One of my father’s greatest joys was to watch the military test pilots fly his works of art, in the Mojave Desert. He loved airplanes since he was a boy and he made his love, his career. Of course he didn’t do this all by himself, he had an amazing group of Aerospace friends at Northrop Corporation. He was a quiet man with a ready smile, and a propensity for practical jokes, like the plastic dog poop on the carpet. I screamed and my mother yelled, while he hid his laughter.
He loved to watch airplanes soar through the sky, and pilots loved his hand controls. He asked us to make bean bags to support his wrist so he could create just the right angle to be ergonomic, before the concept of ergonomics was popular. While sitting at his desk in his home office with classical music blaring, he would pretend like he was pushing buttons on a helicopter hand grip, tinkering with ideas so he could position multiple rows of buttons for easy reach. He would stay up late into the night. It was work, and it was passion and drive. Something compelled him to keep working on his project after the day at work was done.
As a teen, he would build model airplanes in his parent’s basement, cutting the balsa wood, gluing it and painting it himself. The glue and the paint are locked up in the stores now. I’m sure it did not say “Caution: Use in a well ventilated area” or “wear a respirator.”
As with many families during World War II, he didn’t have much. He was relocated to Jerome Arkansas, and lived in the Japanese Internment Camps during his senior year of high school and beyond. Faced with a decision between his father’s wishes and pledging allegiance to a country that had taken everything away from him, he chose family, knowing it would postpone his dream of going to college to be an Aerospace engineer. Somehow, he continued to have airplane magazines sent to him, helping to keep his passion alive. As the years passed, thoughts of missing out on college weighed on his mind. Eventually, he was able to go to University for Engineering, doing complex equations on a slide rule and using a drafting table. He was the first one in my family too finish college. Yet, hidden behind the smile, unseen, the bitterness lingered. He was taught that education was everything. It was something that could never be taken away.
As a child, I saw him frequently eat hotdogs and cabbage. It was a remembrance of harder times when he didn’t have much in the way of money or cooking skills, and it was a favorite of his. He would share his love for hotdogs with my golden retriever, Nikko, every single night. Nikko died of a heart attack right in front of my eyes. He was significantly over weight at 100 pounds. What causes us to eat something that we know is not good for us?
Towards the end of his 30 year career at Northrop, he was transferred to a project that was over an hour drive away. He would come home exhausted and take a nap on the couch with the TV on, while he snored loudly.
Sad to leave his company but due to government cut backs, he retired from Northrop before it was really time to retire and went to work for another aerospace company closer to home. He took his job seriously, knowing that lives were at stake. When pressured with a deadline for meeting a government contract milestone, he asked his boss, “Do want this to work, or do you want it to crash like the Space Shuttle,” speaking for the unknown pilots and their families. Sometimes it’s hard to speak up when you were taught to survive by blending in. After he retired from his third engineering company, and my sister had graduated from school, he had his fun job. Disneyland was much more fun that listening to old engineers complain about their body aches. He would say, “you gots the money, I’ve gots the time,” happy to help as the greeter or where ever he was needed.
Being young at heart, he learned to ski at 50, so we could ski as a family. Yet, I could also hear him snoring and gasping for air in the middle of the night from the other side of the house and get angry at him. I wish I knew then, what I know now about the connection between snoring and cancer. He died at 73 years old, just before I opened my own orthodontic practice. He even helped me measure my office space, complaining that architects were not as precise as engineers. I canceled my office opening party, and on the day that I should have been celebrating, there were people at my parent’s house wearing black and remembering my father.
He suffered without complaining, undiagnosed for six months, in and out of the hospital. Then, finally the diagnosis was made, Stage IV cancer. How I wished that I had spoken up, it was a strange awareness, you know when there is a voice in your head that tells you something is wrong or right. H remember it distinctly. I was sitting on my bed looking at the tangerine colored mini-blinds covering the window wondering what was wrong with my dad. This was while the doctor’s were still puzzled about his illness. The word spleen popped into my head as I stared into nothingness. I protested before the doctors did a second spinal tap. They thought the test result was wrong. I knew the negative was correct, and I heard him yelling in pain when they did it, but he had consented despite my protest. His doctor told me to stop micro managing him, but later the nurse pulled me aside and told me that his patients did not get better. She must have over heard our conversation. I asked if my dad would transfer to another hospital. He refused, not wanting to make waves. It was how he had survived before, don’t make waves, don’t draw attention to yourself, blend in, be a good citizen, a good patient.
When they did exploratory surgery, the surgeon found the cancer was so widespread that he just closed him up. I had issue with that. If it is so severe, then why not do something. I think it is that the surgeons are afraid to have bad statistics for the hospital, pressure to achieve rather than save lives.
Medicine didn’t have the sophisticated tests that we have now. Twenty-twenty hind sight said that there were faint traces of what could be cancer of the intestine on the x-ray. Now we would do 3D, cat scans and MRI’s. I’m sure if I had the knowledge about sleep apnea that I have now, he would have had his Obstructive Sleep Apnea treated, instead of me just being mad. The connection between Sleep Apnea and cancer were just not known. It is a disease that contributes to inflammation, and cancers grow. The dangers of certain food choices, paint fumes and glue were not known either. I’m sure none of it helped. Major life stressors, like the internment camp and the fear of losing everything again, linger under the surface, and affect choices, choices that are unconscious, the effects add up, and affect health.
I think he would say he created a good life, a great family, a job he loved, and two beautiful grandchildren. He would go out of his way to make puppets, and buy toys to play with him We had barbeque every Sunday, sometimes had steak and lobster for special occasions, and went to movies like Star Wars. He taught me how to roller skate and work hard. And yet, I started seeing him fade and withdraw from the family, getting scolded by my mother for not doing more with the grandchildren. Maybe he subconsciously knew he was sick.
I’m eating hot dogs today, just today, and remembering my father with love: a strong survivor, who came from not much but hard work, and his mother, who said, “do what you love.” Life is never perfect. Better food, better sleep, less stress always help. He didn’t seem to have many health problems, a stomach ulcer from stress, a little of this and that, but he told me while we were waiting for his doctor that he fell asleep in the car while at the gas station. My heart sunk into my stomach. This is a very bad sign. Being sleepy during the day to the point where you can’t stay awake can be a sign of a serious health problem and dangerous for others.
Seventy-three is too young to go. I miss him, especially today. So, today, fight for the ones you love. They may not listen, or maybe they can’t hear because of all of that had happened to them. The medical system can be difficult to navigate and expensive. Since I’m in the airway field, I’m speaking up for sleep. Others might speak for diet, environmental toxins, psychology, or other fields. The snoring may be cute or annoying, it is a sign that your loved one needs help. Make more good memories and good choices with them, at least know that you tried, not you going on to live your life without them. I know he watches over me and knows about the stories I write about him, but I wish he could have stayed longer.
Dr. Evelyn Maruko, DMD, MS
Everyday Better Sleep at
Maruko Orthodontics
5765 E Santa Ana Canyon Rd
Anaheim Hills, CA 92807
(714) 685-3890