The upcoming week…

Believe it or not, it’s already been a year since my grandma died.  That was a rough and stressful week.  I look back, and I feel really bad and really guilty, but what can you do.  I was at my grandma’s house right about now, getting ready to carpet clean for them.  My dad called the house, and I seen it on the caller ID.  I answered, but there was no response… I could hear shuffling but it really sounded like something was wrong.  I didn’t know it, but somehow my brother had already found out that our grandma had passed away.  When I got over there, they had told me.  I was shocked to say the least because it was just a few days before then my dad had come home from New Mexico and grandma was on the mend.   So anyway, my dad calls, and I was screaming in the phone, hellooo, hellooo…. and he didn’t say anything so I hung up.  He called back a few seconds later and I again screamed helloooo, hellooo, and nothing.  So finally I call my brother, who was somewhere other than at home, and I told him to call dad and check on him.  I told him to call 911 knowing my dad’s history of stroke issues.  Apparently my dad responded to his call and threatened him if he called 911.  Little did we know why though… my dad was embarassed at his apartment, and I don’t blame him, it was deplorable.  He didn’t want responders going in there.  They had to negotiate with him through the window and finally they got him to the hospital. He was incoherant and battling with them though.  The police really wanted to talk to us, but it wasn’t until after he died that we find out why… it was his living conditions.  Nothing could have prepared us for that though.  If only we had known what those squalid conditions were ahead of time, someone could have helped him at least, but he refused anyone to come over.

So anyway, he went to the hospital.  I didn’t think much of it honestly because he was recovering from a stroke he had the previous November, which was pretty bad.  I figured my dad would handle being taken care of well.  My brother went to visit him and my dad was pretty bad.  He was fighting everything, calling my brother names and everything like that.  They had to physically restrain him to the bed and all that.  The last time he was in the hospital for his last stroke, he tried to escape to get McDonalds.  So he was cuffed to the bed.  I decided to stay away, I didn’t want to take any crap from him since our relationship was just beginning to mend, and I knew he would say things he didn’t mean, and that I would probably get hurt feelings.  Little did I know that while this may have been the best decision in the short run, I didn’t know that I would never see him alive again.

I figured since he was at least battling people that he was generally ok.  My aunt Pat was always good to visit him, and check on him, and do all that so I figured I would leave things be until he was at least “sane” to talk too.  My dad cannot be dealt with when he is out of it or mad or whatever.  So about 4 days later I went up to visit him in the hospital.  Both my brother and I were assured he would pull through it 110% and we were even laughing with the nurse about his behavior and how the fact that he’s on “temporary” life support and how he would be just fine.  They assured us he would be perfect.  In the meantime, after I was rudely told to “step up to the plate” regarding my dad… even though I had no idea what else anyone could possibly do, because there was nothing…aside from visitng him… I set up social security for him, and made sure the hospital had our information to contact us, instead of my aunt so as to take the “burden” off of her, because I’m sure it was not her ideal plan to be sole caregiver this time.  She helped my dad a lot during the last stroke, but my dad and I were on non-speaking terms then so it was really difficult for me to particpate and help any then.  So fast forward two days later, I’m trying my hardest to go on as normal.  I talked to social security that morning and confirmed all their information, contacted Medicaid and whatnot… I go to the Y to workout and while I’m on the treadmill, I get a phone call from Matt saying Paul called and the hospital wanted to have a “family discussion” regarding my dad.  We all know what that means.  Something had gone terribly wrong or something.

So I rush to get Paul and go to the hospital.  We are told there there is irreverisible damage and if he made it through, he would be a vegetable pretty much.  We made the decision to pull him from life support.  I thought at the time that was what was best.  Now that i’ve had a year to think about it, I really honestly believe that Wyandotte Hospital wanted to dispose of him because it was their liability if he survived.  He didn’t have medical insurance, and to fight to keep him alive would have resulted in millions of dollars the hospital could never collect.  They gave me no explanation about how he could go from a 110% recovery two days prior (while on life support) to determining that he will be ina vegetative state 2 days later, while still on life support.  That was a really hard day, and often at night the whole scenario replays in my mind.  The most painful part was watching my dad die.  They could have turned the morphine way up sooner to prevent the wretching noise of his breathing, but they waited a long time before doing that.  Watching that heart monitor and watching the oxygen levels and pulse decrease slowly was hard.   It didn’t take long for him to die when coming off life support… maybe an hour or two, I can’t remember.

I guess what I am most disturbed about was how upset I was and how my brother wasn’t.  He was touching him and asking morbid questions like, I wonder when rigor mortis will set in.  I’m sorry, but you just don’t do that.  So anyway, we had no money to bury him, he had no insurance, nothing.  We donated his body to science.  Thankfully they took him, even though he drank heavily, smoked and did things to himself where they typically wouldn’t use his body.  A lot of times they want people who are fairly healthy.  We also figured this is what my dad would have wanted.  My dad never wanted to be buried or anything, he always talked about stupid ways of dying like being strapped to a rocket and blown up… you know, silly stuff.  So it worked out perfectly.  We got his ashes back about two months later.

So, again fast forward a year.  It has been difficult.  Even though we didn’t have the greatest relationship, and mostly not even a “good” one, we still had good memories and good times.  Ask my sister, but it seems like everytime we do something or drive by something i’m like, “omg… this reminds me of my dad”.  Every single thing I do it seems I look back on.  Every time I go to old country buffet, I remember our last meal together.  Every time I look at Andrew it reminds me of the 2nd to last meal with him.  Andrew was pitching a fit and threw his face against the table and knocked his front tooth out.  It’s just I am surrounded by memories.  I still have his Christmas present to us (food) in the freezer downstairs because I can’t part with it.  We never got around to eating it within the 2 months since he gave it to us til when he died.  Everytime I open my freezer I see the brick of gouda cheese he gave me.  Yeah, i’m nuts and i’m a pack rat.  I can’t part with things that mean stuff to me.  He left us nothing except the few things that meant a lot to me in his apartment.  Right now Caitlyn sleeps with a small bunny that was his as a child.  I have the rest of his stuffed animals upstairs in the closet in a storage bag.  I have this little statue of a baseball player that my father obviously didn’t realize was worth money.  I didn’t either.  Andrew loves this thing and played with it daily until I did a search on the net.  It’s not in the greatest condition, but it has some value to it.  Now I keep it in the curio cabinet.

So many things, so many memories. 
I’m sure the sadness gets better over time, it just seems like it takes forever and ever.  To compound it we lost our first family goldfish last night after 2 1/2 years.  I hate death and I don’t deal with it well.  Everyone I know understands that about me.

Today it’s supposed to be 70 out… maybe i’ll go out today and keep my mind off things.  Maybe i’ll take the kids to the park this evening.  I know I have to clean up the yard too.  I planted some hostas and peonys yesterday.  I need to buy about 15 more hostas though.  I have a lot of space to cover up.    I also bought a bleeding heart plant and put it in my beds too.  I love perennials because they come back each year.  In another month i’ll buy a flat of annuals for my yard. I really want it to look nice this year. Last year I a lot of my annuals because I bought them in the beginning of May and then we had a last minute frost, that sucked.  As much as I tried to cover them, a lot didn’t make it.