The Dad diaries

From where I sit at the table I can see his silhouette through the pale night light. The oxygen generator hums softly in the background like a softer version of the iron lungs of the polio-stricken in the fifties. The Reaper has decided to use his cruelest method, Dementia, to take him slowly, one memory at a time, like the Kudzu vine, steals all that is good in a garden.

I am now tethered to him as he was so many years ago to me, a demanding bundle of responsibilities. His whole life revolved around my needs and wants. He never complained or faltered, even when three more came into his world. He worked hard to provide food and shelter and security for all of us.

He never complained, even when he hurt so bad he just wanted to crawl back in bed. He’d get up and stoke the fires so the rest of us would be warm when we started our day, and then he went to work. Now it is my responsibility to provide for his comfort.

As he held my hand to keep me steady on my toddler’s legs, I hold his arm to keep him from falling. When he tells his stories over and over, I listen, as he listened to me. Sometimes I help him to find the words that escape him in his stories of life.

Our days are filled with doctor appointments and sometimes hospital visits. His appetite wanes and I have to get creative to sneak nourishment into his wasting body.

I knew the outcome of this battle when I volunteered.  I don’t view it as a burden but a privilege. My two remaining siblings, who make this possible by standing with me in this battle, and I, will savor his remaining days until he no longer knows us or his heart gives out. Either way, we will have no regrets!

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He wakes at three-thirty and comes into the front room where I sleep. He’s fully dressed. The rollers on his walker rumble on the wood floor as he makes his way in the stillness and sits in his easy chair. He talks to someone I can’t see about a subject I don’t know.

“I don’t know why I can’t remember her name!” he says to the air, then gets up to go into the kitchen.

I dress quickly to follow. His meds are in there and I have to make sure he doesn’t find them. I finally convince him to go back to bed. Our night resets.

I’ve noticed my life is now in slow motion. My cadence is his cadence. When he replies to a question the answer is many heartbeats coming. I’m a forty-five record being played on a thirty-three and one-third speed.

We spend many minutes looking for the socks that Ashley sent him. I look with him knowing they are no longer here. He is supposed to wear diabetic socks so he no longer needs them.

We went to Walmart today and to the post office. I make him go when the weather is nice just for the exercise. I could get done much faster solo but he needs a purpose in his life as well as the movement.

One time, I positioned his walker for him when he got out of the car at home. He took half a dozen steps and started to stumble back toward the car! I had eighteen eggs in a carton plus his mail in a sack in one hand but managed to slow his descent with the other so he sat gently on the asphalt. He even missed sitting on the eggs! We had a laugh and I picked him up with only his ego bruised.

When left alone with his thoughts he talks out loud to himself, “I just don’t know what to do! I just don’t know what to do.”

It breaks my heart to hear that from him. He always knew what to do.

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His heart rate is 38 today; the nurses fuss and call the doctor. It turns out his heart is playing a tune in 3-4 time and the music isn’t supposed to be a waltz. The echo beats are not picked up by the machine or the wrist method. The only true method of checking is the stethoscope. His heartbeat runs irregularly, like an old out of tune tractor.

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It’s been nearly a year since we began. Much longer than I anticipated. In the last month, he has gone to the hospital twice. Once for a TIA and once for a heart attack. We carry on our routine the best that he can.

I was mad at God for taking him this way, after all, he’d been a faithful servant. I realized after a while that God wasn’t punishing dad in any way, he was using his need to transform me. I could write about his struggles, but I need to write about my transformation.

I have been blessed for the last fifty-one years with a wife that cooked and cleaned and did all that goes into running a household and raising kids. Here, I struggle through it, learning as I go. I have learned a new appreciation for what she does.

Doctor’s appointments and ambulance runs add to the stress of everyday life. The everyday routine, down to the sleep cycle is mandated by him. Deep Rem sleep is impossible. One ear is always tuned to the sounds of the oxygen generator, or the door to the bathroom, making make sure he gets safely back to bed.

Through the perpetual tiredness, the stress of taking care of a one-hundred eighty-pound toddler, and the home life I’ve missed, are the stories. Most are of hospital visits or aches and pains and surgeries revisited, but once in a while, an old story of life as he led it in the thirties and forties, surfaces. I have found out more about my ancestors, good and bad, than anything Ancestry.com could possibly tell me. I’ve lived the past with him, again and again…

So if you mention that you are in a similar battle and know that you, too, will eventually lose the war, I’ll take your hand or hug you; I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING THROUGH! I will pray for you. Please do the same for me!