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(Continued from NEEDLE EXCHANGE)
Remember that scene in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, when Shirley MacLaine rampages around a hospital because her dying daughter played by Debra Winger is in agonizing pain and desperate for her morphine shot? ”GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!” Shirley shrieks at the top of her lungs to a group of terrified nurses who have imprudently chosen the absolute WRONG time to take their coffee break. At the conclusion of Shirley’s meltdown, a kindly nurse grabs a syringe and what looks to me like a boatload of morphine and dutifully heads to Debra’s room to administer her fix. Shirley, now calm, heads back to Debra’s room and while smoothing out her rats nest hair, has the presence of mind to thank the staff of terrified nurses for their kindness. I’ve replayed that TERMS OF ENDEARMENT scene hundreds of times in my mind trying to imagine my mother as Shirley MacLaine and me as Debra Winger. No matter how many times I try to picture it, I just can’t see my mother careening around Cedars Sinai in her Chanel suit, Christian Louboutin pumps and Raquel Welch ‘Siren’ wig screaming at the nurses to give her dying son his pain meds. My mother has too much dignity for that, and like a pioneer woman, has made it through three child births, scores of ‘elective’ and non-elective surgeries, car accidents, spills, tumbles and falls and rarely, if ever, taken pain medication. In the TERMS OF ENDEARMENT scenario playing in my my mind, my mother is superhuman, and I’m just a pussy with terminal cancer who ‘just can’t hack it.’
I had no choice but to shrug off my mother’s monstrous pronouncement that during her pregnancy with me, she ingested large amounts of booze, cigarette smoke, and to my complete horror, a series of scary, presumably toxic hormone injections. My husband George and I tried to glean additional information, but my mother was now shit-faced and recalled neither the name of the hormones, nor the mysterious doctor who administered them.
“What’s the difference?” she slurred. ”You’re still here after 46 years, and aside from gaining a few pounds and a few unsightly wrinkles, you look A-OK to me.”
I ignored her last comment, and magnanomously allowed her to retreat into her vodka haze. As I had nothing better to do, and was feeling particularly vengeful, I continued bickering with George. I launched into yet another tedious speech regarding our misguided faith in the American medical establishment that had not only exposed me to a lamentable cocktail of chemicals, compounds and god-knows-what hormones, but had also caused my son to develop an appalling needle phobia.
“I can fix that.” my mother said out-of-the-blue.
With dread, I ceased speaking and again George and I turned our eyes towards my mother.
“How?” we asked in unison.
“Simple, we’ll take him to see Dr. Yi.”
“Your plastic surgeon?” I gasped.
“Sure. What better way for Ethan to get over his fear of needles than by watching you and I get Botox injections? It will be my treat!”
Suddenly and without warning, the image of my mother, Shirley MacLaine, charging around her plastic surgeon’s office shrieking for someone to give her son his shot became frighteningly clear.
(To be continued)
You know I’ ve been dying to ask you what kind of hair your mother has. She has intrigued me from the first time you mentioned her but I couldn’t visualize the hairdo. I thought she’s either the Candi Spelling bleached-blonde on-the-prowl vixen or the Daughters of Israel rummage table vendeuse with the olive/tan “helmet hairspray ” do one sees of older Jewish women. So with your post today you have answered this critical question. She sounds like a fabulous woman, child abuse and all. >wink< Keep up the posts, they really give me a good chuckle.
Remember that old advertising campaign for Clairol in the 70′s that asked, “Does she, or doesn’t she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure.” Well – when considering my mother’s hair, I must beg you to recite that catchphrase as your mantra as my answering that question could prove extremely hazardous to my health. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Hugs,
Tod