Reminded of...

I was cleaning out emails at work recently and I happened upon a conversation I had with my friend Lindsay. We email each other daily, sometimes to make plans, sometimes to vent about things going on in our lives, but more often than not, just to say good morning to each other. It’s a nice little constant to have and a ritual I've come to cherish. This particular thread I happened upon was from June of 2013, what seems like a lifetime ago. Dad was over six months into post stroke life and had been home from the skilled nursing facility Stillwater for just about two months. I won’t bore anyone with the details of what amounted to a non-riveting conversation, except to say that the thing I took away from reading it was the recognition of a snapshot of a specific time and place. I wrote about how I purchased corn for dinner, how I had forgotten how much Dad liked it and how much of it he had eaten the night before. It was evident by the retelling of this to my friend that I was tickled pink about this fact. At the time we were still trying to get Dad back into eating food on a consistent basis. Hell, he was still drinking stuff like Ensure to build up his weight. And that's the thing, in June 2013 it was all still new. Everything was so new. Not new as in a new romance, a new job, moving to a new place, getting a new car, things like that. It was a different new, albeit edge of your seat, don’t know what’s going to happen every morning I wake up, but hey Dad is still alive, breathing and able to remain at home, so everything’s OK kind of exciting and new. 

I was reminded of the movie The Sweet Hereafter. While the film has far too many layers to go into, the title references the feeling and the life after a tragedy. A small Canadian village lives through a horrific school bus accident and comes out the other side to what is known and called the sweet hereafter. They are transformed from the time before, something that no longer exists and will never exist again, to an acceptance and almost reverence about the time after, the reality of their lives. The nature of life.   

On almost the eve of Dad's stroke, two years ago, I am reminded of the sweet hereafter we are all living in now. Even after a tragic event, there is something to take away, even if it's a small thing, like having corn, you know your Dad loves, with dinner.      

2014

Let's try this again. My second attempt at this blog, with a better video quality thanks to my brother PJ. Whew.
As we wind the year down, the only thing I can think of is, I didn't take as many photos as I did in 2013. This year was a year of settling in, settling down. Were there problems? Hell yeah! But there always will be, like Mom's New Year Day visit to the ER resulting in a congestive heart diagnosis to the complicated nature of maintaining Dad's blood thinner meds. The beauty of life is the tenacity of the human spirit to adapt and shine.
This is a very short video I pulled together to share some photos I took of Dad this year. Almost all the photos are from my phone. The music is one of the best guitar riffs ever by Frank Zappa on his Waka/Jawaka album, track 3 It Might Just Be A One-Shot Deal. He's like opera, you either like him or you don't.
We look forward to the coming year(s) and wish everyone health and happiness.

Focus

As you know Dad has to go and have a protime test, now bi weekly at his PCP's. Dr Biswas has been away visiting his family in India for the last several weeks. In the interim since we last saw Dr. Biswas, Dad had received a referral for a colonoscopy from someone whom he had this procedure with some three years ago. Dad had no desire to have this done and so we didn't go to the appointment. Unbeknownst to us the physician's office had called Dr. Biswas for Dad's medical records. This is the part where going to a Doctor who not only knows his patients, but also has the staff that goes above and beyond pays off. One of the nurses (and there are two Vickie and Rhonda who know Dad very well) went and notified the Doctor that medical records were being requested. This set Dr. Biswas off and we discovered later he had been frantically trying to get in touch with us to recommend we don't go to this appointment. It happened to be the day before my mother's birthday and so we had been out to dinner and didn't get the messages until much later after the fact. When we saw him the next day on Friday he explained why he had been so determined to stop us.
Dad had the procedure three years prior. They had found and removed a polyp. No cancer of any kind. The first reason Dr. Biswas didn't want him even going to the consult was because it was an unnecessary drive to Ellsworth. While only a half hour away, his reasoning was why make him travel that far if he doesn't have to. The second reason was what I've adjusted to this last year and that is managing expectations, something I wrote about in another blog entry. As the good doctor said, if Dad goes for this procedure, stuff like his blood thinner will have to be altered, stopped, changed, something that is always a risk. That's part one and a very important part one. Part two is the what if. What if he did go and have the procedure done? Now let's say, God forbid, they find a cancer. We as a family have to then make a decision about managing that possibility on top of the stroke that should have killed him. Would that be something we would even want to put him through? Why even go there if he is healthy in every other respect? Dad recently had his blood work done and he is in perfect health. His 'numbers' couldn't be more perfect. Why rock the boat? Is ignorance bliss or merely rose colored foolishness? As optimistic as I am (and I'm sometimes foolishly optimistic) I'm also not about putting Dad through something that could have a risk of any kind. Not now, not anymore. I'm about focusing on Dad building up his strength, both physically and mentally. What I focus on is that almost two years into the stroke he asked Dr. Biswas, out of the blue, "How was India?", knowing he was out of town and visiting family. A year ago he wouldn't have been able to form that sentence. I say again a year ago he wouldn't be able to form that clear and concise sentence. That is my focus.