September 25 - Compression Stockings and Wedding Days

Thanks for the nice comments, guys.  I do see them and appreciate it.  Writing this helps me process stuff, too.

Dad was asleep and the aide was trying to wake him up when I arrived this morning.  I said hello and he asked for a couple of more minutes sleep.  The aide said she would come back in five.  Dad said he was freezing, so I started rubbing his legs and he told me how good that felt.  He slowly woke up and asked about the time, it was 7:10, and he said "okay let's get up", smiled at me, and didn't move.  About a minute later he threw the covers aside and sat up by himself.  Another aide came in to put compression stockings on his legs.  These things are like tight nylons and the aide had to wrestle them on Dad.  It took about ten minutes to put them on.  I was helping hold Dad in the upright position.  The aide was working up a sweat and Dad had her cracking up when he asked if she needed a break.  There was also alot of jokes about wanting a different color, or don't they have something in a fishnet that would match his slippers.

We made it to breakfast for some scrambled eggs and sweet roll.  He was a little teary toward the end of breakfast.  Dad was complaining about being cold, so after our scintillating conversation about the new season of NCIS with Luther at breakfast, we headed out to find some sun.

We found a sunny spot on the south side of the patio and I sat down on some nearby steps as Dad soaked in the sun.  Out of the blue, (because we haven't been discussing medical stuff at all for the last week), he asked what we were going to do, stay here, or go home.  I hadn't yet spoken to Tom or Bill about what occured Monday after I left, and I asked Dad if he had spoken with someone from hospice or the doctor.  He said he spoke to a women in red about hospice.  I asked him what he wanted to do and he said he would just as soon stay here, "No use moving everything back to the house and have people coming in and out."  Then he asked me what I thought and I told him I agreed.  I was a little confused when he asked a few minutes later if I thought he should "go to hospice".  I then did my best to explain that hospice was for the end of life and their job was to make the end as comfortable as possible.  Talking about the end as you can imagine brought tears to both of us.  I went on to tell him there would be no more doctors' visits, no more pills, no more blood tests, and no more PICC line (sorry Bill).  He said, "this hospice does have its upside."

About this time the sprinklers came on and we moved back to the patio and talked a little more.  He started to cry, but pulled himself together and said he had had a good life.  He said what a good job everyone of the kids had done for him during all of this.  I wanted to get him thinking about something else for a bit and I asked if he remembered his wedding day.  He told me about his day and all the pictures they had to take.  I asked if he had had a bachelor party and he said, "Oh, I'm sure Frank would have made sure I did."  Did he try to get you drunk?  "Oh, yeah, I think he succeeded."

One memory led to another and we gradually worked our way back to the present when Bill came by.  I told Bill we had a few questions about hospice and Bill explained that Dad would stay on the PICC line antibiotics based on information he got from Dr. Trang.  They also talked about getting Dad a heating pad to keep him warm,  It was getting late and once again, I hated to leave, but kissed him on the cheek and said "good-bye".