The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (10 page)

I finally arrived at the hospital around eight thirty or so and then proceeded to wander the vast medical maze for the next twenty minutes searching for Perry. Helpful hospital employees directed me to the fifth floor, and then the ninth floor, and then to the sublevel basement in the north tower. Finally I spied him lying in the pre-op room and recognized him in spite of the sweet hairnet on his head.

They wheeled him off and sent me to the surgical waiting room. I asked how long the surgery would take. They said about an hour, so I headed over to the food court because my stomach was in knots and needed the comfort that only an egg, bean,
and cheese breakfast taco could bring. Oh, and a Grande latte from Starbucks.

(Do you see how I eat during these situations? There is no tragedy too big for food.)

It puzzles me that some hospitals have food courts because, while I completely understand why friends and loved ones wouldn’t want to eat in the hospital cafeteria, going to grab egg rolls with a side of fried rice at Zing Tao’s China Hut while Grandma is in surgery seems a little irreverent. Of course, those of us who eat tacos in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

I finished my taco and then headed to the surgical waiting room. To say that I was the youngest person in there is the understatement of the century. Apparently the neurosurgery day ward usually caters to a much older crowd, as evidenced by the fact that
The Price Is Right
was being shown on every available television while various conversations were held about how handsome Bob Barker was when he was a young man. How old do you have to be to have any recollection of Bob Barker ever being young?

I also was able to witness a catfight between two of the elderly Blue Bird volunteers, which honestly was worth the price of our insurance deductible. It seems that Myrtle, who wasn’t a day under ninety-seven, hadn’t been doing the job of surgery waiting-room hostess well enough to meet the standards of Gloria, who was a spring chicken at around seventy-eight. Gloria was quick to tell Myrtle that the only way to do things was the way Gloria wanted them done.

Honestly, I didn’t see much difference between the hostessing methods of Myrtle and Gloria, other than a little salesmanship. Gloria pushed the waiting-room coffee like a Juan Valdez drug lord. Anyone who came within a two-mile radius of the waiting
room was offered “the best cup of coffee you’ll ever have! Ever! The best coffee ever!”

Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubted this claim. In my vast coffee experience, I have found that free coffee that has been percolating for hours isn’t usually the best use of my taste buds. I did, however, take the bag of Oreo cookies that Gloria offered because I needed something to settle my stomach after that breakfast taco.

When Perry’s doctor came in to let me know he was out of surgery and doing well, Gloria was quick to come and check on me. She was thrilled to tell me that her sources confirmed that my husband, “Mr. Perry the Eighth,” was doing well. Now, Perry is a III, but I had no idea where the VIII was coming from. Gloria said it with a certain reverence in her tone, as well she should for a lineage that long and proud. It’s like we were descendants of the English monarchy all of a sudden.

Then I got a glimpse of her clipboard and noticed that what she was seeing was Perry’s name followed by III, which happened to be right next to his doctor’s name, which starts with V. So what she actually was calling VIII was, in fact, IIIV. I’m not much on Roman numerals, but I feel fairly certain this is not the sign of any number that the Romans came up with back in ye olde Roman times.

Unfortunately, even after three surgeries, Perry’s back still bothers him from time to time. And surgery is no longer an option unless he wants to spend the rest of his life moving like Joan Cusack does in
Sixteen Candles
and, let’s be honest, it hasn’t proved to be very successful in the past.

So the next time he started complaining about his back, I suggested he try acupuncture. I have two friends who rave about the effectiveness of acupuncture. Plus, it seemed like everywhere
I turned, I kept hearing about its miraculous effects. (Granted, most of this information was gathered while watching the summer Olympics in Beijing, so it could have just been NBC creating culturally relevant filler between Michael Phelps’s events.)

(This is also where I learned that Chinese people eat chicken feet.)

I asked my friends for the names of their acupuncturists. The first one’s name was Lupe Gonzales. For some reason, Chinese acupuncture practiced by someone named Lupe just didn’t feel very authentic. Something tells me Lupe’s ancestors weren’t practicing ancient Chinese medicine.

When I called my other friend to find out who she went to, she told me she couldn’t pronounce his name but it started with a
T
. Perfect. That was the kind of alternative medical credentials we needed.

