Yet, somehow, here I am
Well, I put off updating cause I was afraid in doing so that I'd become all mopey again, but I got woken up early today for no reason so I figured what the hell, it's early enough in the day to do this and not have to worry about going to bed all emo. Gotta do the traditional emo once-a-year update, eh? In actuality I haven't been all too emo surprisingly, just every now and then it hits me like a huge brick. BAM UR DEAD. "Wait... wut?"
K, enough leaving some of you wondering (those who don't know anyways).
My dad passed away in August this past year. Yeah, I lost both my parents in the same year. If someone had came up to me a year before my mom died and said "hay, your parents will be gone from your life totally in less than a year" I'd have thought they were insane. I also would have thought I'd never be able to manage if they weren't actually insane. Yet, somehow, here I am.
He had been trying his best to combat the cancer, doing all the chemo and radiation and shit. I tried my best to help him when I could, even though at the time I was still kind of emotionally distraught over my mom. I had to come stay with him for large periods of time, other times he had to stay in a nursing home for about a week or so, because he kept getting dehydrated, malnourished, and so weak he could barely move. He didn't honestly take care of himself the best either, was bad about taking all the meds he had to, etc. With me unable to stay up here fulltime, we really didn't have a choice. He came out of the nursing home better at first, but would eventually get back down again.
The actual tumor on his tongue went down in size thanks to everything they were blasting him with, but he still felt like shit, and he really didn't understand why. His oncologist didn't think he was a good candidate for surgery with his age and heart troubles/diabetes (he had a heart attack when he was younger, and triple bypass surgery and a heart valve replacement when I was like 17), so there really wasn't much he could do for him. It was obvious the cancer hadn't left completely, even though the tumor was much smaller. He was in pain all the time, his entire mouth, head, and neck area, and for some lame reason, his oncologist wouldn't give him very strong pain meds. He wasn't able to drive anymore, and he had it set up so this nice man from the American Cancer Society drove him to his appointments, free of charge. Thank god for a few nice people in the world, eh?
Well, in the early part of July, I get a phone call. I don't know why the memory of this day sticks so solidly in my head, but it does. It was my dad's neighbor, Brandy, in a panic. The previous day, she and her family had been away for the weekend, came home, and noticed my dad's porch light on in the middle of the day. She thought that was strange cause she knew how anal my dad was about not wasting electricity. That night, she realized the porch light was still on, and even though it was totally dark outside, he still had window blinds open. She knew that was strange, cause again, it just isn't like him. So she became worried, and tried calling him. No answer. Tried knocking on the door, no answer. She noticed that he had his TV on through the blinds, though, but that's all she could see. She didn't know what else to do, so she called me. I told her to call 911, and she did. The police found him unconscious laying on the couch. His mobile home was stiffling hot, like, he didn't have any windows open, the AC wasn't on at all, and the place was a huge mess. They took him to the ER, and Brandy calls me back with "I don't think he'll make it through the night, he isn't responsive at all, and his blood sugar's through the roof, you come up here NOW."
So I did. He managed to pull through that episode somehow, the doctors just said he had a bad cause of pnuemona, which caused his sugar to go sky high, which eventually caused him to go into a diabetic coma of sorts. His body was so weak, every little germ he got turned into some infection. He was in intensive care for about 4 days, then they released him from the hospital about a week later. It was then that I started realizing that he just wasn't... himself. His personality was the same, but he had a hard time remembering things, like, he kept forgetting who came to visit him, and what doctors had told him. He told Brandy a story about driving to Burbank the day prior, when he had been in the hospital for a week already. He could remember the small, silly things, though. Like he bugged both of us about his mail, making sure we got it, and his house keys, making sure someone had them safe, and his swamp cooler, which apparently was broken. Yet he couldn't remember when we went to see him, or what day or was even.
They released him into a nursing home because they said he wasn't good enough to go home, yet was doing too well for the hospital. He stayed there for about a week, then I get another phone call, this time from his medical case manager. "You need to come up here today and live with him, take care of him, for at least a month. He can't stay here anymore due to his insurance." Oh I was fit to be tied. They give me NO notice, and expect me to just ship my life hours away in a day's notice? And at least a month? A month's a friggin long time to just give up everything and move that quickly. Come on, I was in the middle of dealing with all the aftermath of my mom's passing still, plus I had Richard needing me still for shit. My financial situation was shitty as all hell, and that's putting it lightly. I tried my best to fight her, cause honestly she was a bitch. Even after explaining my situation, she didn't give a shit. The only other alternative she offered was having a nurse go home with him, which would cost him an arm and a leg, and I knew that he wouldn't allow that, no matter how confused he was. After a day full of phone calls and getting my brother -in-law involved, I finally talked her into giving me 2 days to pack and try and settle some of my affairs before coming up.
