Death and Memories

     Dad was finally close to coming home from the nursing facility.  He wanted to be home more than anything.  But he started having labored breathing.  Then the nursing facility after discovering that he had pneumonia and congestive heart failure decided to send him home instead of back to the hospital.

     My brother picked him up and brought him home for what we didn't know would be the final time.  I tried to visit but Dad went to bed early that night.  Then overnight Dad couldn't breath well so my brother took Dad to the emergency room.  I wasn't there when Dad was admitted.  My brother has become my father's and my rock I couldn't have gone through these last 14 months, or even the last three years without him.

    I visited Dad and I knew it was bad.  We met with the doctors and we decided to bring Dad home with Hospice care, but he had to survive the weekend first.  My birthday was on Saturday and I jokingly told Dad, after he told me that he wasn't doing well and I found out he asked for last rights, that he wasn't allowed to die on my birthday.  He laughed and wished me a happy birthday.  I will always remember that conversation and the last time I hear his laugh.  Of course his last laugh was actually passing away on my birthday; bright and early in the morning too.  He always had to do everything early in the morning.

     My relationship with my father has gone through so many different stages.  Some I remember better than others.  My mother tells me when I was a child Dad and I were inseparable.  We would play together and we had a special father daughter bond.  I have no recollection of that.  I have seen photos of us playing together and it is like looking at photos of people I don;t know.  I have no emotions or memories connected to them.

     When I was in fifth grade I went to an after school event involving basketball.  My mom picked me up and took me to piano lessons.  I remember being in the gymnasium that day and not much else.  When I got to piano I ran across the street and hit a car driving by.  The impact was on my knees and I hit my head when I landed.  I received a concussion and I lost most of my memories of what happened before that day.

     I have a flash of awareness in ambulance and in the emergency room.  I have an impression of people all around me and working on me.  It is like they show you on tv.  A flash here, it is blurry and you hear sounds and I can remember the smell of rubbing alcohol.  My first clear memory is waking up in a crib.  I was a fifth grader in a crib, I was in the ICU at Children's Hospital and the bed had a drop side that was all the way up.  I was in a CRIB!  I didn't care, I was in pain, my head hurt, my knees were completely covered in giant bruises and I was alone.

     My first real memory after that event was breakfast in the morning and how HORRIBLE it was.  Runny eggs, I can still smell them, feel how slimy they were and taste their sulfuric flavor.  Dad picked me up from the hospital and when I got home he had me set the table.  It hurt to walk.  My knees have never fully recovered from that accident.  I remember how mad I was that I had to set the table on the day I got home from the hospital.  He didn't let me off the hook just because I was hurt.

     I hate that my first real memory of my dad is me being upset with him.  I am sure we got into a fight and I am sure I was furious with him.  It is a horrible memory and it will always be something I think of when I think of my father.

     Our relationship when I was a teen was not any better.  He and I were always fighting.  We were always at odds with each other.  We were mean to each other.  I hated him when I was a teen.  I think our relationship was worse than others.  I was not a happy teenager.  I was picked on in school, I wen to a Catholic high school to get away from being bullied at school.  I felt bullied at home.  And I couldn't wait to get away from him.

     In my twenties I didn't live with my parents.  That was when I started to reconnect with my father.  Now that I was adult and I was becoming more assertive.  Not like I am now, but compared to how I was in my teens it was a world of difference.  I moved out of state and Dad begged me to stay.  I actually considered it too.

     After I got married he and I had a different kind of relationship again.  We would talk almost as equals.  I still remember dancing with me at my wedding.  He was such a wonderful dancer.  He guided me around the dance floor with no effort.  A skill I never managed to develop. I think it was the best I ever have danced.  Maybe you just need a good leader.

     When I became a mother again our relationship changed and I found myself asking him for advice now and again.  If my teenage self could only see me then.  She never would have believed it.  I seriously hated my father back then.  Will my teen think of me like that?

