The Things You Find

To echo my earlier post, about remembrance of things past, my parents leased a new car last week, a wise decision given some of the physical limitations each of them currently face. In cleaning out their car, amongst the band aids, lip balm, tire pressure gage, pen/pad and other car necessities Dad had in there, I noticed Dad’s camera, tucked away in the arm rest. We had given it to him several years earlier for Christmas. It was his first digital camera and I remember he was absolutely thrilled to get it at the time. Dad was never one for being able to figure out how to work electronics. Growing up it was always PJ who would set up TV’s, VCR’s, DVD players, stereos, computers, you name it. Then he would show Mom and Dad. Eventually Dad would get the hang of it and become quite successful at operating this various equipment. He had that camera pretty well figured out.

Why would Dad keep his camera in the car you might ask? There were many instances when he would be out and about, where he would see an animal, a tree, a scene and in describing it to us all afterwards, he would reference wishing he had a camera to capture the moment. I mentioned to him to keep it in the car, something that had never crossed his mind. Once he had the digital camera that didn’t make him a slave to the limitations traditional film has with a specific amount of exposures in each roll, the camera stayed in the car, just in case. 

I finished emptyng the car of everything that was stashed in it and brought the camera inside. Dad's eyes lit up when he saw, as if he had forgotten he ever even owned it. I reminded him how to use it and he started going through the photos he had taken that were still on the camera (we had never gotten to the tutorial on how to transfer the pictures to the computer). Six years worth of photos were on the camera, dating back to 2008. Now Dad was not as prolific as PJ and I with regards to picture taking. Neither of us would be able to keep even a years worth of photos on any of our cameras, but Dad, well, he could and did. So it was six years worth of a road trip he and Mom took to visit her sister in upstate New York, boating on the lake with our family friend Bill, hiking Great Pond Mountain, snowshoeing through the deepest snow I've ever walked through, a flock of turkeys clamoring for bird seed in the backyard, road trips, birthdays, Holidays, dogs (long before I began to live with them and would just visit with Kane and Loki my boys). I'm going to set up an album of some of the photos Dad took with his camera if anyone wants to check them out. I'm always fascinated by what other people see, so it was interesting to see his perspective through these photos. Perhaps you will find it interesting as well.

           **CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR THE REST OF THE ALBUM**

Hiccup

Minor setback aside, I suppose normal (to which I had forgotten) is really a thin layer of eggshells underneath which our heavy feet navigate without crushing. Lulled into a false sense of security, after the seizure Dad had, that’s how it feels on occasion.   

I was watching a four part television documentary directed and narrated by Werner Herzog, whereby he was granted the rare opportunity to interview several inmates on death row. Herzog, not a proponent of the death penalty himself, does not try to humanize any of the inmates interviewed and does not try to sway the viewer in one direction or the other with regards to the moral ethics involved amidst capital punishment. It was the second episode that dealt with convicted murderer Linda Carty, a woman accused of kidnapping 25-year-old Joana Rodriguez, allegedly in order to steal her new born son that grabbed my attention. I’m not writing about this woman’s innocence or guilt, nor as an advocate for or against the death penalty myself. Instead I’m writing about a woman interviewed about this case. It was what she said that struck a chord with me.  

She mentioned how we, as human beings, are always moving forward. It is built into our human nature, the fiber of who we are as a species and honestly, one of the reasons for our quick evolution. I can’t tell you how many friends and people in general I talk to that echo this philosophy on a daily basis. People post things about it on social networks, quotes and inspirational sayings abound about it all over the Internet. Always moving forward. I think in moving forward; however, we can also lose a sense of the past. We can forget, because a reminder is not in front of us. For example, as a viewer of this documentary, we get to know Linda Carty on death row. We get to hear her side of what happened or didn’t happen with regards to her incident. We may even feel sympathy about her position on death row as part of the humanness in all of us. The point is, in moving forward we get to hear her, period. We do not get to hear from the victim, Joana Rodriquez, because she is no longer living. She doesn’t get to tell her story. She has been forced into the pages of history, through circumstances beyond her control. She doesn’t get the luxury of moving forward along with the rest of us.   

In this atmosphere the past can become forgotten. We are so busy looking and moving forward that we forget. Yes, inevitably there will be occasions where you are going to take steps backward to continue forward. Heck, sometimes your thrown backwards, through unforeseen events (like the recent episode with Dad). But I think in moving forward, we must also continue to remember the past and not let it fall into the wastelands of history. Dad’s hiccup reminded me of this.     

