly the most lovable. Jerry was a tempered soul who made friends easy and kept a good relationship with most members of the family. Jerry was also plagued with a severe alcohol addiction and several medical issues. Jerry was simply sweet and it was hard to find a person who did not like him.
My father's relationship with his sister seemed a combination of his relationships with his brothers. As the oldest brother he felt the need to protect Alicia and give her advice. He would tell me countless times, "I carried her into the house when Mom brought her home from the hospital. I changed her diapers and still she won't listen to me!" My father often disagreed with my aunt's life decisions but had a way of "telling her what to do," instead of "offering her advice"- which did not booed well with my feisty, fiery Aunt's personality.
And finally his relations with my grandmother were complicated and sporadic to say the least. They had a true love-hate relationship. My father relied on her for comfort and assistance, often financial assistance when he needed it; which lately was quite often. Yet, he continued to degrade her as a mother, criticize her and blame her for his medical conditions. She was often angry with him, yet could never turn him down when he needed her. She remained a loyal mother to him despite many years of blame and ridicule. My father blamed her for many problems in his life and particularly his health problems.

My father, and his three siblings, although none of them yet knew, had inherited a rare blood clotting disorder from their mother- Protein S, or in my uncle and aunt's cases C, Deficiency and Factor V Leiden.
Protein S deficiency is a genetic trait that predisposes one to the formation of venous clots. The protein S that is present functions normally, but the amount of protein S present is insufficient to control the coagulation cascade, or the way one's blood forms clots. This means my father does not have enough of this protein to allow his blood to clot normally, so it clots when clotting is not needed.
And to make his health worse he also inherited Factor V Leiden.
Factor V Leiden is characterized by a phenomenon called APCR where a genetic mutation in the factor V gene causes a change in the factor V protein making it resistant to inactivation by protein C. When someone like my father has factor V Leiden, the result is that factor V Leiden is inactivated by activated protein C in the blood at a much slower rate, basically the thing in his blood that says "no, wait- there is no need to clot here!" doesn't work, so his blood randomly forms clots-in his organs, in his arms and mostly in his legs at any given time for no apparent reason.

And although all four of the children inherited this horrible condition, my father was the only one to show symptoms. He had constant, recurrent DVT's, or deep vein blood clots as they are more commonly known- since the age of 10. And it was the treatment for this condition, Coumadin (Warfarin) anti-coagulant therapy which had caused his blood to be too thin to operate yesterday.
Because of his treatment for the clotting disorder, the surgeon was not able to operate immediately on his brain, which may cost him brain functioning and possibly his life.

10:30am- three and a half hours and counting.