Dying for a drink (part II)....mercury

Mom needed a break. A bunch of the girls from work were going "Tubing" for the weekend and she decided that she was going to go with them. There's nothing like floating down an icy cold river in the heat of July on an inner tube to help you forget your troubles... They had made this trip a couple times before and it was beginning to be an annual event. In fact, they still have their "Floating Floozies" weekends and the group has grown from 8 or 10 of them to over 50! They are a wild bunch of women and if you are ever in Northern Michigan in mid-July.... WATCH OUT!

Mom was really nervous about going this year. She was very much afraid to leave Dad home alone. She asked me if I would come to stay with him. She was leaving Friday evening after work and would be back home sometime late Sunday afternoon. I had to work on Saturday until early afternoon, but I told her that I would come over right after work and stay until she got home. She called the neighbors and his one remaining friend, Pat, to see if they could do some house calls until I could get there. They were happy to help out; they knew she needed even the shortest break.

Pat came by on Friday and spent the evening with him and came back early on Saturday. He brought Dad breakfast, which was refused; and lunch, which was stashed in the fridge for later. Pat stayed and visited for a while, then left. Cap, the neighbor, came down and found Dad napping. Seeing that everything was okay, he went back home and continued on with his yard work. A while later he went back to check and see if he was up from his nap. He found Dad sleeping again, but this time it didn't seem to be a nap. The walls were black with smoke. There was a garden hose strung through the back door. The kitchen was demolished by the fire. Cap had never seen the smoke; the houses were too far away from each other and the trees were too tall for a clear view. Dad was in his easy chair, probably exhausted by the effort of putting out that fire with a garden hose. How he managed it when he could barely stand is beyond us, but he was still alive. I have wondered "Why?" for the longest time, but we all had lessons to learn from this experience and that's my answer. The only injuries he sustained were a couple of burns on his arm and some smoke inhalation. The house looked scary. My mother's greatest fear had come true. All was repairable, but finding a place to live while the repairs took place was going to prove to be tricky. Everyone was willing to take in Mom, but not Dad. Not even his family.

Up until this point I have neglected to speak of the mental problems my father had. He hallucinated quite a bit. He lived in the past. He talked about his life 30 years ago as if it were yesterday, but couldn't tell you what he did the day before, or even ten minutes ago. I sometimes wondered if he even remembered that I had been born. Most of the time I think he thought I was my mom. We knew he didn't know Mom; he began calling her Sharon, even though that's not her name, but it was better than what he used to call her.

I spent most of that afternoon and evening in the Emergency Room with Dad. We had gotten a hold of Mom and she was on her way back home, but wouldn't arrive for a few more hours. Scott was waiting for her at the house; No one should have to walk into her home, alone, after something like that.

The doctor that was treating Dad asked me if these delusions he was having were "normal". I know I gave him a funny kind of look, but I replied, Yeah, this is about normal for lately." The next words out of his mouth were something about there being no need to keep him and that he was discharging him. I freaked. I didn't know what to do! Here I have on my hands a mentally incapacitated father who had just burned up our family home trying to deep fry a hot dog (????), chain smoking imaginary cigarettes and not comprehending a thing about what has just occurred. How could I cause even more confusion by taking him to my home, which he had never been to? We didn't even have a change of clothing for him! I just flat out didn't know how to handle this situation. I could NOT let him be discharged. This man needed medical attention in a big way, but not for the events of this particular day. Why couldn't the professionals see that?

Dad wasn't feisty anymore. He didn't fight back. He was worn out and worn down. If I told him he needed to stay, he'd stay without an argument. I knew that.

I told the doctor that I was considering changing my answer to that question. He suggested that he would think I was lying if I did. I explained the situation to him, in tears, and it turns out that the man did actually have a heart. He understood my overwhelming situation and the fact that I had to handle this on my own for the time being and arranged to get Dad a room under the premise that his burns needed nursing care. This bought us a 10-day stay, compliments of Blue-Cross/Blue-Shield.

During this time we had a lot things to take care of.... insurance claims to make, inventory of what was damaged in the house, contractors to hire, arrange a place for mom to stay (our little 1 bedroom house was shrinking around us), and maybe most importantly, a place for Dad to go. He was to the point that we just couldn't take care of him ourselves. Mom was still working. She was close to retirement, but it was still a few years off and he couldn't be left alone again.

