Never a Dull Moment

My dad is sick; has been for a long time, actually, with CHF, COPD, HTN, CAD, a AAA, RLS, and several other 3-and-4-letter words that would make a layperson cringe. He is NOT, under any circumstances, a good patient. There has been some behavior consistent with the "I momentarily forgot I know Jesus" excuse. Usually my siblings and I try to compensate for this in a number of ways: soothing words, prayer, reassurance, fruit baskets for the nurses, xanax for ourselves (joking). This has become increasingly harder over the last several years, especially since my mother died (she was the best-I'm telling you this would have to be the centerpiece jewel in her crown).

All of this to say that my dad had a GI bleed and had to be hospitalized over the weekend. (I think we're up to 6 times for the year.) Apparently, he had noticed some blood and neglected to mention this to my brother, who continued to give him all his meds, including his Coumadin (blood thinner...i.e. makes any degree of blood loss/hemorrhage worse.) He decided to inform my brother of this at about 1 am Saturday. They watched him until daylight, and he had another episode, so they did what any family would do, they contacted their on-call medical consultant (ME), a position I've held since my first month into a pre-med program in college.....(yeah, b/c I knew a lot back then).

What follows is a summary of events: My sister calls to tell me that my dad is "hemorrhaging" and she's going over to my dad's house to investigae. My brother calls to confirm that there has been, in fact, some blood detected, and can I call out some antibiotics? To which, I absolutely refused---hello? what if he needs a blood transfusion? Is he stable or bleeding out? My other sister then gets on the phone to let me know (courtesy of her bp monitor which I swear she may carry in her purse--I don't want to know) that his pulse is 82, but in a snapshot objective assessment that his color "doesn't look good". I told them to take him to the ER. Initially my dad refuses, so they put him on the phone with me, at which time I tell him he needs to go be seen, and he responds with something like, well, since you think you know better than me (uh, in this case, yeah)..I'll go. All of this was a little hard for me to do, b/c I am so far away and was sick and had almost lost my voice. After what sounded like (at least from my end) either weeping and gnashing of teeth or one vicious game of paper/rock/scissors, he gets transported to the hospital in Hammond. He is then seen in the ER by his worst nightmare: a female ER physician, whom he tells he guesses he'll let her do a rectal exam b/c he had a daughter who is a doctor and he supposes women need to learn, too. ( I am not lying--how could you make this stuff up?) He finally makes it up to the room--he's doing fairly well, his blood counts are stable, and they are keeping him for observation--and manages to offend the girl that brought his food tray to him. (He still doesn't understand why she wasn't laughing when he asked her, given her ethnic background, if she had brought him "soul food.") He actually even told the social worker that we (his children) were looking at nursing homes to put him "away" in...WHAT? this is absolutely not true and has not even been considered. I don't know where he got this from, or if he was joking or not, but they investigate people for elder abuse for statements like that. Sometimes I think he has early dementia or something. Seriously, he has no internal filter anymore. Thank the Lord, after all that, he made it home today and is doing fairly well. It's hard to see someone transition to this phase of their life; especially when the person that took care of you refuses to let you take care of them. I know he probably doesn't have that much time left on this earth (or any of us for that matter; who knows?) and I want him to enjoy what time he has left. To do that, though, he needs to at least try to humor everyone involved. I had to totally abandon the idea of trying to be his doctor; it's hard enough just being his daughter. :) God is Good; pass the pepcid.