Seismic Twitch

We were down to see Dad on Monday and Tuesday. Things haven’t changed any since I wrote last. Dad is not eating though he did take a few spoons of porridge on Monday morning and ice cream on Monday and Tuesday evening. They are still using Seroquel to sedate him when they are able to get him to swallow anything. If they don’t sedate him then they’d have to restrain him. For most of the visit Dad was non-responsive. He was responsive for very short time periods (two to three minutes) in a day. When he became agitated he’d strip himself of bedding, bed clothes, endanger the IV by pulling it (the entire pole and mechanics) down and out of his arm.

He would point at things that weren’t there and try to talk. However, because he has been breathing through his mouth it was impossible to understand much of what he was saying. He did tell me he loved me after I said I loved him, asked me “where is she” and when I asked who the she was, he looked confused and said he didn’t know. Then after a couple of spoons of ice cream he said “that’s enough”. I know he was trying to say things, he would repeat sound patterns when I said I couldn’t understand. This was quite frustrating.

This was only for a short time last night. Monday evening he was non-responsive and unconscious. Now we just wait while his body slowly poisons itself because of his kidneys not working properly. They work some as he has some urine passing through his body (the catheter bag had urine in it), but not enough to properly detox his body. He’s also slowly starving to death since he refuses to eat except for a few spoons of food in a day.

I emailed work while I was out of town and updated them as to what was going on. This way when Dad does die, they’ll be semi-prepared. I’ll need to be gone somewhat longer because, as with the power of attorney, both my sister and I are named as executors of Dad’s estate. There will be business I’ll have to be out of town for.

The stay at home was painful and awkward. I don’t want to be around my older brother and wouldn’t be if it weren’t for Dad dying. Bran was having difficulty with this as well since what affects me, tends to affect him as well, especially with family stuff. The entire house reeked of cigarette smoke. It probably wouldn’t have repulsed me so much but for my distaste for being around that particular person.

Bran went through the house and looked at things that needed to be done in order to get it fixed up for sale. Most of the work is cosmetic (paint, new flooring, cleaning carpets) with the exception of needing to gut the main bathroom and update the master 1/2 bath.

I went through some of the stuff in the basement. You can tell that Mom and Dad were children of the 1930s and lived on a very limited budget for many years of their marriage. I found an amazing number of things that most everyone now-a-days would have thrown out. Mom saved things like aluminum take out containers and styrofoam plates from under meat (she washed them up and saved them for who knows what). There were also various plastic containers for condiments, peanut butter and other things saved. I don’t know how we’re going to work out things around the work needing to be done around the house. I know my brother can’t be there for much of it since a) it needs to have the house cleared and b) he smokes. Any renovations need to make the house smell fresh to make the house more saleable.

I’m glad to be home. II missed Boy a lot while we were gone. We left Dad’s at about 9:30 this morning and arrived home around noon. While we were gone Boy did a lot of work to have the kitchen mostly clean. When we got home he made us Lipton’s chicken noodle soup for lunch (he forgot to take bread out so couldn’t make us sandwiches) and then he washed up all the dishes he used to create and serve lunch. He’s a darling boy. I’m glad I’m home and he’s around me again.

I got home to the happy news of receiving my mail package from China. After lunch we all piled into the car (I let Boy sit in the front since Bran had also greatly missed Boy) and off we went to the Shoppers Drug Mart where the package depot is. I now have a couple of different styles and sizes of nickel free silver spacer beads (Tibetan style), a couple different styles and sizes of nickel free bead caps (Tibetan style), two different lengths (2 cm and 3 cm) eye pins, and 200 metres of nickel free jewelry chain. Yes, it was a heavy package. They didn’t send me one item that I ordered 2000 pieces of. So I sent them an email telling them.

Everything I got has been repackaged into labelled plastic containers from the zippered plastic bags except for the chain. I want to spool that onto dowels to keep it from getting all tangled. Right now that’s also in a plastic bag. I didn’t expect that. I expected it to come spooled.