The social workers at the hospital had a hard time finding any nursing homes with an available opening. Homes that take in patients with dementia are hard to find. We managed to get lucky.... They found an opening at one of the best homes in the area, a home that took in Alzheimers and Dementia patients. It was located on a lake in a beautiful old mansion that once served as a single-family home. It had beautiful gardens and was surrounded by huge old weeping willows. The setting was beautiful. Dad could be happy here. Mom was attending a seminar that weekend, I had to make this decision alone and I had to make it now. I had no idea how much my mom could afford to spend on his care, or even IF she could afford it, but if I left without leaving a deposit they would call the next person waiting and the space would be gone. One of the social workers had told me that they had a long waiting list, but that they make exceptions for cases such as Dad's. So, I wrote out a check, paying for the room to be reserved for the next three days, until we could consult with Mom.

I think my mother had her head firmly implanted in her posterior for a little while there.... she seemed to be taken completely by surprise that I had done all of this while she was gone. Had she missed all those conversations we had participated in regarding how we could no longer do it ourselves? Had she missed the conversation in which the doctor had suggested "permanent care"? Had she forgotten that he no longer qualified for nursing care for his hospital stay, but that he was only being kept there until we could make alternate arrangements? I think she was in denial herself, up until that point.

I regret to say that I didn't visit Dad much while he was in the nursing home. It was just too hard for me to leave him there. The last time I went was very nerve wracking for me. I felt like I was abandoning my own child.... He thought he was at a restaurant that some of his co-workers had dropped him off at for lunch, but they had left without him. He thought he needed to get back to work or he'd be fired. I tried to explain to him where he was and that he didn't work any more. He didn't catch on. Earlier he had explained to me how he thought my mom was scamming the insurance company or something.... "Look at this beautiful house they re-built for me!" When I left he had tears in his eyes and so did I. His were from an imaginary worry, mine were from my heart breaking.... but they were there, just the same.

He tried to escape one time and actually succeeded for about 15 minutes. The nursing home was set in a residential "country" neighborhood and most of the neighbors watched out for "escapees". Someone spotted him and called the front desk. He hadn't even made it to the main road before they caught up with him. The funny part of this is that he had turned the t-shirt he was wearing inside out before his escape.... In case anyone was looking for him in THAT shirt. His mind still worked in amazing ways.

Mom moved back into the house in late October, but she was very leery of allowing Dad to move back in. She was enjoying doing her own thing and not having to constantly worry that there was some disaster awaiting her return. She could go about life and know that he was safe and that someone was making sure of it. By now, Dad was walking well again and had even gained some weight. He was looking the best I'd seen him in what seemed like years. His brain was even starting to work better.... I know they say that brain cells don't regenerate, but I don't know that I believe that after what I witnessed with my father. His burns were fully healed and insurance was no longer taking care of the bill and it would cost $3500 a month to keep him there. It was becoming increasingly apparent that he no longer NEEDED to be in this nursing home, but we were so worried about what would happen when he left this protected environment.

We ended up with what we thought was a plan for transition to independence. He would stay with Scott for a while. At that time Scott was putting forth great effort at keeping his own sobriety, and was, conveniently, between jobs and between wives. We thought that they would be able to help each other stay sober. We shouldn't think so much....

Scott stopped at the grocery store on his way from bringing Dad home. He left Dad in the car, but when he came back out, he found Dad crossing the parking lot with a brown paper bag in his arms. He'd managed to find and get to a liquor store within an hour of his release. Scott kept this knowledge to himself for over a month before he couldn't take it any more. He finally broke down and told my mom that Dad had to leave, that there wasn't a chance of him staying sober himself with Dad there. I know he felt like he was disappointing my mom, but he had no other choice. Dad was back to drinking everyday. I asked him one time why he didn't just grab a gun and get it over with. I was very angry with him and I hung on to that anger for a long time, but I always managed to put my anger aside temporarily when I knew that he needed kindness and love.

I knew that this time around there would be no coming back from it. He had cheated death so many times already; it was just a matter of how long it would take. The wait wasn't long according to a calendar, but seemed positively endless.

I have pictures from that last Christmas and wonder how in the world the man in them could be my father. My dad was so handsome. Photos of him from his younger days remind me of a young Elvis. He had blue-black wavy hair that he wore slicked back with "greasy-kid-stuff", as he called it, and bright twinkling blue eyes. He had beautiful, whiter than white, perfectly straight teeth that he loved to show off in a wide grin that spread all the way across his cheeks and right up to his eyes. The man in those pictures looked like a bleached out version of the original. His hair turned gray, and then yellow from all the nicotine that stained it. His eyes were empty from so much pain and loss. They didn't work right anymore, either. He had a condition in his eyes that many alcoholics develop, where they won't exactly "hold" a picture. He described it like the "horizontal hold" on a television gone out of whack. His teeth had rotted from lack of care and constant contact with alcohol, which is basically comprised of sugars. His skin took on a grayish cast. This is my dad.... a man who looked at least 25 years older than his 56 years. In fact, I often used to compare him to my maternal Grandfather, who at 80 years of age appeared to be much younger than Dad.

