horny wart

On Tuesday, we took Dad to the doctor, just to get him looked over and make sure there’s no physical cause for his nonstop beverage consumption. In the waiting room, Dad first thought we were in a car (he and Kate S. were sitting on a loveseat type thing that probably felt like a backseat) and then he asked “Is this a Mexican restaurant?” While waiting, we discovered that Dad has lost the ability to wait – I guess if your sense of the passage of time is screwed up, it makes it hard to wait. When we finally got into the exam room, Dad was pretty unhappy about being “skinned down to my nothing,” even though they let him keep his pants, socks and shoes. The blood draw was no problem, but I had to go into the bathroom with him to facilitate the peeing-in-a-cup. Yuck.

Dad has something growing on his arm that looks absolutely horrible – it’s black on the bottom and sort of greenish white and crusty on top. I freaked out when I saw it, afraid it was skin cancer, but we showed it to the doctor and he says it’s not malignant, just a “horny wart” and that we should have the dermatologist take it off because it will get bigger.
In the taxi on the way home, Dad kept telling us about all the little kids he was seeing (invisible to us) and when we got to Dad’s building he complained that it was hard to see because of all the trees in the lobby (there aren’t any).

Michael came to sit with Dad last night while I was at the studio, and Dad told him, “You have more hair than the cat!” Michael’s hair has gotten somewhat long and he has a lot of facial hair, but how Dad knew that without being able to see is beyond me.

Tonight when I got here, Dad was just finishing his dinner. He said, several times, in French, that he had eaten too much. The doctor said that we should weigh him weekly to make sure that his weight was keeping stable since he doesn’t know how much to eat anymore. He just eats whatever he finds in front of him.

Kate S. asked Dad how he was on the phone tonight. He replied, “I’m alive and functioning with all four legs.” Indeed, he is. The doctor called to say that his tests are all fine.

Tonight, after we listened to Obama’s Cairo speech, Dad said, “I see all these little children around here. They’re just standing around. Everyone is tall now. Big, big big busses filled with people, people, people. Now all the kids are dressed in winter winter winter wear. They keep changing. I see all these little kids. They want things now.” I guess it’s a good thing that he’s not seeing anything that upsets or scares him.