     Then I caught my husband cheating on me and it was my father who encouraged me to give him a second chance.  I tried for years.  When I finally told my father about the abuse he no longer asked me to forgive D.  My father by then couldn't walk long distances and needed a walker.  I wonder what Dad would have done if he had been at his peak condition.  I was afraid of him when I was younger for good reason.  He was not someone you wanted to make upset.

     It was after my mother was blown over in that windstorm and I finally left my husband that I reconnected with my father.  Our roles were reversed.  I was the one taking care of him.  I had to make sure he took his meds and made him his meals.  He and I would talk and laugh as I took him to visit Mom every day.  He told me stories about Mom that I never knew.  (She almost got in a fist fight with a friend who kept trying to steal Dad away from her.)

     I am the one who brought Dad to visit his wife for the last time.  I am the one who got the phone call when she passed and had to walk upstairs, wake him up and tell him that his wife had died.  When he forgot because of the dementia both my brother and I had to tell him again what happened.  He blamed my brother at first.  Even when I told him I was the one who signed the papers he blamed S.

     It was the 14 months after that that my brother and his family took over my father's care.  When asked I would help out.  I hated to see him deteriorate before my eyes.  He lost his vision in his last year.  He lost most of his mobility.  He didn't even like to leave the house.  He missed his wife and now he is with her again.

     I think he was proud of me.  He saw me go back to school twice.  He witnessed my graduation Magna Cum Laude with my bachelors degree.  He saw me became a mother.  Go back to school and get my teaching degree so I could provide for my children.  He saw me assert myself and get out of a bad and abusive marriage.  He allowed me to move back in with him and taking care of him and my mother.  I have to say those were the best nine months.  It ended being more than I could handle but I will never wish I did anything different.

    He is gone now, but never forgotten.  I miss you so much Dad!

In Loving Memory Of My Father  -  October 30, 1935 to October 17, 2015

You will never be forgotten 

1:26 AM

Today It is the early morning, almost exactly one week since I sprained my hip helping my father stand up after he got lost in the front room of our house and fell.  The familiar cry reaches my ears, L, L, L, my dad is calling me and it finally happened.  He is standing in his room with his pants and underpants around his ankles.  He has, to put it politely, soiled himself.  

My saving grace is that he is standing next to the walk-in bath tub my parents had installed in their bedroom.  Their house is tricked out in mobility accessories.  There is the ramp to get in the house, the chair lift to get them up stairs, a half bath downstairs, walk-in bathtub, more walkers than people living in the house, assorted canes here and there, two wheelchairs, a scooter (maybe two) and for good measure a crane installed in their Bluetooth, rear view, miles to empty gauge van.

My problem is anytime he sleeps for an extended period of time his dementia goes into overdrive.  He knows to call me, which is good.  I don't even want to think about what will happen when he forgets I am here to help him.  As expected he is unaware of his suroundings.  It takes almost five minutes to get him to walk the four or five small steps into the tub.  Then I have to get hi to sit on the seat, take off his clothes and wash himself.  The hardest part is getting him to turn around so he can sit down.

To make matters worse he is having a bad hearing night.  Though I think he hears more than we realize.  I tell him to take his socks off and he thinks I want hi to take the seat off.  Finally I get him into the tub and his clothes off.  I manage to do this while averting my eyes.  I am sure a point will come when I can no longer be polite, but we are not there yet.  

Of course I took my pain pills before bed and I am a bit groggy so I forget to plug the drain.  Oooops.  So I have to basically start fresh again and fill the tub up.  It takes forever to fill up, more than 30 minutes.  

He does not want to take a bath and tells me to just shoot him.  It must be awful, that period of time between independence and knowing what is happening around you to depend acne and not knowing that you are so dependent on someone else for things we take for granted like being able to get to the bathroom on time, knowing how to get from room to room or just taking a bath.

It worries me that he talks about dying so much.  He is starting to give up.  

We spent the day in the ER with mom. Her platelets were low and she needed a blood transfusion.  Yesterday she was sitting up and talking.  Looking amazing and peppy.

