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!

The decision of the family is unanimous. No heroic measures are going to be used to resuscitate Dad. We are also not going to have them do much in the way of other measures, including dialysis. There’s not much point to it really. The blood tests aren’t all back yet. They’re trying to find out if he has an infection that is caused his kidneys to shut down.

Dad does have basic responses, but none of them bode well. When the nurses attend to him, take his pulse/blood pressure or wash him, he fights it.This doesn’t mean that he is aware of what he’s doing. He can’t swallow and therefore hasn’t taken any meds since he was found unconscious on Friday afternoon/evening. He doesn’t respond to commands of any sort and doesn’t respond to my brother’s voice.

We’re going to let nature take its course. The nurses will keep him comfortable, that’s all.

So now we wait for the inevitable.

To help me Bran has taken me on two car rides to help settle me down. He did that when my dog died in 1985. He would’ve done it if we had a car when my Mom died in 1993. He did that tonight. We went and got snacks for all of us. Did you know that Chapman’s Ice Cream company makes a no-sugar added, lactose free ice cream? They do. Only 14 grams of carbs per 1/2 C serving. That’s better than regular ice cream.

We went through the real estate listings for town as well. It was something to occupy my mind with and do a little bit of dreaming. It was a nice distraction. While we did that Golden Eye played on the DVD player. Laundry tomorrow so that we have clean clothes to to down to see Dad on Monday with. I’ll be sorting through the stuff collected over the years of Mom and Dad’s lives together (including “treasures” given to them by us kids). I don’t know what to do with things like their letters to each other from before they were married, Mom’s nursing uniform (100% cotton that had to be ironed and starched), Mom’s wedding dress and Dad’s wedding suit, and a plethora of other bits and pieces of so much living.

Thank you all, those who commented and those who are just thinking of me and my family. Your support means more than I could possibly say.

I took today off (yesterday was Canada Day and therefore a statutory holiday) so I’m in day 2 of the 4 day long weekend. I’ve not done anything today. Yes, I’ve truly taken the day off. I got up at 4 pm and other than editing photos, I’ve not done a whole lot. I’m just uploading them to Flickr right now.

It rained again today. When I got up we were in the midst of another thunderstorm that Environment Canada had a “thunderstorm watch” for. This means it’s a big’un. At the end of the storm, when the light breeze was blowing a tornado warning was issued for our area. This means that a funnel cloud or rotating clouds were seen around. I have no idea if anything came of it, but nothing happened at our end of town. I went out onto the front steps and took a few photos for you.

After the storm (I’d been reading my online comics while it was going on) I edited up some of the photos from my Edmonton trip. Considering the scenic photos were taken through a dirty window of a van travelling at 110 kph, they turned out not too badly.

Now, the photos have all been uploaded and are ready to go so…first we’re doing the trip to Edmonton.

One way there we saw this weird cloud wall. It appeared to be like looking at mountains with clouds that are lower than the top of the mountains. It was very spooky:

It wasn’t until we got closer that we realized it was a fog bank with higher level clouds. Then the conversation turned to Stephen King’s novella (short story?) The Mist. It’d been made into a bad movie. The movie (no, I haven’t seen it) could not possibly compare to my own imagination. That story has been haunting my pre-sleep brain since I first read it in the late 70s or early 80s.

Next are some lovely prairie shots. When people ask me why I love the prairies these photos demonstrate why. Yes, I know we’re not as cosmopolitan as the larger areas to the east. Yes, I know there is a frustratingly large population of people who could be best described as “hicks”. But it would be hard for me to live anywhere else. I really am a stubble-jumper to the core.

And now for the two best photos of our rain this afternoon. I took the photo of the houses because of the overflowing gutters and the massive outflow from one of the spouts. It was amazing to watch. I should have taken a video. If I get my spit together next time I’ll do that instead of taking still shots. It’s hard to get a real feel for the sheer amount of water moving in a still photo.

This is our intersection. You can’t tell the difference between it and and a river.

Boy got me a bonus Pokemon that was being offered as a “gift”. He went to all the work of going to a new city and getting the gift being offered. He’s so sweet.

Bran made me Kraft macaroni and cheese for supper. It’s all I could think of on the spur of the moment that wouldn’t take a lot of time to make.

I’ve got a lot of feelings around what’s going on with my Dad. I’m sure that’s normal. Along with the grief and fear and other things I’ve got other stuff happening. I’m not sure it’s quite normal to have the odd resentment I feel that my cocoon of uninvolvement has been taken away. Now I have to get involved in the goings on of my Dad’s life. Now my sister will have more involvement in my life, even if peripherally. It is this that leaves me wishing that Dad had just outright died instead of this slow crawl to the grave. I feel very selfish and bad for feeling this way.