Surviving Together

I woke up as sore as a stubbed toe. Somehow, I pulled a muscle in my lower back; at least I hoped it was a muscle instead of something worse, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary given my past medical record.

That’s not the only thing that was sore when I hit the floor sometime around 6:30 a.m. That day, brother Jim was scheduled to undergo a heart catheter procedure. His doctor had decided that a peek was necessary to make his heart could take a licking and keep on ticking. To say I was concerned would have been an understatement.

Jim and I have been through all sorts of things together, many of them tough. When we were still babies, chicken pox visited our house, and both of us were covered in splotches. Mother said that we squalled for days as the yucky welts erupted, itched, and finally disappeared. The only upside to the situation was that we were too young to scratch them, thereby keeping away some of the nasty scars that older children had when they clawed away for relief.

When we were still pre-school age, the mumps settled in our house. Jim and I awoke with “chipmunk cheeks.” What I remember most about the illness was that it zapped our strength and made swallowing food almost impossible. Unfortunately, Mother came down with a case at the same time. She took to her bed and felt too bad to much care if her brood survived.

Jim and I shared the measles. Whew! They knocked us for loops as fevers spiked and red dots covered every part of our bodies. We missed a week of school and didn’t regain our energy for awhile, but eventually, we were back. Our parents told us watching television while we were infected could damage our eyes. That worsened our condition by adding boredom to the mix.

We went through the illnesses of others. When we were thirteen, it was Daddy, who had several doctors give him differing diagnoses before learning that he had lung cancer. From April until August 31, he hung on through the ravages of the disease. Mother was diagnosed with the same thing and spent a year battling, only to finally be consumed by the cancer. Jim and I watched as the same damn stuff ate up our brother Dal, who had served as our surrogate dad and real-life hero. A couple of weeks after he turned 54, Dal quit fighting and found relief.

Jim and I have tended to nurse each other through other health problems. He visited me and did things around the house when I had back surgery. I played taxi and drove him to physical therapy after his knee replacement surgery. Both of us try much too hard to be helpful when an injury or illness rears its ugly head; that’s what brothers, especially twins, do for each other.

Jim was all right. However, any time a person has his heart checked, plenty of things can be found. Amy had this same procedure, and a blockage that required a stint was discovered. The good thing was that taking a look prevented a serious condition from worsening. In the end, the doctor pronounced Jim fit with the heart of a teenager. He told Brenda the bad news was that she’d have to live another thirty years with Jim.

I worry about Jim because he’s the last family member I have left. He’s also my lifelong best buddy. He needs to be okay for his family and for me. He told me there was no reason to be at the hospital during the procedure, but I told him to be quiet. I arrived, sat with Brenda, and when the doctor said all was well, I left for home knowing that we’d survived another event together.