The Grim Uglies - View from the Back of the Tapestry

I haven't written in a while. Not because nothing is happening. Something is ALWAYS happening with Mom and Dad...or more specifically, Dad. He's incredibly unstable. It's a daily game of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A few weeks ago, Dad was back in the hospital. He has orthostatic hypotension, which basically means when he gets up (or, I should really say, when the aides get him up), his blood pressure plummets. Often, this results in an "unresponsive episode." He doesn't fully pass out, but he's completely not there. Eyes open, little or no response. So creepy to witness. Well, this happened and it took them 30 minutes to get him to snap out of it. They sent him to the hospital where two things were determined: He was dehydrated and depressed. He was also losing weight...fast. He's down 30 pounds this summer.

After two days, he was released after getting lots of fluids, intravenously, and an anti-depressant prescription. (The nurse practitioner at the nursing home had "denied" an previously prescribed anti-depressant because of the orthostatic hypotension, but Dad's former primary doc stepped in and said that the depression was obviously a key factor in his decline.)

So now, he's back at the nursing home. He's quasi-stable, but I know that can change in a minute's notice. We were able to get out of town for 5 days last week and, thankfully, I didn't receive any calls. Now Dad

But I have to tell you, when I got home, I was down. Getting old isn't for sissies and taking care of the old isn't for babies. It's dark and dirty. I really didn't feel like getting back into it. I didn't want to walk into that place that often smells like pee. I didn't want to sit next to my Dad and have him say nothing, forcing me to fill the silence with idle chatter. (I LOATHE small talk.) I just didn't feel like taking care of anybody but me and my husband. But, that's no longer my choice. And here is where I tell you that I wish I could quit. I wish I could pass the baton and let somebody else deal with this. But I can't.

There's a son that is at the nursing home EVERY day with his father. The father appears to be post-stroke or something severely disabling. The son doesn't look great himself. He's probably my age but has a terrible hump in his back. Regardless, he's there, every day, I'm guessing all day. Perhaps he doesn't work because of the hump. But he humbles me, because I can tell that he's willing to get in there and get dirty and deal with the minutiae. He changes his dad and feeds him. I've gone as far as feeding, slightly, and shaving. I haven't done the changing, but not because I'm unwilling. It really doesn't gross me out. But I feel like it's a respect thing. I don't think "old Dad" would want me changing new Dad. It would be embarrassing for him. So I've drawn a line there. But across the hall, Don Ho (no, seriously, that's the son's name) is doing it all. Putting me, a little bit, to shame.

We're getting to the grim uglies. I never know what state Dad will be in when we get there. Shaven or unshaven. Changed or unchanged. In bed or in a wheelchair. Most days, I want to run. I don't want to be there. I don't want to sit and listen to his roommate's phlegmy snoring while digging deep in my middle-age brain to figure out what to talk about. It's hard. I will win zero humanitarian awards for what I do because I don't do it with the purest heart. I'm just being honest.

I'm looking into moving Dad to a, hopefully, better nursing home where his call light might be answered in less than 25 minutes and his room would be cleaner and he'd be shaved regularly and administration would stop making promises and apologies and do their damn jobs. I'm kind of pissed at life right now.

Last week, our niece got married. It was a beautiful event celebrating a wonderful couple. But I have to tell you that during the ceremony, when they talked about "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health," part of me wanted to shout: LOOK OUT FOR THE SICKNESS AND THE WORSE. But that's my juvenile, selfish perspective. I don't want my niece or her husband to ever have to deal with some of the things that have come my way. Nobody should have to deal with children with developmental disabilities or parents with no money and poor health. But some of us do and we get through. I'm not dying. I'm not even crying. I'm whining, but you expected that, right? Like I said, no gold stars for this self-absorbed girl.

When our son was born, severely disabled, my husband and I spoke to our parish priest. We were young and very confused and expected this "man of the cloth" to help make sense out of this tragedy. (I would NEVER do that today.) In any case, he told us that sometimes life is like a tapestry. The front of it, what we usually see, is very pretty and makes sense. But sometimes, we're stuck looking at the back of the tapestry which is confusing, unattractive and with lots of loose ends. It was the perfect thing to tell us. I'm reaching back for that metaphor right now.