Anyway, I’ll be looking at my beading stuff and seeing what needs to be redone. I want to make sure it’s all quite durable. I used super glue on some of the pieces and those ones need to be redone because of it. The super glue makes two weak spots in the wire at each side of the glue site. The closer is also a weak spot because the crimp bead might slip (for things like bracelets and necklaces). This is especially important for the bracelets since more people tend to wear bracelets more long term (days at a time) than they do necklaces.

So, guess what I’ll be doing for the next few days. Yeah, knitting. HAH!

Today was the funeral of my friend’s husband. It was a lovely service. I was watching his kids while the service was ongoing. One is two years old. She won’t remember more than a few vague things about her dad. The other is six. He’ll remember more but still, the memories won’t be his own. They’ll be augmented by what he hears other people say about his dad.

It was rather ironic that the two paganish people there are placed in the front row of one of the sections of the church. I asked Bran to do up one more button on his shirt as his pentacle tattoo might have been showing. Of course I cried through nearly the whole service. Well, not so much cried as leaked a lot. And blew my nose a fair number of times. I didn’t know the man, but I know his wife and I know they loved each other a lot. I cried for her and the kids and some for my own fear of Bran dying.

They totally ruined Amazing Grace by sticking new lyrics in there. It was a perfectly beautiful song before. Why go and add that religious stuff in? It was a song about redemption and was made sappy. Sad. I did get to hear The Old Rugged Cross sung in real life. It’s not a common hymn sung in Catholic churches.

In stark contrast the the casket containing the body of my friend’s husband were the two wee infants near the back of the church. Neither of them were more than a couple of weeks old. Life does go on in its cycles.

Despite his dying so young (he was 35) he probably knew he wouldn’t live to an old age because of his heart defect. Maybe that’s part of why my friend appears to be coping so well right now. Or perhaps she’s just putting one foot in front of the other, coping from minute to minute.

It got Bran and I thinking about our final arrangements. Of course, he’s been banned from dying first. I laid down that law ages ago. Anyway, the most significant thing is that we don’t have to try and find a guardian for Boy. That’s an enormous relief considering our religious/spiritual (or lack thereof) leanings. What we have to figure out is what kind of service we want, if any. Then we have to figure out the practicalities of being poor and having to pay for a very expensive service. Even simple funerals cost and arm and a leg. When Bran’s mom died in 2001 (Jan. 1) the funeral cost over $5000. That was for a cremation, flowers, ride to the funeral, their help with getting government notifications done (like to Canada Pension and such) and their organizational skills. Oh, and a small urn with some of her ashes in for Boy. The rest of the ashes are in a sealed plastic container to be distributed at the old homestead sometime in the future.

I was thinking of one of the cardboard caskets for me since I’m going to be cremated. Or none at all. Either way, I want to be scattered amongst rose bushes since I love the flowers but being allergic to them that would be the only time I could be around them and not get a headache.

I don’t know what music I’d like, maybe some Cat Stevens, Etheridge…I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to give that thought.

Funerals do that. Make us think.

After the funeral I was a little late for work. Traffic was stupid. There are road repairs galore (not that that was really influential as Bran knew where that was happening) and then we encountered a train. I still had to get home and change for work and get my stuff packed up. I managed that and wasn’t late per se – just later than I like to be.

Work was very normal. Busy, but normal. I got the weekly reports completed but wasn’t able to have much down time until after 10 pm. That was after a lot of the curfews were up and people were in for the night. Before that it was a stream of people going out and coming back and going out and coming back. Sometimes I’d just get sat down to type and someone else would want back in. It was like dealing with a large number of indecisive cats.

I guess I should consider going to bed. I wanted to be up a while longer as I have the living room windows all open to let in the cooler night air. It’s been wicked hot here (32C) the past couple of days and having the windows open in the coolness is definitely a good thing. Interesting. Environment Canada says that we’re getting some light rain. I don’t smell rain.

Ra-Ra