caretaking

About Three Weeks


I don’t know if the hospice nurse was pressed for this time frame or she told just mom, but I got a semi-frantic call from DNOS.

“Did you talk to Mom?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know? And you are coming?”

“It was a couple of hours ago and she sounded awful. Dad didn’t sound too good either, but neither of them mentioned my coming now. Why?”

“The hospice nurse told them it will be about three weeks. Mom is wiring money to C.B. I think she should just buy him the ticket though.”

Let’s step back from this conversation for a moment to note that even though she is panicking in a mild way, she still remembers, and comments, on C.B.’s tendency to not use money sent to him for its intended purpose. And I won’t argue with her assumption. If anyone could eff up the opportunity to make amends with his dying father, it would be C.B.

I point out to her that it is much harder to buy an airline ticket for someone these days because mistakes are hard to fix. It will be better to just send money. I don’t remind her that C.B. will only bring more tension to a situation already fraught and if he doesn’t get home in time, it will make things easier for the rest of us.

“So are you telling me I need to come this weekend?”

“I don’t know. Mom said she was going to call you.”

And so the lines of communication begin their inevitable breakdown. Mom and DNOS are not on the same page.

“Well, Auntie and Cousin are visiting today. They are probably still in the middle of the visit. She’ll probably call me later. I’ll talk to her regardless of whether she calls me or I have to call her.”

I then went on to explain that any decision needs to wait until after Dad sees the doctor tomorrow. The doctor appointment on Wednesday revealed that fluid is indeed building up again and Dad mentioned to the nurse today he is feeling pressure on his chest. The likely scenario is that the doctor will suggest draining the build up or simply letting the cancer run its course. Whatever Dad decides. This will decide things for me too.

DNOS didn’t have much to say after that especially when I pointed out to her that I couldn’t come and hang out for weeks on end. I have a husband and child and even though they would survive without me, it is too long to be away given the stressful nature of everything. Rob, BabyD and I are still raw from our earlier losses. We worry too much about each other as it is. Throw distance in and the recipe is ripe for disaster.

This was not what DNOS expected to hear. She also did not expect me to ask her if she was really prepared for what is coming. It’s not easy to watch someone die. Dad’s death is not a hypothetical in the far future thing. It’s here.

Later I spoke with my mother, she had questioned the hospice intake nurse about the time frame. Wednesday Dad’s doctor took him off all his medications including the blood thinner which has essentially kept him from having any further strokes these last two and a half years. That has been running through her mind and today it occurred to her that this was done because Dad didn’t have much time left. Time that could be measured by weeks instead of months.

Mom was surprised though to hear about DNOS’s call to me. I was not surprised to learn that communication from now on was going to resemble a game of telephone.

The bottom line is that I don’t need to go right now.

But that time is coming much sooner than I had originally guessed and I guessed shorter than three months to begin with.

My Dad is Dying


My father is dying. Odds being what they are it would be surprising if he made it to the new year. Ironically it was two years ago this coming week that I had to come back here to help out because he was having surgery to unblock as artery in his neck that was causing him to have small strokes. He hasn’t been well since but has fought very hard to regain his health and independence. He quit smoking and drinking cold turkey. No small feat for a a life-long smoker and a functional alcoholic. He probably would have beaten his way all the way back but for the pulmonary fibrosis which set in a few months after my late husband died.

It seems to me that Dad is ready to go now. He is finally allowing he and mom’s will to be revised to reflect that changes in our family over the last five or so years. He talks openly about not being around much longer. My next younger sister, Katie, told me frankly last night that he is not doing even as well as he looks as though he is doing. The tell-tale sign to me is that he spends most of his time in bed sleeping. It’s one of those that the hospice people would point out when Will was at Kavanaugh House two years ago.

In light of all this, I pinned my sister down last night and we discussed the details that I would never get out of my mother. My sister admitted that she wishes I had moved back here after Will died. She is tired of taking care of the folks on her won as our youngest sister is, as my brother-in-law puts it, “A forty year old with the mind of a sixteen year old” and that is exactly as frustrating and maddening as it sounds. Katie has the power of attorney for both our parents and will make all the decisions once dad dies or goes into the hospital, which I think is unlikely. If he is fighting at all now it is to die at home. Being in Canada, I be the one walking in after the fact and taking instructions. And dealing with Mom. That my sister is emphatic about. Truthfully, I deal with her much better than Kate does and, sadly, I will understand where she is coming from too.

As often happens when we discuss Dad and the final arrangements, the subject of inheritance comes up. My dad grew up quite poor. My grandparents were tenant farmers during the depression and eventually ended up living with my grandmother’s father and working the homestead for him. My uncle eventually managed to buy the place in the mid-sixties but died in 1972 leaving the place to my grandmother who when she died had it divided up among the surviving children. It wasn’t a fortune but it gave my dad the opportunity to invest on a much larger scale than his pay from the meat packing plant ever could. And my dad is one shrewd money man. I have realized since college that he was amassing quite the tidy sum. He has explained bits and pieces to me over the years but I have never factored inheritance into any of my plans the way my siblings have. As it is, a careful person with a head for investing, or a good financial planner, could live a comfortable life with what my dad plans to leave behind for his children and grandchildren. And even though I am not one of those who views insurance money or inheritance as “blood” money, I would prefer not to be made comfortable this way.

Today, we are going out to the old homestead. Perhaps Dad will come along if he feels up to it. I haven’t seen it in years. For some reason I want to visit the old places from my childhood and teenage years. Take pictures. Share memories. Maybe it’s because of Dad or possibly it is the move to Canada and the feeling that I will not live here in the states for any extended length of time again. Whatever the case, the rain has finally stopped and it is a certainty that Rob, Katy and I won’t be seeing sunny day in the low seventies until next summer, so we will be spending our last full day in Iowa outdoors.