Doctor

I hate hospitals.

I was in seventh grade, roaming the halls between classes, when I casually tossed my hand over the top of Tom Dolak's locker to chat. When the bell rang, Tom shut his locker with my fingers still inside. I instantly stopped chatting and started screaming, but I didn't move. Because despite having my fingers jammed in the top, the locker had shut and locked.

Remember how fast you could open your locker in seventh grade? You could breeze through your combination in seconds flat without even thinking about it, right? But did you ever try doing it with blood oozing through your locker vents, mangled digits inside and obscenities being hurled at you? I'm guessing no. It took Tom three tries to get me loose. Kids were placing bets after he missed on his second attempt. And when I finally got my partially severed fingers free, I did not go to the hospital. Instead, I went to Uncle Bob's house and he stitched me up over the butcher's block in his kitchen. No big deal. Like fixing a rip in a sock.

And going to a doctor's office just makes me sicker.

When I was 14, John Topp and I were playing night basketball out on the court next to his house when the ball took a wild bounce off the rim and flew into the weeds. Seeing a rare chance to get uncontested possession (John had mad basketball skills) I charged into the brush, and charged out with uncontest possession of a rusty nail; straight through the Adidas and into my foot. Trip to the doctor's office for a tetnus shot? Absolutely not. I just went inside and showed Uncle Bob. He put down his drink (it was well into Vodka Hour by that time) and went to get his bag.

Uncle Bob is about 6' 4'' and thin as a rail. He was quite the athlete in his day, but catch him deep in Vodka Hour and he moves less like an athlete and more like a knobby-kneed scarecrow. Picture Ray Bolger in the Wizard of Oz. Now picture Ray Bolger drunk. Okay, now picture Ray Bulger stone drunk and lumbering toward you with a three inch hypodermic needle in his hand. Now panic.

But honestly, there was no time to panic because Bob is an E.R. doctor, which means he doesn't stop to chit-chat when there's a job to do. Before I could even map out an escape route, he was walking back down the hall to his leather chair and my right arm was mysteriously sore.

I have a pathological fear of waiting rooms.

I was 10 when we left Pleasant Lake and moved to Plainwell. Nana came up from Cincinnati to live with us. I don't know if she knew it at the time, but she was dying of cancer. I actually think she did know, and the knowledge of her imminent death did nothing so much as royally piss her off.

Nana was a ballet teacher. She was graceful and elegant, sometimes stern, but also cheerful and loving. Those are my memories of Cincinnati Nana. Plainwell Nana is something altogether different. In Plainwell, she seemed like a woman on a warpath, right up until the end. She had very little tolerance or time for pre-teen boys and the clutter and noise that came with them. Her focus was necessarily elsewhere.

Although Nana suffered with her cancer for quite a while, I don't ever remember visiting her in a hospital. And while I've never gotten the full story about the day she died, I think she planned her surrender, and I think Uncle Bob helped her carry it out. She died in her bed at Walnut Woods Court, her daughters at her side. The whole family was aware of what was going to happen that day. We just waited for the final word, at home.

But my doctor, he rocks.