Working Myself Into a Lather

My sister Mary is five years older than I am. She's married and has two daughters. They all live in a nice split-level in Green Bay, about a mile down the road from my parents. Mary's a teacher. Has been for going on some 20 years now. In fact, she teaches at one of my old schools right now?Washington Junior High (though some years back I think they decided to call it a "Middle School").

We always got along pretty well, the two of us. Being older than me, she always got dibs on the bigger room, and could beat the crap out of me at a moment's notice (which she often did), and she seemed to take the greatest pleasure in playing cruel practical jokes with my food (how I was ever fooled into believing tartar sauce was vanilla ice cream is still beyond me). But all in all, yes, we got along. She watched out for her gimpy brother, and was nice to me more often than she was mean. We still stay in touch as much as we can these days.

The news arrived a few weeks ago. I can't even recall exactly how I found out anymore. No wait?she sent me an e-mail. That was it. It started out light and chatty, but then about halfway down the note I came across the line, "Got some bad news here, though." I felt my stomach begin to sink.

It's become a code phrase over the years. Whenever anyone in my family says anything like that, they're never referring to my nieces getting bad grades in school, or the fact that my folks need a new water heater. It always means that someone in the family is on death's door for one reason or another. In the past, it's been used to break the news to me about major car accidents, impending open-heart surgeries and various familial deaths.

This time around it was my sister, who, it had been discovered, had an enormous tumor growing in her uterus and was facing a complete hysterectomy in the immediate future.

After reading the note, I called my folks, to find out why they hadn't told me earlier, then called my sister to find out the same thing. Immediately afterward, I started doing my research. I sent some notes out to people who might be able to tell me something, and began finding what I could on various medical sites.

For the most part, all that I found told me there was nothing to be concerned about. It was a common procedure, there were 2000 performed in the U.S. every day, etc. I didn't much care for what was implied by the presence of so many of those "support groups" out there, so I just ignored them.

No matter how safe and commonplace a procedure it was, however, as my dad always said, "We're a family of worriers." Though we never come out and say anything to anybody?certainly not the person involved?we always tend to expect the worst to happen. My own dealings with medical professionals over the years gave me the right, perhaps even the duty, to expect the worst.

Her operation was scheduled for the middle of March, and as the days passed, the slow tension grew and I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything. Should I fly home for the operation? One earlier case when I didn't go home nearly turned into a disaster?but back then I hadn't flown home because nobody bothered to tell me how bad the situation really was until it was over with. This time I knew how serious it was, but I also knew that there was, most likely, nothing to be concerned about. Not really. She'd be fine, but still?

I made a lot of phone calls instead.

As the knot in my stomach grew, I sought out distraction after distraction. Write a story. Watch the tv. Watch some more tv. I'd stare at tabletops. Then at floors. I'd pace some and stare at my feet.

We Knipfels, see, we take our worrying very seriously. It took a while, but I think I finally pretty much got the hang of it. Funny, but the only person I don't seem to worry about when it comes to things like this is me.

Two days before the operation, I called my sister and discovered that she'd been doing the exact same things that I'd been doing. Especially the pacing.

"Good thing you called me tonight instead of tomorrow night," she said. "Tomorrow I'm gonna be a wreck."

That I could understand. Mary puts all of us to shame when it comes to worrying. That also explains why I chose to call when I did.

It was raining in New York the morning she went in. I don't know what the weather was like in Green Bay. I headed into the office early, knowing that would be better for me than sitting at home.

The operation was scheduled to begin at 10:30?11:30 our time. Nobody seemed to have any idea how long it was supposed to take. Morgan and I had plans that afternoon, but she knew I had to wait for a phone call before I could go anywhere.

Waiting for me on my phone when I reached the office was a message from my agent, with some tentative and utterly unexpected good news. I'd have to shove that to the back of my mind for a while, though. I had some serious frettin' to do.

I struggled my way through work, trying to concentrate on the keyboard, the sweats hitting me in hourly waves. Eleven-thirty came and passed. Then 12:30, and still I hadn't heard anything. Probably no big deal?it had only been an hour. Major operation like this you'd expect to take more than an hour. But how much more? Morgan called to see if there had been any news yet. It was good to hear her voice. Then, about 1, the phone rang again. I snatched it up and put it to my ear.

"Yes?" I barked, expectantly.

"Mr., uhhh....Nipfel?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Yes? What?"

"I sent you an invitation last week to a cocktail party we're having in honor of..."

"No!" I shouted. "No! I'm not interested. Now get the hell off my phone and never call me again!" I slammed the receiver down and glared at it for a moment, as if it were to blame.

Fifteen minutes later, it rang again. This time it was my parents.

"Yeah? So?" I asked.

"They took her in early," my mom told me, "and she just got out."

"Yes?"

It looks like everything's okay. But we'll let you know after she wakes up. It should be about an hour."

"Yeah, please. Call as soon as you know anything. I'll just be here."

As I hung up the phone, I could feel the tension seep out of me. Not in a big whoosh. More like a slow, half-clogged drain. My limbs went slack, and I felt the bands around my skull loosen.

An hour passed. Then another. Things began to tighten up on me again, and the sweats returned. What had gone wrong? Why weren't they calling me?

I pulled the slip of cardboard with my parents' cellphone number out of my pocket and dialed it. After five rings, an electronic female voice told me that the phone was either turned off or out of range.

Goddammit!

Thinking maybe I'd simply dialed wrong (I do that a lot), I tried again, only to get the same message.

Well, shit. I didn't even know what hospital they'd taken her to. On the bright side, when I was growing up, there were only two hospitals in Green Bay. I'd just call them both and ask. If she wasn't at one, she'd have to be at the other.

After a few quick minutes of searching on that Internet, I found the numbers I was looking for. First I tried the Bellin Memorial Hospital. Got right through, but the operator told me that no one by that name was registered there. Fine. Thanks. I'd just try the other one, St. Vincent's.

The St. Vincent's operator said, "Yes, she's in room 309."

"Well, thank God," I said, relieved, sort of. "Could you connect me?"

"Sure."

Later that evening, I found out how lucky I was. In the two decades since I moved out of town, several more hospitals had been built in the area?hospitals I knew nothing about.

The phone rang again, twice, before it was picked up. "Room 309. Nurse Ketcham speaking."

"Yeah, hey there," I said, "This is, uh, Mary's brother. I'm just calling to see how she, you know, was doing."

"Oh," the nurse said, "would you like to talk to her?"

Oh what are you, some kind of big ninny? I thought. No, I want to talk to you. Christ.

She handed the phone over and I heard my sister's voice. Didn't sound too bad for just having woken up after major invasive surgery. Cranky, maybe, but that's nothing new. I could feel the bands around my head loosen again, and the sweat begin to evaporate.

She told me she'd already thrown my parents out of her room, telling them to go home. That was another familial trait. Yeah, she was fine.

Man, I needed a drink. After hanging up the phone, I put on my coat and headed for Morgan's.

What it really meant, now that it was all out of the way, was that it was my turn next. The following morning I had to call my own doctor in order to arrange for my own operation. That one I wouldn't worry about nearly as much.

Later that evening when I stepped into my apartment, the beers hitting me a little harder than maybe they should have, I found another message waiting on my answering machine. It was my agent again, calling to let me know that the tentative good news she'd had earlier that morning had become definite good news now.

I'll be damned, I thought, as I hung my coat on the hook by the door and dropped my bag on the bench. Maybe this wasn't such a bad day after all.