…I pondered the events of the last several days, and write about them here to clear them out of my head for I hope at least a few minutes so I can get some sleep.
Last Wednesday I returned from a friend’s house to find two messages from my mother. Both very generic, please call it’s about your dad. He’s been ill for the last few years first with prostate and then pancreatic cancer. I call back. They’ve met with his doctor. The cancer has metastasized to the liver and is growing rapidly. There’s a fluid buildup in his abdomen, which is a new complication. They have tried him on pretty much every chemotherapy there is. The only things left untried have about a 10% chance of having any efficacy and the side effects are quite bad. The doctor has asked them to take a week to think about what they want to do, whether they want to still do any cancer treatment or simply try to make him as comfortable as possible. They will keep me posted.
Saturday morning. I get a call from my brother. Mom has asked him to call. Dad is in the hospital and the doctors think this is it. I arrange for a friend to care for my cats and drive to Iowa.
When I arrive, he’s still alive but extremely out of it. He recognizes everyone, including me, and he knows what day it is, but beyond that he’s pretty well non-cognizant. His eyes are wild and bright, like a lunatic from an old movie. My mother had found him at 7:30 that morning, kneeling by his bed in the clothes he had worn the night before. She was unable to rouse him, so called a neighbor who helped get him off the floor. Then she called a nurse friend who advised her to call 911. When he was admitted, the on-call doctor said that he had “turned a corner” in the disease and would not be “turning back.” He could have days. My brother won’t arrive until the next day. I stay with him for several hours, them go to their place and collapse. I dream of men whose faces are cut off but still speak, and of vampires.
Sunday morning. I drive to the hospital. Dad is, amazingly, much improved. He’s still a little fuzzy, and he insists on picking a fight with my mother over whether he was found next to his chair or his bed, but he’s otherwise alert and aware. Aware enough to go over the terms of his and my mother’s wills, aware enough to understand when I suggest he confer with his lawyer about a particular detail, aware enough to watch the end of the Green Bay game and also The Amazing Race season finale and comment intelligently on them. It turns out that his medication regime had recently been changed and (in my opinion) it is possible if not likely that his collapse on Saturday was the result of overmedication combined with dehydration. This has happened before. My brother and I pick up some things to eat on the way back to my parents’ place that night (I’ve been subsisting on cheese sandwiches and Hershey miniatures for two days) and that night I again dream of vampires, only this time they have their own reality TV show that I audition for. I make the cast.
At some point Saturday morning before my arrival, a social worker was consulted and the notion of placing him in hospice was raised (not for the first time, but now perhaps immediately). This depresses him and he asks to speak with a psychiatrist in the morning. Because of my work situation, I plan to leave Monday afternoon no later than 2 PM assuming that there isn’t some sudden catastrophic downturn.
Monday morning. My brother and I arrive at the hospital. Dad is meeting with a “cancer psychologist” and Mom waits with us outside his room. Some time after they’re done, Dwight the social worker comes in to discuss hospice some more. It turns out there has been some breakdown in communication between either Dad’s primary care doctor and Dwight or the PCD and the family. Dwight seems under the impression that Dad will be going immediately from this hospitalization to hospice, ostensibly to die. Whereas the family is under the impression that he could come home. This confuses and depresses Dad, so Dwight calls the hospice director to come in for a meeting. Mom and Dad want input from the sons regarding hospice. My input is going to be the same regardless of what the hospice person says, that the two of them need to figure out the balance between his desire to stay at home as long as possible with her needs and her physical inability to care for him (she has serious health problems of her own), but I feel I can’t leave until the hospice person has been there.
2PM comes. No hospice person. She finally rolls in around 2:15 and explains hospice in such a way that my father is thoroughly confused. Luckily I’m able to explain it to him in a way that makes sense so good thing I decided to stick around. At around 3, Dad is fairly comfortable with the mechanics of the process but, because of the aforementioned breakdown in communication with the PCD, it is unclear which, if any, of several possible “paths” to hospice will be taken. I don’t feel the need to stay for that conversation, it’s getting late and there’s a snow storm moving in. I plan to leave at the same time as the hospice person, but before I can initiate my goodbyes my brother decides that he needs a sandwich from his car and is out of the room before I can stop him. 20 minutes or so later he returns, having stopped to use the restroom and make a phone call, knowing full well that I had planned to leave over an hour ago. Then as I’m about to say my goodbyes, the PCD calls. I can’t leave while Mom is on the phone with him, so another 15 or twenty minutes pass. Finally everyone is in the same room, faces stuffed and phone calls made, so I say my goodbyes over an hour behind schedule and leave for home.
About 30 minutes from home, I lose control of my car, spin around 180 degrees and roll over in a ditch.
I was wearing my seat belt, so as near as I can tell I’m not injured. I am, however, covered in the almost-full quart of potato salad that I’d bought last night (at my brother’s insistence that he’d have some too) that I was transporting home. After waiting about an hour for the tow truck hoping against hope that once the car is out of the ditch I can limp home, I find I have two flat tires and that some under part of a fender is wrapped around a third tire. The roof is also partially caved in and the driver’s side mirror is gone. The truck dropped me and the car off at my apartment about 90 minutes ago. I don’t have a regular mechanic and I didn’t want to pay storage fees at the tow yard until I figured out what to do so my place was the best I could think of. When the driver unloads the car, he discovers that it’s at least mobile, so that’s something. After checking in with my mom - and inadvertantly saying something stupid that tipped her I’d been in an accident (I had not planned on worrying her with it) I took a long shower and washed the potato salad out of my hair.
I’m so damn angry. I’m angry at my dad for fucking up his medication again. I’m angry at the on-call doctor for leading my family to believe that my dad’s death was imminent. I’m angry at his regular doctor for not communicating clearly. I’m angry at the social worker for confusing my dad and at the hospice woman for being late and not being able to explain clearly something she’s been doing for the last 13 years. I’m angry at my brother for deciding to get a sandwich when he knew I wanted to leave. I’m angry at myself for misjudging road conditions and having an accident. I’m angry and upset and I don’t know what to do and typing this all out it’s hitting me and I can’t make it stop.
I suppose a lot of you clicked on the thread expecting a funny story about a whacky potato salad mishap. Sorry.