So 2 days later I find myself at the nursing home to pick him up. My brother-in-law was with me (yeah, still no word from my sisters at this point... the brother-in-law and sister were seperated at the time ((they never got divorced btw, I had been wrong about that)), but I told him to tell her, she didn't even seem to care). We go in to get him dressed, and it's obvious he's still very confused. He has no idea why we're there, and doesn't even seem very anxious to leave, which totally threw me for a loop (he had been whining to go home all the while in the hospital). The nurse gives me a huge box of medications and shit I need to give him, treating me like I know what the hell I'm doing with half of it, and sends us on our way. We get home, and my brother-in-law has to leave, leaving me alone with my dad, his confused state, and 9237292 medications.
Lemme tell you, from that time until the time he died... well, I don't think I've ever been that frustrated in my life before that, I'll put it that way. And it wasn't just normal frustration, it was a stupid mix of frustrated, anxious, worried, lonely, pissed off, and grieving. I'm an extremely patient person, but I lost my patience so damn many times, I hate to even think back on it now.
My dad planted himself on the couch, and barely moved from it except to go to the bathroom. He even slept there at night. Never changed clothes unless I or a nurse did it for him. Never budged a finger except to fiddle with the TV remote. It's not that he didn't want to, or was lazy. He just couldn't. He was that weak. He kept trying to talk to me, but either he'd start and not be able to finish, or I couldn't understand him. He couldn't think straight for nothing. He'd try and argue with me about how I was supposed to feed him, and that got me really frustrated. In the end he ended up letting me do it my way, but still complained. A visiting nurse had to show me how to give him some of the meds. He had a bunch of pills that had to be ground up and put through his G tube, liquids for his mouth, insulin (I already knew how to do that one thankfully). My morning "breakfast" ritual with him took at least an hour, just to feed him and give him his meds. The stupid ensure crap I had to feed him took years, then with him aruging with me... ugh. The visiting nurse came twice a week, the rest of the time I was left on my own. Brandy came over and helped me try and get him motivated to get up and start doing things, but he just wouldn't budge. We kept hoping that since I was feeding him correctly, medicating him correctly, and he was getting plenty of rest, that he'd start to get stronger. But he never did. He just got weaker and weaker.
I could tell that the whole thing was upsetting him, the way he'd struggle to try and talk, or try and go to the bathroom by himself. He came into my room once while I was resting, and plopped down on a chair, almost falling over in the process, and started to tell me something. I tried my best to understand, he was so hard to understand at that point. I was lucky to get a word or 2 in a whole 5 minutes of talking. He said something about grass, and I was like, what the hell. Then I realized he was nagging me to water his grass. He nagged me to pay his bills too, so I took care of that. Him and I got into an arugment about how my writing was on his check. He couldn't read what I wrote and I got so upset because he was so anal about something as silly as that, when his health was in such terrible shape. It's shit like that that makes me realize he was still himself all through it all, he was just... getting weaker and weaker. He didn't have the "I'm dying" talk like you hear about in books, you know the one where the old guy says profound advice, and gives away his last assets. His was just "water my lawn", and "lrn2write".
I took him to his oncologist and his MD. Both gave me no help whatsoever. The oncologist gave me more crap to put in his mouth, and said that he didn't understand why he was in so much pain. I knew the pain must have been terrible, cause everytime it hit him he'd hold his head and groan. Yet the doctor couldn't understand it. I finally got him to prescribe some morphine. When they sent him home from the nursing home they just gave him vicoden, which uh yeah, that's not gonna do shit at the levels of pain he was going through. His MD fiddled with his insulin levels, that's it. Neither doctor seemed to think he was dying, neither doctor seemed to think I needed help taking care of him. I dunno if it seemed like I knew what the hell I was doing, cause I sure as hell didn't feel like I did.
The weeks went on, and his condition just kept getting worse. I had to fight with his insurance to let the nurse keep coming over, they wanted to stop that too. They sent some stupid guy that was supposed to be a physical therapist, and he kept trying to my dad to do these stupid exercises on his feet that my dad was clearly too weak to do. My dad ended up screaming at him and he left and never came back.
He eventually got to the point where he couldn't even walk to the bathroom himself. He fell 3 times in the bathroom, and him and I struggled to get him up everytime he fell. I got mad at him because he just wasn't helping me much. I know I shouldn't have, but damn, it was just frustrating. I bought him Depends, and he wore them, but he was stubborn about actually going in them, and instead he started calling me whenever he needed to use the bathroom, so I could walk him there. That got annoying fast, especially in the middle of the night or in the early mornin. >_>
He started developing a cough, and his blood sugar levels were way higher than they had been before. The visiting nurse found dried blood in his mouth. With the falling I was worried, so we went to see his doctor. On the morning we went, I couldn't get him off the couch for nothing, he just had no energy whatsoever. Finally I did, and when we got there the doctor said his mouth and throat were infected, that he should be hospitalized. So in he went again.
