Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Denial and dementia

Do these people not have a brain in their heads? First the old woman breaks her knee and drags herself on her butt between bed and bathroom, refusing to see a doctor for three weeks because "it doesn't hurt." As a result of the delay in seeking help, the patella heals in two pieces, and even though the two pieces have now been wired together, the thing will never work exactly as it used to. Then the old man bangs his shin against a cupboard and gets a big ugly hematoma. Go to the doctor, I plead. "It doesn't hurt," he says. Six weeks later, he's got a crater the size of a dessert plate that's not healing. He has to get it debrided every day and may have to undergo skin grafts. What is the matter with these people!

The old woman—O.K., my mother—cheerfully reminds me that she's been insouciant all her life about physical ailments, and just as cavalier about her kids' health as with her own. "Remember when you got those terrible chicken pox?" she says. "And they turned into big black spots that never went away?" Yep, I remember. Hurt like hell when she finally took me to the doctor and he burnt them off.

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