Not Knowing What You'll Find

When you are the allegedly responsible party for someone and you put them in someone else's care by leaving them overnight in the hospital, you get this nervous feeling when you are headed back to see them, worried about what went wrong and convinced that you are responsible. It feels like a sucker punch and you have to remind yourself that at the moment your job is to find your way to the facility and go in and then deal with what you find.

I left Dad at the hospital last night and went to his house for some food and rest. I felt like I was abandoning him. I'd had to remind the nurse to do something right before I left. And when I got away I wondered if they'd given him his evening meds. It was shift change and things are not always running smoothly. And his meds, well missing a dose is not necessarily life-threatening for him. My mother received an anti-convulsant that had to be dosed dead on so when she was hospitalized for a hundred days or so I went crazy with concern when they screwed it up.

So I found my way through the dark and fog this morning, ready for the sucker punch, hoping he was OK. He seemed to have been cared for just fine and they gave him pills last night he said. All he wanted really was his usual early pre-breakfast of a cookie and a cup of coffee. And guess what I brought?

I'm not a great caregiver, but I do care and that knot in my gut is my proof.

It's day two of Holidailies and I didn't want to miss so I did this on my iPhone.

Overwhelmed

Dad's surgery almost overwhelmed me. [This is an overwhelmed self-portrait, huh? What with the King (Elvis) on Velvet and the traffic that it looks like I'm in the middle of.] He took it in stride. Except in the recovery room they said he was 'in pain' and agitated. I spoke with a nurse on the phone and then she let me go into the recovery room to 'help wake him up' as his breathing was shallow and she had given him oxygen to get the levels up. She had given him Dilaudid. I ask if he was in pain. She said his eye hurt and then he had a headache. He said 'not too much.'

"He hasn't had anything to eat or drink since seven last night." I said. It was six o'clock in the evening.

"Would you like something to drink?" She asked him. She named some juice choices. Water. Coffee.

"Jack Daniels." he joked.

"He's joking with you. He's OK."

He swilled the apple juice but was less interested in a saltine. We got him up in a chair and got him coffee and more juice. They had an anesthesiologist look at him. Finally they let him go home. It was nearly eight. He had me stop at the grocery store and get him some take out fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Yeah, why not.

He seemed OK at home and I stayed a good while with him waiting to see if he could get back to a routine with his big eye patch. He was really sleepy. But that's one more surgery he survived and the surgeon said there was lots of scarring and it was hard to get the retina to take shape again but it did.

I was worn out when I got home. Still, I tried to look over my e-mail and respond to stuff and think what all I needed to take care of. And I treated myself to a Picon Bière, a drink I love that consists of pouring a light lager over a French liqueur called Picon that you cannot buy in the U.S. any longer. I watched a movie I'd recorded: "Six Degrees of Separation." I really liked it. My kind of movie, but I'd never seen it. I read a little in the newspaper. And so it goes. I stayed up too late. But today I have a tennis game, I take my dad to the doctor for patch removal and exam and I have a social event. In between maybe I'll get some of the things on my 'to do' list done. But I don't feel so overwhelmed. Hospitals are like that. Did I catch up on my reading at least? Not so much. I read The Austin Chronicle and my book about Krakatoa a bit and read the Monday Arts section from The New York Times and worked the puzzle therein. I tried to read my book in the recovery room with the beeping machines and me saying to my dad "Breathe deeply, Pop." "Deep Breath, Daddy." He looked old and fragile in the recovery room. (I was not amused when the gal who came to get me in the gift shop said she knew I was his daughter because I looked just like him.)

I Seem to Be Missing

I am sitting at my computer looking through pictures before I go play tennis. I discover that I didn't post anything on this blog yesterday, breaking a record that has gone on for a couple of months. Not that I was trying to set a record. I was just trying to give myself a chance each morning to write (or type) and reflect (ahem) on things.

Yesterday I was out of the house by a few minutes after seven and not back until about 10:30. Then I had a meeting at twelve. (Which I still need to do the minutes from...why do they call them minutes when these things never take less than an hour? The Hours. There was a cool book and movie. But I digress.)

I took my dad for his pre-op visit to the hospital before his surgery. With picking him up and taking him home it took over three hours.

"Are you an organ donor?" asks the kid filling out paperwork.

My dad looks nonplussed. "I never, I, I think I've worn everything out and I'm not sure anything would be good to anyone."

That's a 'no' son. My mind races. Skin? Bone? Heart? Lungs? Liver? Gee. He's probably right.

Not that he's afraid of talking about dying. He doesn't call the paperwork the boy is copying a "Living Will." He calls it a DNR.

"I don't think I'll get anything done again," he says when we are waiting between visits from various people in the pre-opt exam room

"You will if you are in pain or can't see," I say. "Remember with your back? You said 'try anything!' Now that your vision is impaired you are willing to do this without a second thought to see if it will help."

We visited with no less than eight different people. One typed a computer screen full of stuff that must have been handwritten and faxed by the surgeon. One was the business manager for the anesthesiologist who was responsible for seeing if they would somehow get paid, I think. The anesthesiologist worried about putting him under a general. His walkie-talkie and his phone were calling to him simultaneously from either side of his belt. A small kid with a weird haircut mostly covered by a scrub cap drew blood and gave him an EKG. The EKG waiting room had a copy of The New Yorker from the last presidential election. Not as old as some of the ones in my bathroom, but still.

A long process. But they do have valet parking. Of course, he has to go back to have the actual surgery.

When someone is missing, we think that there is a void but then we adjust. Somebody else does this, that accommodation is made, we decide this was never necessary. Like the visible woman. The blog that is. My five readers wasted time elsewhere yesterday and not much was lost from the world. Do we really miss Fred Thompson and John Edwards in the presidential race now? It's OK Fidel, someone else will take over. You made it over fifty years.

OK, weird mood, huh? If you don't see me for a day or two, don't despair. But I know my duties will be taken up or, like this tome, were never that important anyway.