My aunt and uncle finally drove down to see him while he was in the hospital. They took one look at him and knew things weren't right. He wouldn't even wake up for more than a minute while they were there, his eyes keps closing and he'd go back to snoring. The nurses there acted like it was nothing, so we demanded to see his doctor. The doctor said it was a side effect of his blood sugar being so high, and that it would be fine in a day, and they'd send him home then. My aunt kept insisting that he needed to stay in the hospital. I agreed with her totally. I was losing my patience so fast in taking care of him when he was so bad off. I couldn't do it anymore, not with him falling, waking me up at all hours of the night, getting sick so quickly and randomly. I couldn't do it anymore. My aunt started telling me about hospice care, and it was a lot to swallow, but I took her advice to heart. By this time it was pretty obvious to me he was indeed dying.
2 days later, they sent him home, on a hospital gurny, in an ambulence. Apparently he had woken up enough to tell the doctor "I want to go home" (although I don't know HOW she understood him, I sure as hell couldn't), and when she found out that I was his caretaker, oh boy, yeah, let's save a buck here and send his ass home to her daughter. I was fucking appalled that they sent him home like that. He was totally bedridden, barely stayed awake as they wheeled him into the house, as I talked to him. They rolled him onto his bed and quickly explained to me how to change his cathador, then left. I realize now that I probably could have made them take him back, but honestly I was just kind of.. shocked. Brandy and her husband came over after I bitched to her over the phone, and they were just about as appalled as I was. He was in no condition to be sent home to a family member who had no medical training. He was barely speaking at all, kept drifting in and out of sleep, and his breathing was quite labored, and they didn't even send him home with oxygen. They did send this stupid suction machine I was supposed to use for his mouth, cause yeah, I totally know how to deal with medical equipment like that.
We had just decided to make a few phone calls when we heard my dad coughing from the other room. Really loud, violent coughs. So we went to check up on him, and his mouth was dripping blood. I called 911.
We were in the ER for 17 hours, I kid you not. We went in at around 5pm, and I didn't get to go back to his place til 10 the next morning. I was fucking tired, not to mention pissed off at the whole situation. They didn't even do much for him in the ER, they gave him antibotics (gee, apparently his infection wasn't even gone when they sent him home, what a surprise) and kept coming in to suction blood from his mouth, cause everytime he coughed he'd cough some up. They figured it was blood from his mouth or throat, not his lungs, so they didn't seem too worried, which pissed me off even more. I was there alone, cause Brandy and her husband couldn't come to the hospital with us (they have 3 young kids). I ended up getting lost on the streets after midnight trying to find a fucking fast food joint that was still open, cause I was starving, and the hospital had no cafeteria. It was fun!
My dad had to have a blood transfusion, and his body kind of rejected the blood, which made him even more sick. I wasn't there at the time, so I dunno what happened there exactly, but it wasn't very good, whatever it was, so it's probably good I missed out on that. >_>
So right before I was able to leave finally and they were gonna admit him, the doctor finally sat down with me to get a complete history and shit. I was honest with him, told him that I couldn't handle taking care of him anymore, that his condition was showing signs of NO improvement at all for more than a month, and I just didn't know what to do anymore. He got a hold of the oncologist, and he told him that there's nothing they can do for him, that the cancer had started spreading to his brain and his lymph nodes. I was appalled, cause the oncologist didn't bother telling ME that when we were there. I mentioned hospice, and both doctors agreed it was the best way to go. There was nothing more to do.
The next day I got a visit from the hospice chaplan. He set everything up with me, and was... you know, actually... really.... nice, and helpful, answering my questions, making sure I was comfortabe with what he was talking about. Unlike ANY of the other medical staff I dealt with over that ENTIRE month. Someone came to deliver an oxygen compressor, a hospital bed, and a box of medications/pain relievers. That afternoon they delivered my dad home, and a hospice nurse came with him. He made sure he was comfortable, gave him plenty of pain relievers, fed him, and told me to get some rest. My dad tried talking to Brandy and I that night, and although we couldn't understand him at all (his voice was so weak at that point), we assured him that everything was going to be okay, that he was going to be taken care of, and that he could rest.
There was always a hospice nurse at my dad's bedside from that moment on, until he died. 24/7. They worked in 8 hours shifts, when one would leave, another would come. And they were, honestly, a godsend to me. They were all really caring, kind, wonderful people. They talked to my dad, they talked to me. Some couldn't administer medication, so they had to show me exactly what to do and how often, and I didn't mind, cause they showed me how to go about it. They let me get my rest. They bathed him, cleaned him up, checked his vitals, did everything. Most importantly, they let me know how we was doing. I was told from the very beginning after assessing him, "he'll probably go in a week or less", and every day a head nurse would visit him and update me.
