Sunday, July 29, 2007

31 and counting

I had a wonderful birthday today! Thank you to everyone that called, emailed and text messaged me today. As well as my wonderful friend Ann who knitted me a towel and sent me a goodie from William Sonoma! Oh and the birthday love from Aunt Janny was most appreciated as well. Jason is here in Phx this week which has been lovely. I feel like I have been able to relax for the first time in months. We went to a Diamondbacks game today with Deb, David, the kids and my friends Erica and Casey. The Dbacks won which was cool since neither Jason nor I have ever been to a major league or minor league game where the home team won. We were convinced we were going follow Pete Rose into the baseball hall of fame, banned from baseball. Must go to sleep now, will try to post pix from today tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A relatively good day

Today we had three doctor related appointments starting at 9am. I thought for sure by the end of the day, Dad would be ready to pass out, but honestly I think he had more energy because he didn't sleep all day. We saw his chiropractor first who did a bunch of massage, then off to the cardiologist for a check up. Dad's blood pressure is still below 100 so the doc tweaked some of his medication. But other than that the cardiologist thought Dad was doing well.

Next we went down to St. Joe's for a follow up ultrasound on the clot in Dad's right leg. It is still there and it's not any worse but the radiology tech wouldn't say if it is better. Dad can't take blood thinners the way other people who have clots do since he is such a fall risk. Just today he was walking through a door, snagged a bit of his arm on the door frame and started bleeding. So obviously he doesn't even need to fall to bleed.

It rained like crazy here about 4pm when we were trying to leave the hospital. It has been a long time since I saw rain like that here. It happens all the time in Connecticut. But seeing people wading in knee high water to cross the street in a desert is just weird. Phoenix needed the rain though and it made the temp stay below 90 degrees which is unheard of for late July.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Setback

So last night I was coming back inside from lighting the barbecue in time to see dad go crashing to the floor. He was feeling pretty good yesterday so he decided to take off from his chair without his walker. Then I guess he decided he should go back and get it. The turning process didn't go well and I there was no way I could get to him before he went down. He's ok for the most part. He ripped the skin away from his elbow. Not bad enough to need stitches but pretty ugly looking. Our friend Judy, whose a nurse, came over and said that if we weren't concerned with the aesthetic aspect of a scar she didn't think we needed to worry about stitches. I think we are past that at this point.

It made me very angry that he decided he was all better and didn't need the walker. I then caught him again last night being ocd and trying to accordion fold the bedspread while only balancing against the bed with one hand and no walker. Just as I got to him he got tangled up in his feet and started to fall. Fortunately I was right there and was able to hip check him, changing his course so he fell on the bed instead of the floor. Despite only weighing 141 lbs. right now, he is still too heavy for me. I had a hard time picking him up off the floor when he fell the first time yesterday. We have these old library stools around our house that my mom got when she worked at the library. So I used one of the short ones from a kid's table to put dad on so I didn't have to lift him very high. But there was still an instant where I thought I wasn't going to be able to make it which would have been bad.

I have an appointment with an in-home care agency on Tues. to start finding a replacement for me in his care giving. He is just so much more cognisant when he is at home compared to other places. Even at the doctor's office he is much more confused. So I guess as long as he can afford it, we are going to try and make this work instead of the carehome.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

saddness

today my dad woke up very confused. he thought it was sunday and was dressed and knocking on my bedroom door at 6:15. i didn't know why he was up, just thought he felt like getting up early. at 10 min to 7am he said, well are you ready to go? go where? church. dad, it's saturday. it is? once i convinced him that it truly was saturday, he slumped into a quietness that lasted all morning. his chiropractor sent us home with a vibrating massage thing for me to use on his back this weekend because dad's muscles are so stoved up. by the end of the 15 min i felt so jumpy and pretty much did the rest of the morning. i went to a yoga class at 11am and could feel the saddness creeping in. the saddness is exactly what my dad had been displaying all morning. i really think the massage i gave him let the bad chi in.

i've heard that massage therapists have this problem from time to time. the cares and troubles of whomever they are massaging, transfers into them. the bad chi travels from their clients into them. i'm assuming they know how to get rid of it. wish i did.

sorry i haven't posted any photos for such a long time. this is the most unphotographic period of my life. never thought that would happen.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

A wonderful weekend

Today was my first day back on the daddy detail after a wonderful carefree weekend in Newport. My bridesmaid Jacqueline and her amazing mother-in-law, Joan, hosted an elegant luncheon on Sat for my bridal shower. The weather was gorgeous (75 degrees and sunny) so we devoured carmelized brie, mixed greens w/strawberries, chicken salad on croissants, and to-die-for chocolate cupcakes out on their deck. Not to mention endless white wine spritzers. I felt incredibly loved. Good friends, good weather, good gifts, good beach and good booze. Could not have asked for anything better.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Guilt and its many forms

So today I finally made it to the gym. I've been kind of letting my dad believe that I have these important errands I have to run which means he has to stay at the care home. I know I need to do things for myself like go to the gym or out to coffee with a friend just for my own sanity. But that doesn't mean I don't have guilt. I was talking to my friend the other day who has two kids. I told her that at least she and her husband have jobs that they HAVE to go to so the kids have to go to daycare. But I could be at the house and sometimes am at the house when he is stuck over at the care home. I don't really tell him I come back here to work on the computer or make calls since in theory he could be here while I'm doing it. But it isn't that simple. Just like those who work from home can't get crap done when their kids are around. Something else always needs your attention. So far he actually seems ok to leave alone for a little bit. I went to the grocery store on Sat. for an hour and a half. I made him promise me that he would not get out of the bed. He sits on the side of the bed and uses a urinal so the whole bathroom thing is less of an issue. I leave the phone with him with my number printed in big numbers, the newspaper, his walkman and the remote. But the whole time I'm gone, I'm worried about whether he has gotten up or not.

