Dad Disappears and Comes Back to Us

I took this picture of Dad this spring with the mustard of Grant Road Farm behind him. His face is obscured by the shadows of late afternoon.

I was just walking into my house from my strength training class at the YMCA, when my cell phone started ringing at 7:20 on Tuesday night. It was Dad's caregiver telling me there was something wrong with Dad and they had called 911.

I discovered I could cover the 9/10 mile from my place to theirs in about two minutes. I arrived just at the EMTs were pulling in in their big white fire truck.

Dad was on the floor near his bed. His eyelids were fluttering and he wasn't aware of his surroundings. The EMTs took his blood pressure and it was really low, so they lifted him onto the bed and raised his legs. He had already begun to come around by then and waved at me when he saw me. Relief.

As they put Dad on the bed he told the firemen that he "had just returned from military service" and they smiled. "We've been here before," one said. They were three big, nice young men and the sum of their ages was likely less than Dad's total. Later two more arrived. It was a pretty large group for Dad's bedroom: five EMTs, Dad, Mom, me and his caregiver.

Dad's blood pressure began to come back. His blood oxygenation was 99% and his heart beat was strong, so we didn't take him to the hospital. After they left he looked at me and said: "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" And then he went to sleep.

It seems he had been in his wheelchair and his caregiver was removing his shoes so she could put him to bed when he just slumped over. My mother suggested--not too wisely--that she and the caregiver lift him into bed. Since neither of these women weighs much more than 100 pounds that idea didn't work. The caregiver just eased him down onto the floor and put a pillow under his head, while she screamed at my mother to "please call 911." My mom hates to do that because she thinks you only die if you go to the hospital.

Anyway, we got through this one and this morning Dad asked me "how long he'd been away."

Long enough to frighten the heck out of me, and that was too long. But he's back with us today. And that's the best we can hope for.
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St. Robin of Los Altos Gets Her Halo: As If!

My Dad isn't really cross in this picture he just isn't smiling. "It cracks my face," he says. "Because my face isn't used to it."

I'm finding it more difficult to write about my father and his dementia now that I am seeing him nearly every day. Perhaps I can't step back and get perspective now, or perhaps it is more painful up close--I honestly don't know yet. I just know that now, I keep thinking of other things to write about--other things that are farther away.

Perhaps it is just this: now that I am living less than a mile away from my father and see him almost every day, he continually tells me he doesn't see me enough. I know this is because he doesn't remember that he just saw me yesterday or a few hours ago, and that this is not his fault, but it does tend to make a person feel unappreciated. I took my father for coffee the other morning, just to give him a chance to get out of the house, which he loves. We spent a hour or more together. I bought him several iced cookies, and paid to have his coffee refilled twice.

It was pouring rain and getting him to and from the car with his walker was a challenge. His caregiver and I both got very wet holding the umbrella for him. When we were getting ready to depart, I moved my car at right angles to two empty parking places to make it easier for him to approach and get into the vehicle. There wasn't a good ramp nearby. This must be a serious sin in California because an older couple in a Mini Cooper stopped their car, rolled down their window (in spite of the rain) and yelled at me: "What kind of idiot are you," the man spit out. "Blocking three parking places like that?"

I threw my hands up in the air and looked back at my almost-ninety-year-old handicapped father. "He's old and he can't walk," I said in a voice louder than I had intended. "You might be there someday yourself!" The man and his wife drove away and parked elsewhere.

When we got back to the house, I put Dad on the couch--the world's most uncomfortable couch which "graces" my parent's country kitchen--and I sat across from him in the uncomfortable kitchen chair at the uncomfortable kitchen table and picked up the newspaper. I had been so busy giving care to everyone but me that day, I had missed this one thing I always do because I love to do it. I figured it was time for my father's pre-lunch doze and now I could read up on the events of the world. I figured wrong.

"Robin, I don't see your very much," said my father, sitting over on that ugly and uncomfotable object. "And so when I do see you I don't like to see your nose behind that newspaper."

I looked over the paper at him and smiled. He wasn't being grouchy, really. He just wanted attention. I put the paper down for a minute and after we exchanged a few pleasantries--never an easy task because he's deaf and you have to converse in writing--he put his head back and fell asleep.

I shifted my bottom in the hard wooden chair and picked up the paper again. This St. Robin of Los Altos gig is going to be much tougher than I thought.


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