My dad is still hanging onto life. He’s a tough nut to crack.
It may have sounded weird for me to say, “He is at his end, definitely,” in the previous post, but that “definitely” is something that’s new for us as his family. Since I never posted anything about his stint in the hospital this past summer, (because he didn’t want me to at the time), most of you aren’t privy to how on and off his imminent death was.
Over his 60 days in the hospital — at Duke — he was on the verge of death three times. We had “the Talk” with the doctors multiple times about how long and hard to try to save his life. I’ll tell you, that Talk is some seriously emotional shit. It’s not everyone who gets to or has to go through that discussion, and it can be pretty damn nerve-wracking to go through it three times in 2 months.
That up and down roller-coaster ride, “he’s dying,” “he’s getting better,” “he’s dying,” “he’s getting better,” “he’s dying,” “he’s getting better,” will wear the hell out of your nerves.
And here’s something I didn’t know: a living will — that legal paper that states the patient’s desires for how long and hard to fight for their life — ain’t binding, apparently. The individual who has personal authority over the patient can override anything on that paper. When we had the Talks, we stuck with what my dad had written in his will, but we had the ability to ignore it if we had wanted to.
So, anyway, about that “definitely” word.
When my dad was initially diagnosed with cancer, back in 1998, death was a potential outcome. But it wasn’t imminent, and it seemed to be stopped by the surgery, then. Even when he was given the 6-18 months to live back in 2009, he lived well right past 6 months and into 12 months. Real, actual, death just didn’t seem to really, actually, be coming for him.
Then we went through the summer of near death experiences, and he came out the other end of the few months actually seeming to be doing well. Looking at my dad, you don’t see a “tough guy.” He’s not a lumberjack kind of man. He’s just a normal man to the eye, but damn he’s resilient.
So, this idea that “my dad is dying” started to have a kind of “yeah, right” feel to it. He got and overcame cancers like my kids get and overcome colds. How can you take his mortality seriously when he’s shrugged off the Grim Reaper’s touch 3, 4, 5 times.
But this time, they’re telling us this is really it. There’s no more odds to beat, no more hanging in there to do, no more pulling through possible. But, they said, “he may last up to a week,” and be surely be darn, he’s going to last out that whole week. A man that can hang in there and pull back from the edge of death as many times as he has over the past years doesn’t just give up when someone says he can’t pull back this time.
It’s a happy and sad thing that he’s holding onto life this strongly.
In 1998, my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. A couple of surgeries “cured” him for a few years, but then more cancer was found in another organ. He had another very major surgery to “cure” that.
Then more cancer was found in other organs. This time, he was given 6-18 months to live. Chemo and radiation treatments seemed to be holding off his end, but the poisons were playing hell with his body. A little over 12 months into his 6-18 months, he had another surgery, this year, to remove tumors.
The surgery itself went fine, and he was recovering well in the hospital for a week. Then, on the day the doctors said he would be going home, something went horribly wrong. A very bad infection kept him in the hospital for two more months. During this time, (this summer), he was near death at least three times. He spent a total of three weeks in intensive care barely clinging to life.
When he was at last released from the hospital, a couple months ago, he was physically just a shell of the man he used to be. He couldn’t walk, get up, or hardly do anything for himself. Physical therapy was helping to bring him back to mobility, but it was slow going.
Over the past couple of weeks he was starting to walk a bit. He was able to get about the house, and everyone could see he was at least showing he might actually fully recover from his ordeal. He had a doctor’s appointment last week to go over some scans and x-rays the docs had taken recently, and he walked into and out of the doctor’s office.
Unfortunately, the scans and x-rays showed a lot of tumors in his body. Lots of tumors. There would be no chemo or radiation or surgeries to “cure” these. He was in the closing chapter of his life. The only unknown was how long this chapter would be.
My family and I planned to go up to visit him this weekend. We expected a day of hanging out with him; to let his grandchildren see him and play around him, maybe one last time. But Saturday morning, when we were only about half an hour from arriving, his sister, my aunt, (who has been helping his wife care for him), called me and said things were turning very bad that morning. We dropped our boys off with my mother — this would not be a day for them to see their granddaddy — and rushed over to my dad’s house.
