A Tonic to Ease What Ails Him

We had a family crisis over the weekend of Feb. 4. My wife drove to Bakersfield to visit an ailing sister. That left me home alone.

I have a problem with my balance. I tend to fall, sometimes with grievous consequences. Although out of the cast now, my left wrist is still too painful for free movement.

My wife insists I not go anywhere alone, with some polite exceptions in the interest of privacy. Even then, I am always to be within calling distance. We remember too well the time I had to be rescued by the fire department when I fell when I was alone.

My caretaker, Sylvia Carter, does not work weekends, but my family volunteered to pitch in, not knowing, I suspect, the problems involved.

But the family was great.

My daughter-in-law Gail, the physical therapist, took the first morning. That was easy. My wife had given me my breakfast blood test, insulin shot and pills before she left.

Gail had a client in the afternoon, so my son Curt took over. Gail had instructed him to see that I got some exercise--perhaps a walk around the patio--but he busied himself with my computer and spent the entire afternoon moving hundreds of my columns from floppy disks to the hard disk. Meanwhile I napped, mostly.

In the late afternoon my son Doug took over. Curt doesn’t like needles and the sight of blood, so Doug gave me my dinner blood test.

In this procedure you are required to get a drop of blood on the end of a finger by pricking it with a needle. Then the drop of blood is transferred to a sensitized strip, which is placed in a meter that gives the blood-sugar level. Doug let the first drop of blood get away and had to massage my forearm and hand to get another one. I dropped it on the strip and the reading was normal.

Meanwhile, my daughter-in-law Jackie, Doug’s wife, came with a dinner she had prepared at home. Pork chops and green beans. Before serving dinner, she asked if I would like my usual fix. I said indeed I would.

Every evening before dinner my wife mixes us a vodka tonic. Unless we are out at a party, it is the only thing we drink. Jackie is familiar with wines, but evidently she had no experience with mixed drinks.

“Here you are, Mr. Smith,” she said, placing the drink on a table by my chair. I picked it up gratefully and took a sip. It numbed my tongue. It was at least half vodka. I had tried to get my wife to increase the vodka, but she had refused.

“How is your drink, Mr. Smith?” Jackie asked.

“Oh, fine. Fine,” I said, not wanting her to take it back.

Curt stayed for dinner, and we had a fine dinner conversation, enlivened, I may say, by my own input. I seemed to be unusually garrulous.

After dinner Doug treated my big toe. That is an affliction I don’t believe I have mentioned in my catalogue of woes. It is what the doctor calls an ulcer. It was about the size of a quarter and was apparently not healing when I went to the podiatrist. He said it was a good thing I had come in. Diabetics, he said, often have sores that won’t heal, especially on their feet, and these can turn into gangrene, which might require amputation. With no big toe, I realized, I would have no balance whatever.

The doctor told me to soak the toe twice a day for 20 minutes in a tub of medicated water, then bandage it with gauze. I have been doing that for two weeks, and the ulcer has grown smaller.

But the doctor also told me to rub the toe vigorously to increase the circulation. The first night Sylvia rubbed it vigorously indeed. That night I had shooting pains in the toe that kept me awake until dawn.

Doug did a fine job on my toe, but the bandage he wrapped it in looked like a turban.

I must say it isn’t as bad as it could be, however. The other day my skin man noticed some flaking on my face. He checked my record and found I had had bypass surgery several years ago. He said he wanted me to take a blood test to see whether the transfusions then had given me HIV.

I had once joked with a doctor that I had everything but AIDS, and he had said, “Don’t be too sure.”

Fortunately, the test proved negative.

I drank Jackie’s fix at dinner and enjoyed every drop.

Oddly, though, I don’t remember going to bed.

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Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.

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