During the 2nd day of hospice my dad stopped opening his eyes. He had fallen asleep the night before, and just stayed asleep. It wasn't medication driven either, because he actually wasn't on very strong pain meds. The nurse said that he was probably in a coma, most likely caused from his sugar levels again. At that point we stopped all medication except pain relief, and stopped feeding him. We just kept him comfortable. The nurse reassured me that it was actually a very good way to go, because he is in peace, finally, not struggling.
He stayed that way for 3 more days. My brother-in-law finally spoke some sense into my sisters, and they came to see him the last day he was alive. He was still in the coma, never opened his eyes, but they got to speak to him, and say their goodbyes. My niece and nephew were there too. It honestly seemed like he could hear what we were saying, cause there were times when his eyebrows would twitch, usually at times when one of us would make a light joke or something. And he was totally at peace, it seemed. He wasn't on any pain meds that day, either. We played some of his favorite music for him, I think he liked that. The nurse read some bible hymns to him, and although he was never religious nor am I, I think he found it comforting.
After my sisters left, Brandy came over. It was about midnight. Her and I talked at my dad's bedside, talking about my sisters and talking to my dad. I felt kind of uncomfortable talking to him directly with him in a coma, so she helped me talk to him. I told him that it was okay if he let go, that he could go see my mom, and keep her company, and see his dad and his mom.
Two hours later, I was finally getting ready for bed, and the nurse came and knocked on my door. I came out, and she told me that he was gone.
It's like... he had seen everyone he wanted to see, he was happy about that, and we had left, and then he knew... it was time. I don't think he wanted us to see him as he was letting go, which is why he waited til I had left even. It seems like him somehow, to keep his pride until that last moment, and not want others to see him like that. May sound kind of silly, but it makes sense to me.
Anyways, didn't really mean to go into details like that, sorry, haha. I'll try and keep the rest short. We had his service about a week later, it was nice. I did another lame poem. Even after he died, hospice continued to visit me to make sure I was doing okay. They really were a wonderful service. Totally free too. After the shit the doctors gave me it was just so nice to have people there for me who cared. I couldn't have asked for a better way to see my father go, honestly. Far, far better than dying in the hospital. I'm thankful my sisters got to see him too.
During all that , my sisters and I made amends. We talked about everything that had caused things to go so badly between them and our dad. Turns out it was just something really stupid. Him and my older sister, Debbie, had gotten into an argument at a barbeque she held for the family (I musta been in Davis then, cause I know I wasn't there). She had been working her butt off all day, cooking, cleaning, shopping etc., so she sees my dad sitting there with my brother-in-law, the two of them bullshitting and drinking beer as usual, so she asks my dad if he would like to cook the chicken. My dad's barbeque chicken was the *best*, everyone knew that, so she expected him to say sure. Well he didn't. He said he'd rather enjoy his beer. Well, Debbie, after working her butt off all day, was kind of annoyed. So they got into an arugment, and eventually it progressed to the point where she yelled "I'm tired of having to fucking do everything for you when we get together!" and him saying "I'll never come over anymore then!" My other sister, Dede, took her side of course. And yeah... that's all she wrote... THAT'S the reason why none of us spoke for like, 6 years. >.> I never knew the whole story. My dad left out everything except "it was at a barbeque", and "Deborah went bitchmode on me". xD I gotta say I don't blame Debbie at all for bitching him out. He coulda helped her out, and heck, he used to like barbequeing, and he was good at it, so it's not out of line to ask him even... Crazy.
Debbie felt a lot of guilt about not speaking with him for all those years, Dede did too I know, although she hasn't talked to me as much about it as Debbie has. Debbie only lives about 20 mins away from my dad's house, so she's been helping me through everything, and we've gotten pretty close. I'm quite thankful for that. I always liked her, it just always seemed like the age difference sucked (she's 40-some), but now that I'm older it's not quite as bad. She helped me deal with the funeral, all the shit about his house (he didn't have my name on the mobile home, so we had an ordeal to get it in my name... it's STILL not finalized), and is slowly helping me sell my mom's house (the market's so bad right now we're kinda taking our time, letting Jim/Richard pay rent). I've decided to stay in my dad's place. It's newer, only 7 years old, is as freaking big as a house, bigger than my mom's house (3 bedrooms, the master is huge, and a fireplace), nicer in some ways (sunk-in tub anyone?). Plus, I dunno, it's a fresh start for me. I felt like I needed one. I knew I did a year ago, but wasn't sure how to go about it.
I handled my dad's death way better than my mom's, maybe just because I was able to prepare for it kinda. One never is totally able to prepare, but you know what I mean. I at least saw it coming. My mom's was just such a shock. And after all the frustration I felt dealing with everything with my dad, his crappy insurance, his crappy doctors... in a way it was kind of a relief, although that always sounds bad when you word it like that. Again, you know what I mean. I loved him dearly, as much of a pain in the ass he was, but at least he's not in pain anymore.