Perry told me that if I’d call and make the appointment, he would go. I called Dr. T.’s office at one thirty the following afternoon and explained that my husband needed to come in for a treatment. Dr. T. said he could see him at two thirty and asked if we knew where he was located.

No. No, we didn’t.

Dr. T. is located right under the Wendy’s sign. “Look for Wendy’s Hamburgers!”

Aww, honey. Good news! You can get acupuncture and then stop for a Frosty on the way home. What says
medical professional
like close proximity to Wendy’s Hamburgers?

Except for maybe a medical degree purchased through an institute of learning that advertises on television.

I called Perry to let him know he needed to be by the Wendy’s Hamburgers in an hour, and meanwhile Caroline and I were
headed to the pool. Have fun and enjoy your nice, relaxing acupuncture.

Truth be told, I felt a little envious as I headed to the pool loaded down with various swim paraphernalia. Perry was probably lying peacefully in a candlelit room while basically getting a massage. Maybe I could come up with an ailment that required acupuncture followed by a delicious Frosty.

By the time Caroline and I traipsed in from the pool later that evening, Perry was already home sitting on the couch. I walked through the back door and asked, “How was it?”

And at that moment I saw the look in his eyes.

He looked a little like Jack Bauer after that season of
24
when he was tortured by the bad guys. Of course, technically, that was every season of
24
, but you get what I’m saying.

I looked at him and asked, “Did it hurt?”

“It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.”

“Seriously? The worst pain? Worse than when you had that deviated septum and your nose was packed with cotton?”

“Yes. It was torture. I’m never going back.”

“Wow. Kristie and Heather didn’t say anything about it hurting.”

“Did you ask them if it hurt?”

“Um. Well . . . no.”

“Call them and ask if it was supposed to hurt. I knew we should have gone with Lupe.”

I picked up the phone and called Kristie and Heather and found out that, yes, acupuncture can sometimes hurt. Especially when you’re dealing with chronic pain and nerve issues. That probably would have been a good question to ask BEFORE I scheduled the appointment for Perry.

Oh, hindsight. You are funny.

Thankfully, we can laugh about it now. And truth be told, I kind of laughed a little bit about it then. Not because my husband was in pain, but because I fancy myself to be some kind of pseudo medical expert since I sold cough medicine for ten years and didn’t ask what was probably the most important question.

I was much more concerned about an unpronounceable last name that seemed to scream credibility, and a Frosty.

Dr. T. told Perry that for the acupuncture to really work, he’d need to come in for about four or five sessions. I think that’s how long it takes to unblock your chi.

Needless to say, Perry’s chi remains blocked.

But on the plus side, I think he finally understands the level of pain I experienced after my belly-button ordeal. And there is nothing like empathy to bring a couple together.

Or to give them a reason to make fun of each other’s pain tolerance.

CHAPTER 10

O
VER THE COURSE
of a week not long ago, Perry and I spent almost every night rewatching
Band of Brothers
. It’s so rare that we agree on what constitutes good entertainment that we are often forced to watch the same movies repeatedly if we want to watch something together. The last time we’d watched the series all the way through was the summer right after Caroline was born. I remember it clearly because I was trying to lose the rest of my baby weight, and I’d allow myself one York Peppermint Pattie every night while we watched. I would unwrap that York Peppermint Pattie, smell the foil packaging as if it were a fine wine, and then try to make it last as long as possible by eating it in about twenty small bites. I didn’t find it AT ALL annoying that Perry inhaled the rest of the bag and washed it all down with a vanilla milkshake
yet still managed to lose weight that summer, while I subsisted on four pieces of lettuce and the occasional cheese cube and barely managed to drop three pounds.

Of course, it feels a little strange to talk about the pain and sacrifice involved in eating only one chocolate mint treat while watching a show about World War II soldiers fighting in the harsh weather conditions with no winter clothing, limited ammunition, and very little food. But WHAT ABOUT THE LETTUCE I HAD TO EAT ALL SUMMER?

Maybe I’m part of the GREATEST GENERATION after all. Or at least the generation that has made Jenny Craig a very wealthy woman.

As we watched
Band of Brothers
, I was reminded of so many scenes I’d forgotten. Scenes that reminded me of the sacrifices those men made for our freedom. They truly are what made our country great.