Today she was so pale and tired, barely able to hold dad's hand.  I just hope she also isn't giving up.  She has always been so full of life.  She has always been the one we all went to for strength.  She was our stability.  She is his world and he is hers.

Now it is almost two in the morning.  All I want to,do is sleep.  My meds have made me sleepy but I am afraid to leave the room.  It is like having a baby again.  I can't leave him unattended in the tub.  I am afraid I will find him still in the tub in the morning, I'm afraid of him opening the tub and water going everywhere, I am afraid that he will fall asleep and just slump under the water and drown.

He still is fighting me on washing himself, but he needs to clean himself up or I will have to do it.  I will do it, but I don't want to.  The tub still needs more water in it.  I am so sleepy but I will somehow stay awake and make sure he is clean.  

I need a break, I feel guilty for even thinking that or uttering the words out loud.  I am going out tonight to see Ryan Kelly and Neil Byrne from Celtic Thunder.  I have had the tickets for months.  I have been looking forward to it and it has been happy place.  Now that it is almost hear I am afraid to go.  My brother, S, will be here to take care of Dad.  Still I feel guilty.

He tells me that he is going to drown.  I tell him that hewon't, but does he believe me?  I wish he would wash himself off.  I wish he wouldn't need to wash himself off at 2:11 AM.  I wish Mom was well again and home.  I wish when I call my ex to tell him that my mom is back in the hospital and he needs to pick up the kids that he would not yell at me because he needs to sleep.  I wish when my ex calls to see if the kids can come back to my house that he won't hang up,on me and call me names because I am still in the E r with my mom.

I wish that 1:26 AM was just a minute that Dad and I slept through like any other.  

I Want My Father Back

Another snow day, another day where the wind chill is below zero and another day that I shouldn't bring dad to see mom.  It is too cold outside.  Mom has been clear when the weather is bad or simply too cold keep dad home.  Still last night was horrible.  Dad was talking about dying and was so depressed.  Not even a donut from his favorite donut shop helped.  

So this morning the kids woke up and were less than helpful.  I asked P to make grandpa some bacon.  Somehow he decided to make all the bacon, a full pound.  Then forget to grandpa any.  My hip may have been throbbing but I managed to get them to remember what needed to be done and grandpa did get his bacon!  I got some too.

I knew it was coming, he wanted to see Mom, and could I blame him?  No!  They love each other!  Of course Mom, S, and I have a rule, if school is canceled because of the weather Dad needs to stay home.  Easy to say, not as easy to enforce.  Yesterday with S as backup, Dad stayed home and I went to the new place Mom is at to fill out paperwork and have a short visit with Mom.

Today it is just me and my children against one man on a mission.  He wanted to see his wife.  I reminded him about the weather and the temperature and that Mom wanted him to stay home.  He got up grabbed his walker and followed me into the kitchen.  He played the guilt trip card!  "How do you think she feels in there all alone?"  I caved and we got bundled up for the journey to see Mom.

First I had to check the ramp, it needed to be shoveled.  Luckily B volunteered to do that.  Then I needed to salt it so he wouldn't slip.  Then I got his coat and hat and made sure he had his gloves.  We all were ready and the kids got into the back of the van and P was ready to grab grandpa's walker. We got to the car and got dad inside.  Off we went into the windy white blowing snow polar vortex.  In other words it was cold and hard to see.

School was cancelled and the visibility was low, but I knew where to go and was focused on getting Dad to see Mom.  He was confused and had no idea where he was.  

These were roads he has driven himself, places he has taken me.  These were place he has been in and buildings that he has worked in.  He turns to me and says "I've never been in this part of the city before."  It was heartbreaking because we were right next to the building that he he went to school and earned his Master's degree in.

Now we are at the new facility.  All the close spots are occupied by other cars.  Including the three handicapped parking spots (really three, maybe four handicapped parking spots for a skilled nursing facility?).  I have to find a parking spot that is slush free on the left side of the van because I knew I had to deal with a temperamental wheelchair and a Gather who wanted to see his wife.  Sadly the spot I found was almost as far away from the front entrance as possible.  