Things are slowly piecing themselves together, bit by bit. I still have a lot to do, but I'll get there one step at a time.
Maybe next year I'll have something good to write about, eh?
K, enough leaving some of you wondering (those who don't know anyways).
My dad passed away in August this past year. Yeah, I lost both my parents in the same year. If someone had came up to me a year before my mom died and said "hay, your parents will be gone from your life totally in less than a year" I'd have thought they were insane. I also would have thought I'd never be able to manage if they weren't actually insane. Yet, somehow, here I am.
He had been trying his best to combat the cancer, doing all the chemo and radiation and shit. I tried my best to help him when I could, even though at the time I was still kind of emotionally distraught over my mom. I had to come stay with him for large periods of time, other times he had to stay in a nursing home for about a week or so, because he kept getting dehydrated, malnourished, and so weak he could barely move. He didn't honestly take care of himself the best either, was bad about taking all the meds he had to, etc. With me unable to stay up here fulltime, we really didn't have a choice. He came out of the nursing home better at first, but would eventually get back down again.
The actual tumor on his tongue went down in size thanks to everything they were blasting him with, but he still felt like shit, and he really didn't understand why. His oncologist didn't think he was a good candidate for surgery with his age and heart troubles/diabetes (he had a heart attack when he was younger, and triple bypass surgery and a heart valve replacement when I was like 17), so there really wasn't much he could do for him. It was obvious the cancer hadn't left completely, even though the tumor was much smaller. He was in pain all the time, his entire mouth, head, and neck area, and for some lame reason, his oncologist wouldn't give him very strong pain meds. He wasn't able to drive anymore, and he had it set up so this nice man from the American Cancer Society drove him to his appointments, free of charge. Thank god for a few nice people in the world, eh?
Well, in the early part of July, I get a phone call. I don't know why the memory of this day sticks so solidly in my head, but it does. It was my dad's neighbor, Brandy, in a panic. The previous day, she and her family had been away for the weekend, came home, and noticed my dad's porch light on in the middle of the day. She thought that was strange cause she knew how anal my dad was about not wasting electricity. That night, she realized the porch light was still on, and even though it was totally dark outside, he still had window blinds open. She knew that was strange, cause again, it just isn't like him. So she became worried, and tried calling him. No answer. Tried knocking on the door, no answer. She noticed that he had his TV on through the blinds, though, but that's all she could see. She didn't know what else to do, so she called me. I told her to call 911, and she did. The police found him unconscious laying on the couch. His mobile home was stiffling hot, like, he didn't have any windows open, the AC wasn't on at all, and the place was a huge mess. They took him to the ER, and Brandy calls me back with "I don't think he'll make it through the night, he isn't responsive at all, and his blood sugar's through the roof, you come up here NOW."
So I did. He managed to pull through that episode somehow, the doctors just said he had a bad cause of pnuemona, which caused his sugar to go sky high, which eventually caused him to go into a diabetic coma of sorts. His body was so weak, every little germ he got turned into some infection. He was in intensive care for about 4 days, then they released him from the hospital about a week later. It was then that I started realizing that he just wasn't... himself. His personality was the same, but he had a hard time remembering things, like, he kept forgetting who came to visit him, and what doctors had told him. He told Brandy a story about driving to Burbank the day prior, when he had been in the hospital for a week already. He could remember the small, silly things, though. Like he bugged both of us about his mail, making sure we got it, and his house keys, making sure someone had them safe, and his swamp cooler, which apparently was broken. Yet he couldn't remember when we went to see him, or what day or was even.
They released him into a nursing home because they said he wasn't good enough to go home, yet was doing too well for the hospital. He stayed there for about a week, then I get another phone call, this time from his medical case manager. "You need to come up here today and live with him, take care of him, for at least a month. He can't stay here anymore due to his insurance." Oh I was fit to be tied. They give me NO notice, and expect me to just ship my life hours away in a day's notice? And at least a month? A month's a friggin long time to just give up everything and move that quickly. Come on, I was in the middle of dealing with all the aftermath of my mom's passing still, plus I had Richard needing me still for shit. My financial situation was shitty as all hell, and that's putting it lightly. I tried my best to fight her, cause honestly she was a bitch. Even after explaining my situation, she didn't give a shit. The only other alternative she offered was having a nurse go home with him, which would cost him an arm and a leg, and I knew that he wouldn't allow that, no matter how confused he was. After a day full of phone calls and getting my brother -in-law involved, I finally talked her into giving me 2 days to pack and try and settle some of my affairs before coming up.