But I’ll tell you what else makes our country great
 
—the fact that ESPN actually televises a hot-dog-eating contest like it’s a real sporting event. Of course, in all fairness, competitive eating is totally a sport compared to, say, bowling or poker. A ninety-two-year-old grandmother can bowl or play some cards, but no way is she eating sixty-eight hot dogs in ten minutes.

Even though I’d heard about Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contest, I’d never actually witnessed it until last year. Caroline spent Friday night with Mimi and Bops, so I’d spent most of my Saturday morning watching old episodes of
Beverly Hills, 90210
while Perry ran to Academy to buy some new goggles so he’d be properly outfitted for the beer scramble at the pool later that day.

(I just read back over that last sentence, and wow, being in your
late thirties is exciting. It’s no wonder that sometimes I confuse our life with a visit to Shangri-La.)

(Also, priorities. We got ’em.)

Anyway, I got tired of listening to Brenda whine about Dylan right about the time Perry walked in the door, so I began flipping channels and happened upon the live coverage of the hot-dog-eating contest. He sat down next to me on the couch, and we began watching what was the most grotesque eating spectacle I’ve seen since the last time I volunteered for lunch duty in the school cafeteria. There aren’t too many other places where it’s socially acceptable to dip your food in water to liquefy it before you eat it.

I was disgusted. I was horrified. I couldn’t turn away.

The thing that really got me was when they showed stats under each contestant that listed other food competitions they’d won. I was compelled to read each item out loud to Perry, which I’m sure wasn’t annoying at all.

“That guy ate 8.6 pounds of fried asparagus!”

“Oh my gosh, he ate eleven pounds of jambalaya in eight minutes!”

“That girl once ate forty-six crab cakes in ten minutes!”

“That guy ate ten pounds of funnel cake in six minutes!”

At that point, Perry interrupted me and said, “I could totally eat ten pounds of funnel cake in six minutes.”

“In fact,” he continued, “I think if eating contests were a marathon instead of a sprint, I could take all these people down.”

I knew I’d married an ambitious man.

And truthfully, I think he could totally take them in any contest involving meats, various candies, or fried pastries. God has given him a gift.

When we’d been married for three months, Perry went to the
doctor because he had a cold. And obviously he needed to be under the care of a doctor because, as I believe I mentioned earlier, man colds are very serious. They trump a woman with pneumonia in both lungs any day of the week. Don’t you whine about your high fever and cough
 
—can’t you see his nose is RUNNY?

Anyway, they weighed him and he discovered he’d gained thirty pounds in our first three months of marriage. Fortunately, I had not done the same, because talk about a dark place. As it turned out, I was a pretty good cook, thanks to the genes handed down from my Italian grandmother. And all those months of trying out various recipes from all the different cookbooks I’d received as wedding gifts had paid off in a big way, literally, for Perry.

I have long believed that there are certain aspects of being a woman that are inherently not fair. Like the fact that men don’t get cellulite on their thighs yet wear swimsuit bottoms that come to their knees. Meanwhile, women fight cellulite from the moment puberty comes to call and are expected to wear the equivalent of their underwear every time they venture out to the neighborhood pool.

But honestly, the thing that bothers me most is how quickly most men can lose weight. After that visit to the doctor, Perry decided he needed to lose a few pounds to get a little closer to his bachelor weight. Although in all fairness, he only weighed 155 pounds the day we got married. He needed to put on a little weight because in our wedding pictures he looks a little bit like they’d let him out of hospice to attend his nuptials. Not to mention that I had no desire to wear the same size jeans as my husband. I don’t require much, but I need to feel that my man can’t fit in my pants.

(Insert inappropriate comment here.)

So Perry basically cut back on his Nilla Wafer intake. By which I mean he cut back to one box a day instead of two. He may have also quit eating potatoes with dinner, which wasn’t much of a sacrifice because he doesn’t even really enjoy a potato.

(I know. I can’t really talk about it.)

(We’re like two strangers sharing a home when you consider that a potato in any form is one of my love languages.)

(But seriously, how do you not care for a potato? Especially covered in butter, sour cream, and cheese? It’s like a holy food trifecta.)