My original plan was to drop him and the kids off at the entrance then I could hobble in from any old parking spot.  But the large ambulance parked right in front of the entrance ruined that plan.  So I opened the back of the van and wrestled the wheelchair out and onto the ground.  OUCH! My hip was protesting. 

Then I had to open it.  I've seen my brother pop it open and other people have done it too.  It is like it opens up magically for them.  But for me it is like trying to open a locked safe without the combination.  I push and pull and get it open about four inches.  Not quite wide enough for even my daughter's tiny butt.  I roll it to my Dad's door and he just opens the door and I swore he would have jumped into that chair if I didn't stop him.  

I had to bring out the big guns, I sat on that wheel chair and I used my gluteus maximus to open that wheel chair seat to its maximus.  It worked, it hurt but it worked.  I got him in the wheelchair and looked across the long cold parking lot of despair.  My kids were already off to the front door.  They were much faster than me pushing that wheelchair with a sprained hip.

I never realized how much I use my hip, especially when I am pushing something.  Something like a 78 year old man.  Now my next concern in the snowy wasteland they called a parking lot was locating a wheelchair ramp.  The ambulance was still there and I feared that it may be blocking the ramp.  How was I going to get him in to see Mom if I couldn't find the ramp. 

There it was in front of the ambulance.  I was so cold and the door just seemed to be getting further away.  But I got there and we got inside.  There was a security guard, very different from the hospital.  Roped off areas kept us where they wanted us to be.  We had to sign in, I don't think we ever signed out.  I hope there is no penalty for it.  The facility is lovely from the outside.  It the weather was nicer I would have taken a photo of it.  On the inside it is like a maze.

Luckily I was at Mom's room yesterday and somehow managed to find her room again.  I got him into the room and everything was alright again.  He was happy, she was happy.  I even got him closer to her bed so they could hold hands.  The world just for a moment was perfect!

Once we all got a short visit with Mom, Dad was ready to go home.  After all the work I went to and the pain I had in. My hip I asked to please stay a few minutes longer so I could recover a bit before the long journey back to the car.  

I must say that I like where mom is now, they seem very attentive to her physical, emotional and spiritual needs.  Her auditory needs were a bit lacking.  Her room is semi private and her room mate was a moaner.  She wanted attention. It was constant and just loud enough that it is hard to ignore.  How can you complain about someone that just needs some love and attention.  Okay I mentioned it, but I made sure to phrase it as nicely as I could.  I didn't know her story after all.

To home we went. My kids went to spend time with their dad and my dad took a nap.  

Before he fell asleep he asked about dinner, I said it would be ready in about an hour and I made one of my favorites, pork cooked in sauerkraut.  I fixed his plate and he wouldn't wake up.  I waited and finally around 7:00 he woke up.  But it wasn't him.  He didn't know where he was.  I have dealt with this before.  This was more though.  He asked me who he was?  He asked if I was his wife.  He wanted to know who he was, that was new.  He wanted to know if he was still working, what kind of work did he do?  So many questions that I was unprepared for.  My father went to sleep and someone I didn't know woke up.

I had to show him where the bathrooms were.  I managed to get him to eat his dinner.  I tried to answer all his questions.  But some were difficult.  He wanted to know what happened to his body.  Why was it not working right?  Then he asked me how he got so ugly?  Tears came to my eyes.  

Bed time came and I brought him up to his bedroom.  Sometimes he thinks the room is ugly, sometimes it is messy, sometimes it is too girly.  Tonight it looked good to him.  Some relief.  I tucked him in, even though he refused to take off his shoes.  And went downstairs.  Just a few moments alone before my children came home and performed a show for me.  It was just what I needed to cheer me up.

I finally managed to pick up my pain cream that took two days to be made so now that all are asleep I am finally feeling a bit better and can only hope that my father is back when he wakes up in the morning.