Wellness Check
Check that box. No, not the one where I explain why I haven’t been writing damn near enough on Substack. Well, maybe. This story has a little something to do with it. I got to request my first wellness check. Not me, personally, I’m fine except for the bit about the wellness check. I guess I should explain.
I have an older brother. He’s more than a few years older and will turn 70 this year. He's had some health issues of late on top of a mobility problem. He lives alone. He isn’t overly chatty. Conversation isn’t his strong suit. He does his thing, and the world goes along as it does.
I also have an aunt who is over 90 and in much better health and much more mobile, who, with me, checks in on my brother. None of us lives near the other. One is three hours away (that aunt), and the other is about 7-8 hours (the brother). There are no other known surviving relatives on my side of the family who do not live in my house. I have a monopoly on known MacDonalds’s along that branch of the tree. A super majority, if you like.
We typically talk on the phone (my aunt, my brother, and I, each with the other), not weekly, but close enough, and my brother had stopped answering his phone. Remember, almost seventy, lives alone, poor mobility, growing list of health issues.
The aunt calls to ask if I’d spoken to him recently. No. She's rightly concerned that it has been nearly two weeks since they last spoke. She has called and messaged without a response.
I’m not as concerned, but two weeks is a long time if he fell and hit his head and is no longer with us, so I started by calling and texting him with the same results. No joy. He’s not picking up or responding.
I’m not worried or nervous, but I did picture every cop show I ever saw where they came upon a body in a hot room that’d “been there a few days.” I love my brother, and I’m not prone to panic or drama or worrying, but this unpleasant end is not one I’d wish for anyone, not even that mass-murdering half-quart lying snake, Dr. Fauci.
Well, maybe.
I start by calling all the hospitals in the area. There are more than six and I think fewer than ten. Using the phone is not something I enjoy unless it’s doing things that have nothing to do with talking. I have no desire to explain why. I speak to many very polite and helpful people (that’s not sarcasm) who all inform me that the person I seek is not in their care.
He is no one’s care, as far as I’m aware.
It takes some time. I had to find all the hospitals (they are eight hours away), locate phone numbers I could call, and then call and speak to people who often transferred me to others—tasks with boxes I had already checked years ago.
He’s not in any hospital. He does not travel, so he wouldn’t be anywhere else.
The next stop is the wellness check (still picturing the hot room and the flies and the smell and you get the idea), and I’m glad it’s not me who has to do the in-person checking.
The city PD website is not as helpful as they think it is. It takes more searching than it should to find a non-emergency number for people who do not live locally. It’s late, when I've finally checked that box.
They transfer me to 911, which is fine because I can’t dial 911 here to talk to them there. I speak to the also very polite 911 operator and we get all the details down. The best question is, do you know what he might be wearing? I’ve known him for over sixty years. Yes. Probably. Blue jeans, boots, white socks, and a solid-color, loose-fitting T-shirt, not tucked in.
I told her jeans and a t-shirt, most likely, but I’ve not seen him in a while.
She will send an officer to do the check and have them call me back.
I wait up. No one calls.
The next morning, yes, I got some sleep, I woke up, and tried again. Sorry to be a bother. Same dance, different partner, and they ask for a number where I could be reached no matter what, minus Vanessa Lynn Branch in white holding a pack of Orbit gum.
Side note: An officer attempted to conduct the check the night before but was unable to gain access to the building to reach his apartment door. They did not call to tell me this. I wonder what I might say in response. You can’t police it open or something. The hot room with the flies, and maybe he’s not dead yet. We’d honestly just like to know.
I didn’t say that. He didn’t call.
Now that it is daytime, I’m hoping for better results. A bit of feedback.
I wait a while, putter about (blogging, that sort of thing), then decide to get on with the rest of my day and make sure my phone is charged and handy. Sometime just after noon, as I’m walking in the rain toward the entrance to Hannaford’s Supermarket, my phone rings. Strange number. Google’s attempt to screen the call is not helpful. The text it provides, presumably from the caller, makes no sense. That could be him, but it’s not his phone.
I answer because “image of hot room, two weeks, flies, and so on.”
My brother says, “Hey.”
He’s not dead. Sounds the same. There might be flies or the connection might be dodgy.
I said. “Hey. Sorry to send the cops after you, but I thought you might be dead.”
He laughs. We have history here that I’m also not going to explain.
We talk for a few minutes, and he mentions there might be something up with his phone. He’s just worked that out when the cops knocked so it didn’t occur to him that we might think he could be dead after stumbling (poor mobility) and hitting his head on the garage sale coffee table, that I imagine, sits in the middle of his tiny apartment (haven’t see this one in person).
I’m guessing there’s a glass top. Mental note to ask next time we talk.
Or, just as bad, he is injured and dehydrating (same coffee table but with battered Queen Anne legs), unable to reach a phone - not even a dodgy one - (if conscious) on his way to the bit about the flies, and so on.
“No shit, I say. Better get that sorted or the local PD is going to get tired of having to drop by to make sure you’re not deteriorating into the shag carpet” the on I suspect is on the floor.
He laughs again, says he will, and we promise to talk again soon.
I haven’t heard from him in over a week, but I got to check that box. Call for a wellness check. Check!
I’m not picturing hot rooms or decaying corpses or flies, but let’s be honest. Given the circumstances, that is a distinct possibility.
This will not be the last time we do this dance, and I’m not excited about that, nor am I alone. Many people likely face a similar situation.
You have my sincerest respect and appreciation for the role you didn’t ever expect to play in that relationship.
But you’ve checked that box, too. Maybe more times than you can count. So, for them, in case they didn’t mention it, I’d like to say thank you.
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Happy he is good!
Yes!