With his great Nilla Wafer sacrifice, Perry ended up losing about ten pounds in one week. When I exert my best weight-loss efforts, I can lose about a quarter of a pound each month. Max. And we all know that’s just water weight. One good bout of PMS, and that quarter of a pound plus five of its friends are coming straight for my rear end or, worse, the dreaded inner-thigh section. I don’t understand why God did this to women while men can eat their body weight in cheeseburgers and lose weight.

The following is a true story, and I’m not changing any names to protect the innocent because I am still bitter.

One Saturday night Perry and I went to a party for some friends of ours who recently got married. After we got home, Perry said he still felt hungry, so he made himself a milkshake.

At eleven thirty at night.

If I did that, my metabolism would pack its bags and leave me in the middle of the night, vowing never to return no matter how much I pleaded and begged that I would change. Then, right before we got into bed, Perry decided to weigh himself.

Who does that? I would rank weighing myself right before bedtime after a full day of meals and beverage intake right above bungee jumping at one of those carnivals they hold in a mall parking lot with workers who don’t appear to have safety at the forefront of their minds.

I don’t pretend to understand Perry; I just love him.

Anyway, I heard an expletive coming from the bathroom, followed by his announcement that he had put on ten pounds. I’d like to say that his pain brought me no joy, but that would be a lie. Especially because I had just spent the last twenty minutes listening to him slurp up a chocolate milkshake while I drank water with a delicious and totally satisfying bit of lemon juice squeezed into it.

That night I went to sleep with the sound of his new diet resolutions ringing in my ears.

The next morning Perry was filled with zeal that can only be found in a fresh convert to diet religion. He had seen the error of his ways and was ready to repent. He was laying his trans fats and high fructose corn syrup on the altar.

He read nutrition labels, he vowed to make Frito-Lay his arch nemesis, and he spent most of the day feeling hungry as his body adjusted to a caloric intake that was significantly less than that to which it had grown accustomed.

And because I am a supportive wife, I spent most of the day telling him why he had put on weight. It was the nightly milkshakes he’d drunk to help with his “acid reflux”; it was the powdered Hostess Donettes; it was the extra seven hundred calories a day he consumed purely in York Peppermint Patties.

I just wanted to be helpful.

Then, in a show of allegiance to his newly turned leaf, I made
grilled chicken salads filled with fresh vegetables for dinner. They were a monument to healthy eating: fresh greens, sliced avocado, chopped carrots, with bright-red tomato garnish and a small side of low-fat balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

After dinner, he said he wanted to go weigh himself and see if his day of living right had made any difference. I watched him walk into the bathroom and thought to myself,
Oh, bless him. He has no idea how long it will take to see a significant difference.

He returned to the kitchen triumphantly and announced he had already lost six pounds.

SIX POUNDS.

(Insert profanity here.)

Oh sure, you can say it was water weight or whatever, but you and I both know that the only woman in history who has ever lost six pounds in one day was Marie Antoinette. And I don’t think any of us want to go that route.

Because what’s the point in being six pounds thinner if no one can tell it’s you?

When Perry and I were still working in youth ministry, a high school couple confided in us that they were struggling with the physical aspect of their relationship. When I told Gulley about it later (not revealing the couple’s identity), she said, “Well, yeah. Of course they are. They’ve got those toned, tanned, high school bodies. None of us will ever look that good again.”

And we agreed that it feels a little unfair that the pinnacle of your physical fitness usually coincides with a time when you’re not married and don’t really have the option to parade around the house naked. Maybe it would be better if we started off kind of wrinkled with cellulite and muffin tops so we could make sure we’re really choosing our partner for his sparkling personality
and not his physical appearance. And then the reward for staying married is that your body gets better with each ensuing year. Ten years of marriage? Have some toned thighs with muscle definition. Twenty years? Here’s a set of washboard abs.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works. Unless you spend a lot of time at the gym instead of ordering the pancake breakfast with a side of extracrispy bacon.

For most of us, our bodies will never again look as good as they did the day we walked down the aisle. Age and slowing metabolisms and bacon are not our friends. But in a weird way, that’s part of the beauty of marriage. It’s the journey of watching the handsome young man you married turn gray, and seeing lines form on the face that was once wrinkle free, and holding hands that don’t have the tight skin of youth stretched across the bones. And the assurance of knowing you wouldn’t trade those hands or that face for anyone else’s.

Even someone who can’t lose six pounds in one day.