So 2 days later I find myself at the nursing home to pick him up. My brother-in-law was with me (yeah, still no word from my sisters at this point... the brother-in-law and sister were seperated at the time ((they never got divorced btw, I had been wrong about that)), but I told him to tell her, she didn't even seem to care). We go in to get him dressed, and it's obvious he's still very confused. He has no idea why we're there, and doesn't even seem very anxious to leave, which totally threw me for a loop (he had been whining to go home all the while in the hospital). The nurse gives me a huge box of medications and shit I need to give him, treating me like I know what the hell I'm doing with half of it, and sends us on our way. We get home, and my brother-in-law has to leave, leaving me alone with my dad, his confused state, and 9237292 medications.
Lemme tell you, from that time until the time he died... well, I don't think I've ever been that frustrated in my life before that, I'll put it that way. And it wasn't just normal frustration, it was a stupid mix of frustrated, anxious, worried, lonely, pissed off, and grieving. I'm an extremely patient person, but I lost my patience so damn many times, I hate to even think back on it now.
My dad planted himself on the couch, and barely moved from it except to go to the bathroom. He even slept there at night. Never changed clothes unless I or a nurse did it for him. Never budged a finger except to fiddle with the TV remote. It's not that he didn't want to, or was lazy. He just couldn't. He was that weak. He kept trying to talk to me, but either he'd start and not be able to finish, or I couldn't understand him. He couldn't think straight for nothing. He'd try and argue with me about how I was supposed to feed him, and that got me really frustrated. In the end he ended up letting me do it my way, but still complained. A visiting nurse had to show me how to give him some of the meds. He had a bunch of pills that had to be ground up and put through his G tube, liquids for his mouth, insulin (I already knew how to do that one thankfully). My morning "breakfast" ritual with him took at least an hour, just to feed him and give him his meds. The stupid ensure crap I had to feed him took years, then with him aruging with me... ugh. The visiting nurse came twice a week, the rest of the time I was left on my own. Brandy came over and helped me try and get him motivated to get up and start doing things, but he just wouldn't budge. We kept hoping that since I was feeding him correctly, medicating him correctly, and he was getting plenty of rest, that he'd start to get stronger. But he never did. He just got weaker and weaker.
I could tell that the whole thing was upsetting him, the way he'd struggle to try and talk, or try and go to the bathroom by himself. He came into my room once while I was resting, and plopped down on a chair, almost falling over in the process, and started to tell me something. I tried my best to understand, he was so hard to understand at that point. I was lucky to get a word or 2 in a whole 5 minutes of talking. He said something about grass, and I was like, what the hell. Then I realized he was nagging me to water his grass. He nagged me to pay his bills too, so I took care of that. Him and I got into an arugment about how my writing was on his check. He couldn't read what I wrote and I got so upset because he was so anal about something as silly as that, when his health was in such terrible shape. It's shit like that that makes me realize he was still himself all through it all, he was just... getting weaker and weaker. He didn't have the "I'm dying" talk like you hear about in books, you know the one where the old guy says profound advice, and gives away his last assets. His was just "water my lawn", and "lrn2write".
I took him to his oncologist and his MD. Both gave me no help whatsoever. The oncologist gave me more crap to put in his mouth, and said that he didn't understand why he was in so much pain. I knew the pain must have been terrible, cause everytime it hit him he'd hold his head and groan. Yet the doctor couldn't understand it. I finally got him to prescribe some morphine. When they sent him home from the nursing home they just gave him vicoden, which uh yeah, that's not gonna do shit at the levels of pain he was going through. His MD fiddled with his insulin levels, that's it. Neither doctor seemed to think he was dying, neither doctor seemed to think I needed help taking care of him. I dunno if it seemed like I knew what the hell I was doing, cause I sure as hell didn't feel like I did.
The weeks went on, and his condition just kept getting worse. I had to fight with his insurance to let the nurse keep coming over, they wanted to stop that too. They sent some stupid guy that was supposed to be a physical therapist, and he kept trying to my dad to do these stupid exercises on his feet that my dad was clearly too weak to do. My dad ended up screaming at him and he left and never came back.
He eventually got to the point where he couldn't even walk to the bathroom himself. He fell 3 times in the bathroom, and him and I struggled to get him up everytime he fell. I got mad at him because he just wasn't helping me much. I know I shouldn't have, but damn, it was just frustrating. I bought him Depends, and he wore them, but he was stubborn about actually going in them, and instead he started calling me whenever he needed to use the bathroom, so I could walk him there. That got annoying fast, especially in the middle of the night or in the early mornin. >_>
He started developing a cough, and his blood sugar levels were way higher than they had been before. The visiting nurse found dried blood in his mouth. With the falling I was worried, so we went to see his doctor. On the morning we went, I couldn't get him off the couch for nothing, he just had no energy whatsoever. Finally I did, and when we got there the doctor said his mouth and throat were infected, that he should be hospitalized. So in he went again.