It was that next May that death's shadow stayed with us. He couldn't walk again. That was always our first sign that we were in for another long haul. It came on so quickly this time though. Within a few days he couldn't talk, or even sit up. Mom had been feeding him Valium again to keep him alive and out of with-drawls for a couple of days, but she could tell that it was much more serious than she wanted to believe. She called the hospital and asked them to send an ambulance over. I sat next to his chair with him and waited. I bent to give him a hug, but was afraid of hurting him. He was so frail by this time. I told him that I loved him. He told me I was good. I waited my whole life to hear those words from my dad and now that I had, I wondered if he even knew what they meant. Regardless.... those words meant, and still mean, a lot to me. I consider that exchange Dad's and my way of saying good-bye to each other. I need to believe it was the last that his spirit was fully present. They were the last words I heard my father speak.

The next 19 days were pure hell. I can't think of any other word to accurately describe it. His body was failing, but he wasn't giving up just yet.

He had to have a feeding tube inserted due to his severe malnourishment. We could have chosen to allow him to starve to death, but were informed that it was usually a painful type of death. We didn't want that. We wanted to keep him comfortable, but we knew that there would be no homecoming for him this time around.

He had a catheter inserted and we could tell by the dark color of the urine it collected that his kidneys had either shut down or were working very minimally.

His muscles had atrophied so badly that his body was continually shifting into fetal position. We had to stretch his legs for him every so often. No sooner would we have his legs stretched out for him than they'd start to curl back up again. He had no control over it, it just happened.

When he slept he would get himself turned around on the bed, somehow. This is what caused his feeding liquid to be aspirated into his lungs and for one of his lungs to collapse. This is what caused him to be transferred to I.C.U. to be put on life support.

He was put on life support because it wasn't something that we had thought to discuss with the doctors and apparently it was something that they had forgotten to discuss with us. Now he's hooked up to machines that do his breathing for him and he hasn't opened his eyes at all in a couple of days. We have to get him weaned him off the respirator naturally or obtain a court order to have it removed. We took the option of weaning, but it was a long and draining process. He started breathing on his own again and his oxygen levels were staying steady. The respirator came off and he was transferred back into a regular room where we could wait it out.

The wait wasn't long. Early the next morning, the phone ringing woke me up. It was Mom. The hospital had just called her. Dad's lung had collapsed again. We'd better get to the hospital, there wasn't much time left. I hurried to dress and met Mom in his room. She had spent some talking time with the nurse on duty while she waited for Scott and I to arrive. The nurse told her that Dad was exhibiting some of the signs of death. His skin was beginning to mottle and he was starting with the "death rattle" (breathing that emits a sound that I can't describe to you, other than extremely labored and wheezy or raspy) and other things that I can't remember now. He would most likely pass away within the next 24 hours.

Mom and I sat vigil all through that day. Scott stayed for a while, but he was sick with Strep Throat and didn't want to make us sick. I went home briefly in the early afternoon to shower and take a short nap. It was looking like we would be in for a long night.

At about 9:00 that night, I got up to leave. I told Mom good-bye and gave her a hug and asked her to call me if there was any change, no matter how minor. I didn't want to leave, but I had so many things that I had been neglecting at home and I was feeling guilty. Luckily for me, my husband is very understanding in matters like this. He was being very patient and helpful, but I missed him terribly. I was feeling like I was neglecting myself, too. I needed to go home so that someone could take care of me for a little while. I was worn out from trying to be strong for Mom.

Just as I reached to door to leave, he started breathing in a raspy way.... the death rattle again. Mom eyes pleaded with me to stay and of course I stayed. He quieted back down and slept peacefully for the next couple of hours.

Again, at around 11:30 he started breathing weird. Mom and I looked across him at each other. We had each taken a post at opposite shoulders and we were each holding one of his hands. I squeezed and told him that it was okay; he could go now; I would make sure that Mom was okay. We held his hands and sent our love to him as he drew his final breath. We stayed that way for several moments, not wanting to believe in the finality of it. Mom and I finally looked up and at each other again. We moved around him to hug and hold each other close.

I didn't mean to be insensitive when I asked her if she was relieved that it was finally over. She broke down sobbing saying that, "No she wasn't relieved! Her husband was dead!" All I knew was that Dad wasn't grieving anymore, he didn't feel any more pain and he was now with all of those that he had lost and missed so much. I thought that Mom's faith was strong enough that she would see it this way, too. She would in time, but not right then; it was way too soon.

In more ways than I can count... but most of all I learned that I am good enough.... I am strong enough.... And that I do know how to love.

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