When we arrived, my dad was lying in bed, “awake” only by having his eyes open. He was barely aware of his surroundings and the people around him. His body was failing. His hospice nurse — assigned to him only a couple days before — came over and assessed the situation.
It was explained to us, in detail and clearly: the cancer is killing him, now. He may die in the next hour, or he might manage to last up to a week. There are no more odds of survival, no more life saving or life extending actions or medications to take. He is at his end, definitely.
I was back at the mall yesterday, and I made a point to walk by the Energy Armor kiosk again. This time there was a young gal and one young guy standing duty. The girl made eye contact with me and sized me up as interested.
She greeted me and asked if I was interested in increasing my energy and balance. I bit, and she went into the spiel.
“This,” she said, holding up the wrist band, “is full of negative ions. When you wear it, the negative ions in your body join with the ones in the band and produce positive ions. The result is more physical energy, better balance, and increased strength.”
I was stunned. I mean, anyone who passed high school science knows that claim about ions is not just wrong, it’s pure gibberish. When I later repeated the description to someone else, they exclaimed, “Oh my God, they actually said that?”
It’s like if I said placing a negatively charged magnet on your car attracts the negative charges in the frame and gives the vehicle better gas mileage. It misuses the terms of science and gives a completely nonsensical explanation.
Anyway, back to the snake oil: The girl asked me if I wanted to take a demonstration. I agreed.
She had me stand on one leg, with my arms outstretched to my sides. She used two fingers and pressed down on my arm, (same side as my held-up leg), and within a couple of seconds I started to topple. She then gave me the wrist band to hold, and we tried the test again. My balance held stronger this time, and failed only when she gave a lot more effort.
Something was odd about the demonstration, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The demonstration did seem to support the idea that the band gave me more balance, but something seemed amiss. I had made sure to note the details of the demonstration: where she pushed down on my arm, (same place both times), which hand held the band, how much she pushed on me, and what her positioning was. Everything seemed straight up, but there was something nagging at the back of my mind.
I’m not a person who’s really comfortable with interacting with strangers. (I’m terrible with small talk at parties.) So I thought I should probably watch a demonstration from the sidelines.
The girl tried to draw me into a sale, but I said I had to be moving on. I thanked her, and then walked off. I went up the nearby escalator, to the second floor of the mall, and walked back to stand over the kiosk. It was watching as a non-participant that revealed the tricks.
I watched seven or eight people go through the demonstrations with the girl and guy. Another test they showed was to stand with feet together, point an arm out to the side, and then turn backward, twisting at the waist. A salesperson or a friend then marked in the air how far the test subject could turn and point. Then they did the test again while wearing the band. Of course, they could twist farther the second time.
Here are the tricks:
First of all, the salespeople always did the test first without the band. Then they did the test with the band. Never with the band first. Here’s the thing about this: you will always do better the second time you perform a physical test like this. Try it yourself.
The first time you stand on one foot, you’re easy to topple. The second time, you and your body know what’s coming and so better balance for it. The first time you twist, your body is tight. The second time, you are slightly loosened up (from the first stretch) and so can reach farther. Again, try this for yourself.
And to top it off, none of the customers/test subjects tried the test a third or fourth time, with or without the band, and of course the salespeople didn’t suggest trying it. Trying it again, especially without the band, would have ruined the illusion — the customer would do just as well, or better, a third time even without the band.
Watching also showed me why my test seemed amiss. I watched the girl do the test to other people and I noticed how she really played up her effort on the second push. That’s when it struck me: she didn’t really push harder to topple me the second time, she just leaned her body into a posture that visually suggested more effort on her part. Watching her do it to someone else and thinking about how it felt to me, I realized the “something amiss” was that the pressure she applied to my arm the second time didn’t actually feel any stronger, it just looked like she was trying harder. It was the incongruity between what my arm was feeling and what my eyes were seeing that nagged at my brain.
So basically, the demonstrations are just stage magic acts.
