Dave and his sister have been with their father for the last several days. He is of course still hospitalized and will be for awhile yet. Dave says he's doing incrementally better day by day. He can say a few words and sentences now and can move his right arm a bit. The doctors don't want to give anyone false hope, because in situations like this things can change on a dime, but still I think it's good to keep a positive outlook.
They have been sitting with him in the hospital every day, talking to doctors and nurses and case workers and physical and occupational therapists, but yesterday they went out to his house for the first time. From how things look, Dave thinks that his father may have had a stroke as far back late Thursday (Thanksgiving) or early Friday. The doctors think he had more than one and Dave agrees, since his father was able to get up out of bed and move around the house (he had cut himself and left blood in many place in the house, marking a trail) until he had another stroke and fell in the kitchen and was unable to get up, where the sheriff found him on Sunday.
Dave had called his father on Thanksgiving, so we know he was okay early that evening. That was when he told Dave that he was spending Thanksgiving alone, making a frozen pizza for his dinner. I asked Dave why he hadn't gone to a friend's house or called us so that he could have flown out here and joined us for the holiday, but Dave said he didn't ask.
Dave will be home tomorrow, but his sister will stay on and help move their father to a nursing facility where they hope he will be able to get to a point to start rehab. Dave's sister will also start the process of getting his house in order, first to make it through what could be a harsh winter, then to prepare it to be sold.
I am so sad about all this. Dave's father and sister were here about a month ago and we had begun planning an addition to our house for him to move into so that he would be near family. Dave was looking forward to having him here, as was I, and we were going to get a dog and everything was going to be great and we were all going to get along and there was going to be absolutely no problems whatsoever with our plan...
Right.
It's all so awful, all of it. The planning, the futility of planning, the hubris, aging and sickness and death all of it is just so heartbreakingly awful.
One of the things that Dave's father repeatedly said during their visit was that he would never want to be in a situation where he had to be taken care of 25/7 by strangers and he was planning on making an exit before then. He talked about his mother, Dave's grandmother, and how she had a stroke and felt it was so awful to have to be taken care of by strangers. Dave and his sister were uncomfortable with his talking about this--of course they were--and I once would have been, too, back before I worked with psychiatric patients and every single admission and evaluation I did included questions and conversations, thousands of them, about suicide and suicidal ideation. I pointed out to Dave's father that a lot of people thought the way he did--but the reality of it was that the majority of them miss their moment. It's not as easy as it sounds to bow out with a couple of handfuls of Seconal and what if you try and live, impaired, worse off than before. I was trying to gently say that there had to be other plans made, too, not for dying but for living in ways that we might think unacceptable even while--or maybe because--we cling so stubbornly, near arrogantly, to our independence and the fantasy of an easy exit.
I don't know what else to say.
Our Thanksgiving was nice. My aunt Char hosted and did the majority of the cooking. We joined her and my cousins and my mother for a late lunch. My cousin Josh deep-fried a turkey and my aunt made stuffing and gravy (vegetarian and non-vegetarian versions of both), salad, corn, brussels sprouts, and red chile. She picked up a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie. My mother brought mashed potatoes. We brought rolls and baked mac and cheese as a vegetarian main dish. It was a lot of food for six people, but we did our best. We stayed for a few hours, eating and chatting and then came home with full bellies and lots of leftovers. Our small family grows smaller year by year, but I think it's important to make time to be together, especially on the holidays.
The other important thing that happened is that Kevin texted to let us know that Kelly was doing fine. There have been leaks either being made or unmade, it's hard to know anymore which is correct, but for the moment it's a done deal and everyone is able to breathe a little easier. Thank goodness.
I don't know if we can ask for anything more, but if we can, please let everyone heal quickly and well. Amen.
While Dave has been gone, we tried boarding Gray Kitty at our vets' office. He is a complicated kitty and needs medication two and sometimes three times a day and subcutaneous fluids every other day. Dave can do his meds alone, but it takes two of us to give him sub-q fluids, so that is a big reason why we boarded him at the vet. After two nights, one of the vets called Dave in the morning and said that Gray Kitty was losing weight. He wasn't eating or drinking or using the litter box and he had ripped out one his claws (they say they don't know how it happened but suggested that he might have been trying to get out of his enclosure). So I went to pick him up. It means that he'll have to go without one round of his morning meds--I can't pill him by myself and Dave won't be home until later--but he is home. He came in and went straight to his water bowl and then settled down on his heated pad (we had sent it with him but I set it up here again as soon as we walked in the door). After awhile he had a couple of treats, accepted a few pets, and used the litter box. Then he ate a few more treats and a bit of both wet and dry food. So that nightmare is over for him for the moment.
It's almost 4:30 in the morning and I'm not sleeping but GK is, on his heating pad near his comfortingly full water bowl. Yes, I know I should be sleeping too, but that's not how things work anymore.
Christmas is in twenty-one days. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
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