Dry Run

One of my favorite scenes from the sitcom Will and Grace is when Jack's Mom arrives for Thanksgiving dinner one day early, carrying an empty casserole dish. She claims she's doing a "dry run" for bringing her covered dish to Thanksgiving dinner the next day.

JUDITH McFARLAND: [ENTERING FROM THE ELEVATOR] Yello! Hot dish coming through. And she's carrying a casserole.

GRACE: Who's that?

WILL: Jack's mom.

JUDITH: Whew! 86 minutes. Not bad. Yeah.

WILL: Judith, you do realize that Thanksgiving is tomorrow.

JUDITH: I'm doing a dry run, Will. I wanted to see how long it would take me to get here while carrying a casserole dish. The other benefit of a dry run is that I power-walk the whole time while clenching my buttocks like so. You can't tell I'm doing anything, but my ass sure can. Oh.

http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/willandgrace/season2/willandgrace-208.htm

I love the idea of a "dry run". Whenever I go to the DMV, I always say I'm doing the dry run, so when I find out that I've got the wrong form or payment option, I'm not upset, I'll just do it right when I do it for real.

I think I got a "dry run" of how to let go of Dad. The nursing home called to tell me that Dad hasn't been very cooperative the past few days. He's been coughing on his food quite a bit, but won't let the speech therapist assess his swallowing ability. He's also not been letting them talk to me.

I know he's frustrated at how impaired he is, so I made follow up appointments with his oncologist and neurosurgeon (that was already on my to do list) for the first week of April. Then I headed over to see what was going on. Driving over I had images of moving him to hospice, backing his refusal of feeding tubes and just watching him slip away, and I wasn't sure I could do it yet. The tumor isn't growing, chemo is still working, I'm just not ready to give up yet. But on the other hand, it's not up to me.

When I got there, things weren't as bad as I feared, but clearly the staff needed some help getting him to cooperate. He and I have made a deal that he's not allowed to give up until AFTER he's talked to the oncologist. He's going to work with his therapists to the best of his ability until then. Then we'll see what the oncologist says about how we deal with the impairments. I've got the nursing home doctor talking to the oncologist's partner about what we can do in the meantime to make him less frustrated.

I'm not sure I'll call this dry run a success. I made it to the nursing home in about 30 minutes, including a stop for coffee, and I got things under control for the time being, which is good. I didn't authorize the staff to do anything he didn't want to do, which is good. I did guilt him into doing what I want him to do, and I'm not sure if that is good or not. Hopefully I learned enough in this dry run that I will do it "right" when I do it for real.

And no, I didn't clench my butt. It didn't even cross my mind. Maybe next time.