While looking for information about this bracelet online, I discovered another brand: iRenew. Here’s the TV commercial for this other brand:
Now, this company uses different demonstrations — pulling down on the people’s arm to topple them. Without the bracelet, the customer falls over, but with the bracelet, they hold firm. But if you look carefully, you can see exactly and easily how they pull off the stage magic.
When they pull on the subject’s arm, (when without the bracelet), they pull not just down, but slightly away — away from the sucker’s center of gravity. When they pull on the subjects arm the second time, (when with the bracelet), they pull straight down and close to the person’s body — on/into their center of gravity.
Note how far away from her leg he pulls in the “Before” image, and how close to her leg he pulls in the “iRenew” image:
Try this yourself. It’s easy to do it.
You know, I enjoy watching stage and street “magic” as much as anyone. And even though we usually can’t figure out exactly how the magician pulls off his illusions, we all know he’s not actually reaching through loopholes in the fabric of space and physics — it’s all tricks. And most of us are willing to pay an entertainer to entertain us with these tricks. So maybe it shouldn’t bother me that some illusionists take the concept to another level and use the same stage tricks to sell completely bogus products.
I took my boys to Marbles Kid’s Museum on Sunday. It’s been wet around here for a few days, so they haven’t had much really active outdoor play lately. I had heard that Marbles is great for kid activity — Cowgrit has taken our boys before — but I had never been.
It’s an impressive place. There’s a lot of square footage full of kids play areas. At the back of the building is a big ol’ wooden ship, (well, the front half of a ship). After an hour playing around elsewhere in the museum, the boys wanted to go play in the “pirate ship.”
I sat down on a bench and partially nodded off on short naps while the boys ran and played through the ship with the other dozen or two kids. During my intermittent wakeful moments, I saw kids sweeping the decks, brushing the railings, and running in and out of the ship with odds and ends from a nearby “science submarine” play area.
At one point, I heard a little girl mention she was bringing something to the ship captain. After I gave up actually getting any kind of real nap sleep, I got up from my bench and went to explore this ship. I entered the lower deck to look around. The ceiling is only about 5 feet high, so I, (and the couple of other adults there), had to bend over pretty far to move around.
I heard another couple of kids say they were cleaning the ship for the captain. The thought ran through my mind, “It would be just like Calfgrit9 to assume the role of ‘captain’ with all these kids around.” He wasn’t the only 8-10 year old among all the 4-7 year olds, but he likes being in control.
I made my way up the stairs to the main deck. There’s a captain’s quarters at the back of the main deck, (with a third deck above that), and that’s exactly where I found Calfgrit9 sitting in state. He sat in a chair with his right arm propped up on a table beside him and his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles before him. He had the air of a monarch on his throne as younger kids came in and asked what he wanted them to do.
He directed one kid to run up the flag at the front of the ship. He told another to take something to the play area next to the ship. The kids immediately did as ordered. They all seemed to enjoy having duties, and Calfgrit9 surely enjoyed being in command of his domain.
I left my oldest boy to his command, and I roamed the main deck and above. Eventually, Calgrit5 came to me and complained that his brother wouldn’t let him be captain. “Daddy, come with me and let me be captain,” he said.
So I declared him my captain and asked for his orders. We went and checked the treasure map painted next to the ship’s wheel. He determined where we should navigate, and I stood at the wheel to steer us. He ran to the flag pole and ran up the ship’s colors. After that, we went to and fro about the ship’s decks doing the odds and ends that he thinks sailors do.
After a while, Calfgrit5 wanted to explore other areas of Marbles. I talked with Calfgrit9 about our intentions, and he wanted to stay on the ship for longer. We talked it out, and he would stay there at the ship, (continuing his captain role), while the little one and I went to the other areas of the museum.
Calfgrit5 and I worked with real tools in the woodworking shop area, and we played with the giant Lego blocks building and knocking down towers. When closing time approached, we went back and retrieved Calfgrit9 — he had played captain for two solid hours.
Fun was had by all. Calgrit5 got to experiment with many different activities, and Calfgrit9 got to be in command of a crew of pirates. I don’t know if Calfgrit9’s personality is a sign of being a future leader or a sign of megalomania.
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