Discharge

Dad was discharged from the hospital yesterday. Whew! I had yesterday off from work and stopped by the hospital early on in the afternoon. I could already tell he didn't want to be there anymore, but from what the nurse had told me they still needed a doctor to look at his MRI and EEG and so they probably wouldn't be discharging him until Tuesday. As I was getting ready to leave the doctor came in and gave us the biggest surprise by saying she was going to put in the paper work to discharge him that day. Dad was so funny, he reached out with his left hand, grabbed the doctor's hands and said, "Thank you." Several hours later he was home.
It does appear he had a seizure. Going forward it will be another med he will now have to take. The nice thing about this anti-convulsive medicine is it doesn't require regular monitoring like blood thinners and does not interact negatively with the blood thinner he is on now, something apparently most of the anti-convulsive meds do, causing liver damage. All good things, all good news. And we carry on... 

Saturday

Woke up late this morning. Late being 8:22 am to be exact. I don't know if it's being "settled" and more complacent with life or what, but I find on the weekends, none of us wake up as early as we once did. So I got up and took Loki out for a quick pee. Went down the hallway and noticed Dad was up and walking over to the commode we have set up in their bedroom (much easier than trying to get to the bathroom first thing in the morning). Nothing unusual. Nothing out of the norm. Headed back to the kitchen and began cleaning the few dishes that were left in the sink. Then I heard Dad yell in the bedroom. The best way to describe this yell, as I heard it, would be if someone stuck their hand in a electrical socket and got a shock that made them yell out. I ran into the bedroom to find him on the floor between his bed and the nightstand. His good left arm was behind his back as he lay on his left side. I turned him over and noticed a little bit of blood coming out of the side of his mouth. He was breathing out of his mouth with big puffs. His eyes were looking up and to the right. He was unresponsive to me asking him questions. Mom said he had been sitting on the bed putting his shoes on when this happened.
I never ran so quickly through that house to grab the phone to call 911. I used the house phone, knowing my cell can be notoriously slow at times. What I didn't know was that by using the house phone I had 911 on speakerphone. During the course of the conversation the gentleman on the other side said to me, "Mame, you don't have to yell." I replied, "I'm sorry I'm not trying to yell but I have you on speaker phone and I don't know how to turn it off!" After all was said and done, this was actually a funny sidenote story to the rest of the day.
Dad was transferred once again to EMMC. By the time PJ, Mom and I got there, Dad had improved greatly. They did a CT scan and there was no additional bleeding, something all of us were worried about. With Dad not remembering what happened they ascertained that he either had a ischemic stroke or a seizure. They wanted him to have an MRI because a CT scan will only show so much. To get a really good image of what's going on in your brain or anywhere else in your body an MRI is the way to go; however, as the admitting physician said, "Tomorrow is Sunday." So they had to admit him and keep him for an MRI on Monday. She assured us he will most likely be discharged on Tuesday, based on how well he was doing. They want to rule out everything else to narrow it down to what they think happened, which was a seizure. Currently they have him on anti-convulsive meds. Apparently after a stroke seizures are not uncommon no matter how long it's been since you have had a stroke. We did not know this. It is something I won't ever forget going forward though. 
Dad is doing well. Mom and I are back home. Tomorrow morning I will head up to the hospital I never wanted to visit again to deliver his hemi-cane, ankle brace, arm sling and arm/wrist brace. I will also be bringing him some streusel cupcakes I made last night for the sweet tooth Dad has. I make different cupcakes each weekend so he can have one every morning with his coffee. He can finish the rest of them when he comes home.
Always remember to tell the people you cherish how much you love them, because you never know when they could be gone. We are fortunate beyond belief, I hope you are as well.  

Why do you have to go to the Doctor?

No Different Than You

We didn’t do the dump run this week until Sunday morning. Afterwards we stopped at the supermarket, because inevitably no matter how many lists I take with me, I always forget something. In the course of three days, this was probably the fifth or sixth time I had been in there. So I asked Dad if it would be alright for me to just run in and get what I needed. He didn’t have a problem with that (I think he was just happy to be out of the house). I went in, grabbed what I needed to get and headed for the checkout. Without knowing my name, everyone there knows me now, just like they know Dad. The woman at the register asked me, “No Dad today?” I laughed, wondering if they get nervous when we come in, because there have been a couple of occasions when there’s been a close call as Dad is turning an aisle (luckily he hasn’t knocked anything over). I replied, “He’s actually sitting in the car right now. I said I was going to run in real quick and grab a couple of things.” She laughed and then said to me, “Well, I have to tell you I just recently lost my father and you and your Dad put a smile on my face every time I see the two of you in here. It’s something my sister and I would have done with and for our father.” And boom, just like that my heart sank just a little, filled with empathy for her loss. We chatted for a few moments about her dad, who he was, what he was like. I love to hear stories about people’s lives. Eventually I left and when I got back into the car, related the story to Dad. For such a brief encounter it was very humbling for me. I don’t think about what I do for or with either of my parents, so I am constantly caught off guard when someone mentions it, acknowledges it. I just do it, as I argue any of you would do for your parents, siblings, loved ones, the people you cherish in your life. I’m no different than you. And hey, if I can put a smile on your face, well it doesn't get any better than that.