My aunt and uncle finally drove down to see him while he was in the hospital. They took one look at him and knew things weren't right. He wouldn't even wake up for more than a minute while they were there, his eyes keps closing and he'd go back to snoring. The nurses there acted like it was nothing, so we demanded to see his doctor. The doctor said it was a side effect of his blood sugar being so high, and that it would be fine in a day, and they'd send him home then. My aunt kept insisting that he needed to stay in the hospital. I agreed with her totally. I was losing my patience so fast in taking care of him when he was so bad off. I couldn't do it anymore, not with him falling, waking me up at all hours of the night, getting sick so quickly and randomly. I couldn't do it anymore. My aunt started telling me about hospice care, and it was a lot to swallow, but I took her advice to heart. By this time it was pretty obvious to me he was indeed dying.
2 days later, they sent him home, on a hospital gurny, in an ambulence. Apparently he had woken up enough to tell the doctor "I want to go home" (although I don't know HOW she understood him, I sure as hell couldn't), and when she found out that I was his caretaker, oh boy, yeah, let's save a buck here and send his ass home to her daughter. I was fucking appalled that they sent him home like that. He was totally bedridden, barely stayed awake as they wheeled him into the house, as I talked to him. They rolled him onto his bed and quickly explained to me how to change his cathador, then left. I realize now that I probably could have made them take him back, but honestly I was just kind of.. shocked. Brandy and her husband came over after I bitched to her over the phone, and they were just about as appalled as I was. He was in no condition to be sent home to a family member who had no medical training. He was barely speaking at all, kept drifting in and out of sleep, and his breathing was quite labored, and they didn't even send him home with oxygen. They did send this stupid suction machine I was supposed to use for his mouth, cause yeah, I totally know how to deal with medical equipment like that.
We had just decided to make a few phone calls when we heard my dad coughing from the other room. Really loud, violent coughs. So we went to check up on him, and his mouth was dripping blood. I called 911.
We were in the ER for 17 hours, I kid you not. We went in at around 5pm, and I didn't get to go back to his place til 10 the next morning. I was fucking tired, not to mention pissed off at the whole situation. They didn't even do much for him in the ER, they gave him antibotics (gee, apparently his infection wasn't even gone when they sent him home, what a surprise) and kept coming in to suction blood from his mouth, cause everytime he coughed he'd cough some up. They figured it was blood from his mouth or throat, not his lungs, so they didn't seem too worried, which pissed me off even more. I was there alone, cause Brandy and her husband couldn't come to the hospital with us (they have 3 young kids). I ended up getting lost on the streets after midnight trying to find a fucking fast food joint that was still open, cause I was starving, and the hospital had no cafeteria. It was fun!
My dad had to have a blood transfusion, and his body kind of rejected the blood, which made him even more sick. I wasn't there at the time, so I dunno what happened there exactly, but it wasn't very good, whatever it was, so it's probably good I missed out on that. >_>
So right before I was able to leave finally and they were gonna admit him, the doctor finally sat down with me to get a complete history and shit. I was honest with him, told him that I couldn't handle taking care of him anymore, that his condition was showing signs of NO improvement at all for more than a month, and I just didn't know what to do anymore. He got a hold of the oncologist, and he told him that there's nothing they can do for him, that the cancer had started spreading to his brain and his lymph nodes. I was appalled, cause the oncologist didn't bother telling ME that when we were there. I mentioned hospice, and both doctors agreed it was the best way to go. There was nothing more to do.
The next day I got a visit from the hospice chaplan. He set everything up with me, and was... you know, actually... really.... nice, and helpful, answering my questions, making sure I was comfortabe with what he was talking about. Unlike ANY of the other medical staff I dealt with over that ENTIRE month. Someone came to deliver an oxygen compressor, a hospital bed, and a box of medications/pain relievers. That afternoon they delivered my dad home, and a hospice nurse came with him. He made sure he was comfortable, gave him plenty of pain relievers, fed him, and told me to get some rest. My dad tried talking to Brandy and I that night, and although we couldn't understand him at all (his voice was so weak at that point), we assured him that everything was going to be okay, that he was going to be taken care of, and that he could rest.
There was always a hospice nurse at my dad's bedside from that moment on, until he died. 24/7. They worked in 8 hours shifts, when one would leave, another would come. And they were, honestly, a godsend to me. They were all really caring, kind, wonderful people. They talked to my dad, they talked to me. Some couldn't administer medication, so they had to show me exactly what to do and how often, and I didn't mind, cause they showed me how to go about it. They let me get my rest. They bathed him, cleaned him up, checked his vitals, did everything. Most importantly, they let me know how we was doing. I was told from the very beginning after assessing him, "he'll probably go in a week or less", and every day a head nurse would visit him and update me.
During the 2nd day of hospice my dad stopped opening his eyes. He had fallen asleep the night before, and just stayed asleep. It wasn't medication driven either, because he actually wasn't on very strong pain meds. The nurse said that he was probably in a coma, most likely caused from his sugar levels again. At that point we stopped all medication except pain relief, and stopped feeding him. We just kept him comfortable. The nurse reassured me that it was actually a very good way to go, because he is in peace, finally, not struggling.
