Life Ain't Always Beautiful
Chapter Four: Diminishing Health
Ali stormed out of the hospital, wiping tears from her eyes and fussing under her breath about how it could not be possible that she was THAT sick. "Stupid quack," she muttered, fumbling with her car keys. "Should be a law against hiring fake doctors like HIM. What does HE know anyway?"
Still in a sour mood, she cranked the car and flew out of the parking area to head to Bo's house where she had left Lizzy under Eve's care while she "ran some errands". Jesse was spending his Labor Day with Luke at the garage. Nobody knew Ali had gone to the hospital that morning---nor WOULD they find out. Not unless the doctor was right in his diagnosis.
"Ridiculous," she continued to say to herself. "Not me, nothing like that could happen to me. Lung cancer! Ha! Just because I smoked like a chimney when I was younger does NOT mean I can have lung cancer NOW! Jesus, I'm startin' to sound like Eve now!"
Dr. Anders had explained to her that the tests had come up positive for lung cancer. Adenocarcinoma, if you wanted to get technical. It explained the blood, the shortness of breath, coughing, chest pain, tiredness, and weight loss she had been having for a while now. He said that the cancer had spread to the chest wall, her diaphragm, and possibly even near the walls of the heart. Stage 2B, he called it. Surgery would be needed. That was when she called him an idiot to his face and stormed out.
"It could be the stress of raising a family!" Ali kept on fussing as she swerved to take a right. "I don't have freakin' lung cancer!"
But in the back of her mind, the thought that something seriously wrong with her health haunted her and the more she thought about it, the more she pushed it back. Her chest started hurting again. Stess, it had to be stress. Not something serious like lung cancer. Not HER.
Ever notice how things are different around the house when visitors come over? Normally, our house smells like cat food and dirty laundry not to mention looks like a pig sty. We make some effort to straighten up on Sundays when the folks come for dinner, but it's when Aunt Evie comes that things get in tip-top condition. The dishes are sparklin', you can actually SEE the bedroom floors, 'bout five inches of dust from the mantel disappears over night an' the whole house smells like chocolate chip cookies. I'm sure Daddy gets tired of havin' another woman in the house, but he doesn't complain about the homely touch.
"Hold still, Tabby!" Lizzy scolded as she tried to heave the giant tomcat into a baby doll stroller. Tabby growled in protest---he didn't appreciate having been outfitted in a pink frilly doll gown only five minutes before.
"Hey, nobody harrasses my cat 'cept ME!" Chelsea called out from across the yard where she was practicing her batting swings.
"REEEER!" Tabby mewled, digging his claws into the side of the stroller and tearing out across the yard still wearing the pink gown.
"HEY, GET BACK HERE!" Lizzy screamed, taking out after the aggravated cat who had just made refuge in a tall pine tree---and he had every intention of staying there.
Poor Tab, I'd 've done the same thing. Only I would've scratched her before runnin' off.
Rosco had been asleep on the front porch while reading the paper until her heard Lizzy's screaming, which was when he jumped himself awake and looked around confusedly and trying to figure out what was going on. When he realized it wasn't any emergency, he went back to reading the paper---the comics section, naturally.
Eve stepped out holding a spatula and wearing her "Kiss the Cook" apron and hollered out, "Hey, who wants hot fudge brownies!"
Lizzy automatically forgot that Tabby had stolen her doll dress and high-tailed it to the porch. "I do! I do!"
"Ooh, me too! Me too!" Rosco inputted, tugging on Eve's apron to make sure she heard him.
"If there's any left when the kids get done, I MIGHT let you have one," Eve smiled at him, turning around to go back inside with Lizzy right behind her.
That translates into "I better not catch ya sneakin' any behind my back." But she knows that he always goes in there and steals a bite when she's not lookin'. If she catches him, she'll threaten to stick 'im on some form of diet, although she never acts on it. I learned that routine when I stayed with 'em over the summer a few years back. I can promise you that he'll get his hands on one sometime today.
Chelsea went up the stairs and shook her head at her uncle. "Why ya bother askin' if ya know you're gonna get a piece?"
He shrugged, giving her his trademark ear-to-ear grin. "I just like to bother her sometimes I reckon."
Chelsea rolled her eyes playfully. "Well, hurry up then, you'll want one while they're warm."
Rosco couldn't exactly get up as fast as he used to could, now that he'd aged a number of years but he always managed to get himself up without help. That was why it surprised Chelsea that when he was halfway out of the chair, he almost immediately collapsed back down in it with his hand pressed over his heart and a pained expression on his face.
Horrified, Chelsea asked, "Uncle Rosco?" When he started breathing heavily and shaking all over she ran into the kitchen yelling, "Aunt Evie, somethin's wrong!"
As if she had practiced for this, Eve firmly instructed Lizzy to stay put in the ktichen while she ordered Chelsea to fix her a glass of milk. Eve ran off to the guest room while Chelsea did this (all the while Lizzy asking what was wrong) and then hollered for her to meet her outside. Chelsea hurried fast as she could, scared to death and not quite understanding what the deal was. Half the milk she poured ended up on the countertop and dribbled on down to the floor.
Eve grabbed the glass hurriedly, shoved the front door open, and started talking in a low calm voice to her husband, who had started coughing while the girls were in the house. "Open your mouth, sweetie, open it, open it up," she told him, trying to pry his mouth open so she could get the pill in there. He was shaking so hard now that when she put the rim of the glass against his lips, the milk went pouring down his chin and on down his neck. Chelsea could only stand there terrified.
"Small sips, take small sips, easy, easy. Swallow it, now. Swallow it, don't you spit that out, swallow it," she instructed, keeping her hand over his mouth to prevent him from coughing up the pill. Finally she felt him relax a little bit as the shaking began to grow less and told Chelsea to go check on Lizzy for her.
Wide-eyed, Chelsea silently went back into the house, greeted with Lizzy asking, "What's goin' on, Chelsea? Did somethin' happen?"
"I don't know, Lizzy, just be quiet okay?" Chelsea snapped without really meaning to.
Meanwhile, Rosco was getting over his ordeal and was beginning to start breathing normally again. Eve had her head rested on his, relieved nothing serious but she still had a few tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
"Still hurts," he whispered, pressing her hand up against his heart to help relieve some of the pressure he was feeling.
"It always does afterwards," she reminded him, giving him a short kiss on the top of his head. "You forgot to take it earlier, didn't you?"
He looked a little sheepish. "I didn't mean to . . ."
Eve sighed. That was the reason for her early retirement. Rosco was getting to where he couldn't remember little things such as taking a pill when he was supposed to. She couldn't leave him alone at the house in his condition with no one to remind him or respond to an emergency like the one they had just now.
"It's all right, baby, it's over now," she told him, giving him a small hug around the neck.
Out of curiosity, I surfed the internet to see what that medication was for and checked out the symptoms Uncle Rosco had earlier. The closest I came to was "Coronary Artery Spasm". Was that some form of small heart attack or somethin'? I didn't know what to make of that, so I just went to bed worryin' if it was anythin' fatal. An' as for Aunt Ali, I know there has to be somethin' wrong with her. She came home from "runnin' her errands" in an upset manner. She doesn't normally do that.