My friend and I decided though that taking care of kids is way easier than taking care of someone who used to be a functioning adult. If one of her kids does something they aren't supposed to, she can just send them to their room or ground them. I can't do much about it if Dad refuses to do something. I will say the one liberating thing about my new role as caregiver is that the stupid shit he always wanted me to do as a kid I don't have to do anymore. For example, he always wanted me to put all the things that needed to go on the table for dinner onto this tray. I hated the tray. It was heavy and things had a tendency to teeter off it and I just didn't like it. We used to go 8 rounds all the time over this dumb tray. But early this week I was setting the table and he said you know it would be much more efficient if you used the tray. I replied that I was 30 years old, on verge of getting married, a professional photographer and now 24 hour caregiver, and if I didn't want to use the damn tray there was nothing he could do about it. So there. It was nice. :O)

Sunday, July 08, 2007

what a difference a week makes

wow, last week at this time I was at the newspaper in New London finishing up my last night as weekend photo editor. this sunday marks the end of one of my hardest weeks of my life. i got home monday and they released my dad from the hospital on tues. i took him over to the care home i arranged for him after we left the hospital. wed. morning at 6am he calls me saying i have to come pick him up right now because he could not spend another moment in another institution. the first night obviously did not go well. i guess there was some noisiness on the part of the staff at the shift change which pissed him off. plus he said he could hear someone down the hall moaning. so i am now a full time caregiver. the first 24 hours was the scariest. i had no idea what i was doing and i guess i still don't. i didn't sleep much that night because i kept going to check on him, swearing i heard him fall. he was asleep in bed everytime i went to look. i'm going to rhode island next weekend for 4 days so he knows he has to stay there while i'm gone. since wed, i've had him there almost everyday for a shower and for a 4-6 hour stay with hope that easing into it will make it seem less a big deal. i'm probably kidding myself because i know he will hate every moment of it.

he keeps trying to do things the way he has always done. not launching himself forward with the walker at a crazy 45 degree angle has been a tough concept to get through to him. his blood pressure still plummets when he gets up so he has to stand for a few moments before moving to let things level out a bit which he doesn't always remember to do. today he had two dizzy spells but so far (knock on wood) hasn't lost his balance. i have to get him dressed in the morning and poach his egg just right. i have to listen to him bitch about bush or the asinine commercials that he seems to feel forced to watch on t.v. but i think this is the fastest way to some sort of recovery. i'm not sure what is going to happen to my father over the next weeks and months. i hope he can come to connecticut for the wedding. the doctor said that he thought it would be ok. he would just need to get up from time to time.

i just wish he would brighten his attitude about everything. the reason he hates the care home so much, which by the way is not nearly as traumatic as he makes it seem, is that he sees a bunch of old ladies waiting to die and he sees himself in the same position. i try to tell him that this place is not going to be his future. it is a place that will keep him safe until he can get back on his feet again. i actually like all the ladies there and they like him quite a bit, but he won't interact with them much. there is one lady there that definitely has alzheimers but she knows it. our first evening there she kept repeating that her husband owned the feed and seed store and did dad know him. finally after the 10th time the store came up dad said, oh you were just saying that. she apologized and said she didn't mean to repeat herself all the time it just happens that way sometimes. dad says well that's ok i thought maybe you had more than one husband that worked at the feed and seed store. she laughed and said no, just the one, and that's all she could handle. so he could be charming if he wanted to. my mom had an uncle bill who was in his 90's and would say when he got depressed he would go down to the nursing home and help out the old people. i wish dad would help out the old people instead of dwelling so much on how he was one too.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

A bit of vacation

So I am headed back to Phx tomorrow after spending 10 days in Connecticut. I had two weddings to shoot during that time, plus I owed The Day a couple of days. Plus I got a lot of stuff done for our wedding. I won't be back in CT until Aug. 29 so I had to meet with a lot of our vendors while I was here.

It was a mixed blessing being here. It was nice to get a break and be able to think a bit outside of all that is happening with my dad. But it was incredibly hard to have to try to manage his healthcare over the phone.

He still is in the hospital. The rehab center was going to release him to the care home right before I left, but then they decided his blood pressure problem was too volatile to have him out of a hospital setting. So they sent him back to St. Joe's neuro lab. He has now been there the entire time I have been gone.

There were some rough patches in the last week. He got extremely dehydrated and his medications were making him out of his head a bit with paranoia. He told me he thought he was in prison and that he'd been trying to call 911 for someone to come rescue him. Then he said that it was a conspiracy and that I was in on it to keep him prisoner.

That was one of the worst conversations I've ever had to listen to. It scared me so much. I called and talked to his nurse who said she was aware of the problem and had called the doctor. I talked to the doctoer later in the day and he said it was a combination of the dehydration and medication. They got an IV in him and my cousin Patty who went down after I called her in a panic said it really calmed him down and made him come around again.

Since then, they did a chest xray and cat scan to make sure that the blood pressure problem was not some rare form of cancer which it was not. However they did find a pulmonary embolism that was lodged between his heart and his lung. They thought with his inactivity lately it formed in his leg and broke off, making it's way back north. They said it was sheer luck that it didn't kill him. So they threaded a filter into the vain to prevent it or anything else that shouldn't be there from making it back to the heart.

So it is a mixed bag going back there tomorrow. I'll be more able to be on top of things, but not very fun things to be on top of.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers through this. My dsl still was not up and functioning when I left so hopefully more posts soon.
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