He stayed that way for 3 more days. My brother-in-law finally spoke some sense into my sisters, and they came to see him the last day he was alive. He was still in the coma, never opened his eyes, but they got to speak to him, and say their goodbyes. My niece and nephew were there too. It honestly seemed like he could hear what we were saying, cause there were times when his eyebrows would twitch, usually at times when one of us would make a light joke or something. And he was totally at peace, it seemed. He wasn't on any pain meds that day, either. We played some of his favorite music for him, I think he liked that. The nurse read some bible hymns to him, and although he was never religious nor am I, I think he found it comforting.
After my sisters left, Brandy came over. It was about midnight. Her and I talked at my dad's bedside, talking about my sisters and talking to my dad. I felt kind of uncomfortable talking to him directly with him in a coma, so she helped me talk to him. I told him that it was okay if he let go, that he could go see my mom, and keep her company, and see his dad and his mom.
Two hours later, I was finally getting ready for bed, and the nurse came and knocked on my door. I came out, and she told me that he was gone.
It's like... he had seen everyone he wanted to see, he was happy about that, and we had left, and then he knew... it was time. I don't think he wanted us to see him as he was letting go, which is why he waited til I had left even. It seems like him somehow, to keep his pride until that last moment, and not want others to see him like that. May sound kind of silly, but it makes sense to me.
Anyways, didn't really mean to go into details like that, sorry, haha. I'll try and keep the rest short. We had his service about a week later, it was nice. I did another lame poem. Even after he died, hospice continued to visit me to make sure I was doing okay. They really were a wonderful service. Totally free too. After the shit the doctors gave me it was just so nice to have people there for me who cared. I couldn't have asked for a better way to see my father go, honestly. Far, far better than dying in the hospital. I'm thankful my sisters got to see him too.
During all that , my sisters and I made amends. We talked about everything that had caused things to go so badly between them and our dad. Turns out it was just something really stupid. Him and my older sister, Debbie, had gotten into an argument at a barbeque she held for the family (I musta been in Davis then, cause I know I wasn't there). She had been working her butt off all day, cooking, cleaning, shopping etc., so she sees my dad sitting there with my brother-in-law, the two of them bullshitting and drinking beer as usual, so she asks my dad if he would like to cook the chicken. My dad's barbeque chicken was the *best*, everyone knew that, so she expected him to say sure. Well he didn't. He said he'd rather enjoy his beer. Well, Debbie, after working her butt off all day, was kind of annoyed. So they got into an arugment, and eventually it progressed to the point where she yelled "I'm tired of having to fucking do everything for you when we get together!" and him saying "I'll never come over anymore then!" My other sister, Dede, took her side of course. And yeah... that's all she wrote... THAT'S the reason why none of us spoke for like, 6 years. >.> I never knew the whole story. My dad left out everything except "it was at a barbeque", and "Deborah went bitchmode on me". xD I gotta say I don't blame Debbie at all for bitching him out. He coulda helped her out, and heck, he used to like barbequeing, and he was good at it, so it's not out of line to ask him even... Crazy.
Debbie felt a lot of guilt about not speaking with him for all those years, Dede did too I know, although she hasn't talked to me as much about it as Debbie has. Debbie only lives about 20 mins away from my dad's house, so she's been helping me through everything, and we've gotten pretty close. I'm quite thankful for that. I always liked her, it just always seemed like the age difference sucked (she's 40-some), but now that I'm older it's not quite as bad. She helped me deal with the funeral, all the shit about his house (he didn't have my name on the mobile home, so we had an ordeal to get it in my name... it's STILL not finalized), and is slowly helping me sell my mom's house (the market's so bad right now we're kinda taking our time, letting Jim/Richard pay rent). I've decided to stay in my dad's place. It's newer, only 7 years old, is as freaking big as a house, bigger than my mom's house (3 bedrooms, the master is huge, and a fireplace), nicer in some ways (sunk-in tub anyone?). Plus, I dunno, it's a fresh start for me. I felt like I needed one. I knew I did a year ago, but wasn't sure how to go about it.
I handled my dad's death way better than my mom's, maybe just because I was able to prepare for it kinda. One never is totally able to prepare, but you know what I mean. I at least saw it coming. My mom's was just such a shock. And after all the frustration I felt dealing with everything with my dad, his crappy insurance, his crappy doctors... in a way it was kind of a relief, although that always sounds bad when you word it like that. Again, you know what I mean. I loved him dearly, as much of a pain in the ass he was, but at least he's not in pain anymore.
Things are slowly piecing themselves together, bit by bit. I still have a lot to do, but I'll get there one step at a time.
Maybe next year I'll have something good to write about, eh?