May 4, 2007
If you don't laugh, you cry.
And this time, well, I'm laughing.
My father got out of hospital on Wednesday evening, having been told he hadn't, after all, had a stroke.
The reason for his partial paralysis was "radial nerve palsy" which can be brought on by many things, but one of them, interestingly enough, is "lying on the radial nerve [in the arm] in a state of deep sleep, often due to intoxication".
So, after five days and loads of tests and CT scans and plenty of Librium and lots and lots of lying to doctors about "two pints of beer and a large vodka tonic before bed", he'd been out of hospital for a day.
And then, last night, he got absolutely shitfaced.
At 1.40am this morning, my long-suffering mother woke to a scream: "Help me! Help me!"
Blood curdled, fearing the worst, fearing another attack, or a real stroke, or even the heart attack or liver failure or multiple organ collapse we all pray for, she ran out to the landing.
The toilet door was ajar. The light was on.
It's a single room toilet; a closet, if you will.
She bashes open the door.
And there he is.
In his pyjamas. One slipper.
The toilet floor is covered in urine. As are the walls. And his pyjamas. And the five foot high window frame, and the light switch next to it.
In fact, the only place he hadn't pissed, it seems, was in the toilet itself.
But it was quite easy for her to work out why.
Because, with both the lid and seat up behind him, he was wedged, firmly, in the toilet.
His non-arse (yes, I know, but it's a genetic thing) nestling in the toilet water itself while his hips were trapped by the underside of the rim.
Begging for help.
"Piss off," she said, somewhat ironically. "You look like Gollum."
Which, for a woman who doesn't swear and is not (understandably) necessarily leant to humour, was pretty cool in my opinion.
So he prised himself out, and then crawled backwards, on his non-arse, to his room, where he presumably settled in for another night of "Saturday Night Palsy", as his condition is often referred to.
And mum?
She went to bed and, despite herself, laughed herself to sleep.
Nice one.
