The Caulker

I was driving my dad the 100-mile journey to get chemotherapy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Usually, he was driven by close friends, the kind of friendships measured in decades. My dad taught me to drive, the only one of my Bubbie's grandchildren to not be taught by her; a tradition stolen by Parkinson's disease. Dad's driver's academy was located in the rocky parking lot of the now non-existent South Bend Freight Line - a casualty of the policies of union deregulation. The vehicle was a 1988 Toyota Camry. The lessons began when I was 12. He was a tough, but excellent teacher, and I do consider myself a good driver. DNA cannot be discounted, though: I drive like my mom, fearlessly and with some emphasis on the gas.

The only reason he let me drive to Chicago get his "poison," as he called it, is because he had a bunch of business to conduct during the drive. Seventy-eight, transplanted liver, two types of cancer lurking in his body, on chemo, and doing business on the way to Chicago. 

As I merged onto the Toll Road off exit 83, he joined an 8 a.m. Zoom meeting. He was on some committee with the city of South Bend. The agenda was short: he seconded the minutes of the previous meeting's agenda and then it was over. His ring tone - the theme song from Downton Abbey - blared loudly. The caller was from the funeral home that handled most of the Jewish burials in town - the same one that would handle his three months later. They wanted to find out the Jewish observance level of someone who had just died. Why the funeral director called my dad, and not the Rabbi, I'm not sure. But my dad knew the answers right away: "first husband was Jewish, but second isn't. One kid is Orthodox, divorced, many kids; one kid is gay has a Jewish partner, attends the Temple, and one kid is married to a nice Catholic lady." The next phone call was an interview with a female truck driver. My dad encouraged her, but without being saccharine. He gave her the pros and cons of working in the field, especially some of the obstacles she might face being in the business. It turned out she didn't have the right kind of rig, but he said to call him back if she did.

We arrived 30 minutes early to the series of appointments. Fairly quickly the phlebotomist yelled his name. All of the phlebotomists yell. Perhaps many of the patients are hard of hearing. Once he had his blood drawn, he officially transformed from a respected businessman to just another cancer patient. And then we waited. My dad was texting and emailing furiously. I was bored. And then something or someone caught my eye. There was a man, hanging from the 21st floor, caulking the building. In the winter, Chicago is unbearably cold. Hospitals design their buildings with beautiful windows, but if the building is not insulated properly, the heating costs could be enormous, or worse, the heat just wouldn't protect against the cold winds more than 200 feet up.

"What are you looking at?" my dad grumbled.

"Check out that guy, dad" I said.

He didn't look up from his tablet. He was reading a contract.

Suddenly, I had the urge to photograph him. Not my dad, but the caulker. I'm not a great photographer. I used to publish photos to illustrate the police blotter when I was a cub journalist: house fires, car crashes, even a hit and run. As a working journalist, I would never ask permission to photograph someone.

I knocked on the window, softly enough to get his attention, but not loud enough to cause, God forbid, an accident.

I mouthed a few times before he understood, "May I photograph you?"

He mouthed back, "Sure."

I took dozens of photographs of him from different angles. The cancer patients and their caregivers or drivers were either pretending not to look at me or were also delighted by the intricate work of the caulker.

"Glad those two journalism degrees are getting some use," my dad teased. "Make sure you wash your hands after touching the floor."

I tapped on the window one last time and mouthed "thank you." As my dad commanded, I washed my

hands.

The nurse finally called his name, a bit softer this time. The appointment was uneventful at first. The doctor and I played Jewish geography until the big reveal.

I came to know that my dad was taking 22 pills a day.

22.

It was thought that these pills were giving him more time to be a husband to my mom, a dad to us, a Zadie to his grandchildren, serve on boards, make money, give advice to a funeral director, but he was also suffering from a lot of side effects that only those closest to him, especially my mom, knew about. How many people with chronic illnesses suffer silently? Does the smartest person in the room go home at night to neuropathy, fatigue, and the kind of stomach problems that causes you to drop 65 pounds in a year. 

The chemotherapy wasn't caulk; it didn't insulate the building, but brought it down along with the rest of what was to come. 

We walked back to the chemo area. It's a huge expanse where about 50 people were receiving chemotherapy. I wondered how much money Northwestern made in a day off of this production. 

....

That sounds cynical. Northwestern is an incredible hospital. We owe 9 years of my dad's life to Northwestern. It's where he received a liver transplant. But at the end of his life, it felt to me like they dropped him. When he first needed to be brought to the hospital after he contracted Covid and had a fall, their response to the local doctor was "don't bring him to our ER." 

My dad didn't have that much time left in this world - a couple more years at best. And who knows what kind of quality of life he would have had. Probably not great. But that "don't bring him to our ER" still stings. I understand their ER was probably full at that moment. And who knows who answered the phone. But your transplant patient with two types of cancer who is receiving chemo at your hospital should probably be seen at your hospital by your doctors so... 

We all know anger is a stage of grief. 

....

They showed him to his room.

"I've said this already," he said firmly. "I'm not that sick. I don't want a room. A curtain with a chair is fine. Give the room to the sick people."

The nurse found him a non-room room and the chemotherapy began. Jimmy was a traveling nurse from West Virginia. He had been all around the US, but had only been in Chicago for a few weeks. He liked it so far. He was staying at a motel pretty close to my old condo in Lakeview, but was looking for a cheap rental. After Jimmy hung the IV bags, Dad asked me if we should call Eric to help Jimmy find an apartment to rent.

"Dad, Eric doesn't really do rentals so much. He's busy selling houses. Besides, every time you come here, are you going to ask Eric to find a rental for a nurse?"

He didn't hear my pithy response. Dad was asleep. Although he hadn't wanted a bed because he wasn't that sick, he looked pretty ill to me.

...

After the chemo treatment, Dad wanted to drive back to South Bend. I said, "no way." He had just had six hours of chemo. In no world did driving 100 miles after that much chemotherapy sound like a great idea.

"Fine," he lied. “ But watch how you're turning that corner. You're driving too fast for a parking garage."

"Dad, I'm 46 years old. I know how to drive." 

"Fine. I won't say anything. Tell me when you get lost." 

I knew he was angry with me. 

During that visit  last July he was often aggravated and annoyed with me. My last day before returning to Israel, my entire family, Eric's crew, R-Jay's crew, my mom, all went to get frozen yogurt. As I was sitting with my nephew Adam, my dad said, "I'm sorry for the way that I treated you the last two weeks, but a lot of times you deserved to be treated that way." 

I thought I was going to cry. I wasn't expecting an apology, but this was not what I wanted either. So I retorted, "I'm sorry that you don't know how to apologize." 

And then he looked at me. My dad had the most beautiful hazel eyes. And he looked at me with his beautiful hazel eyes, almost bewildered, and said,  "Sharna, it's the pills. It's the goddamn pills. I just don't know who I am anymore with these pills." 

"I know, Dad. I know. It's fine. It's fine."

...

The three days I had with my dad in October, before he was incoherent and passed away, he was no longer affected by that chemo mania. He was in some ways more himself, although obviously not 100 percent because he was dying. On those days, when I assured him everything would be fine, it wasn't a platitude, it was true. I was reassuring him that my mom, my brothers, that I would be fine.

And we are fine. But I'd give anything for another driving lesson. 

This post is dedicated to Dr. Mark Sandock, Bill Lopatin and Bill Beelaert, my dad's friends who drove him many, many times to Chicago for early morning appointments often returning in the evenings.