PhotoDude.com

Thu. Apr 20, 2006

32 Dark Days

No, this site isn’t completely dead. I just wouldn’t expect it to have much to say about what’s going on in the outside world, not until I’m done dealing with what’s inside. And that may be a little while longer. But I guess this is the first part of that.

So, if you’re looking for the Olde Time Smarmy PhotoDude & His Daily Whim, you might want to check back in a few weeks. If you’re looking for the short version of why I haven’t been publishing much here at all … there isn’t a short version. That’s kind of the point. I feel like I’ve been dragged through about a decade of trauma in four week’s time. There’s no way I can compress that any more than I already have in these nine thousand or so words.

This is indeed lengthy. In fact, so long I hope no one reads it. But I wanted to document the Hell that I’ve been through lately, not so much because I think you’d be interested in reading verbose trauma (unless you want confirmation that, no matter what you’ve been through lately, it could be worse), but to remind my future self … it has been worse. And because it’s part of a process I need to go through to get this all out. So, you should feel free to turn away from this tragic novella, and the “regular” me will likely be back before too long (perhaps with a new look).

I was originally going to title this, “Jack Bauer or Joe Btfsplk.” Because the events of February and March have had me wondering at times … am I Jack Bauer (star of the TV show I call “Jack’s Bad Day”) or Joe Btfsplk (”He walks around with a perpetually dark rain cloud a foot over his head. Once he appears on any scene, dreadfully bad luck befalls anyone in his vicinity.“)?

I haven’t had to behead or torture anyone (I’ve only felt like it at times), nor commit felonious acts to move events along, like Jack does. And though his show is spread over some twenty weeks, the premise is that it all happens in 24 hours. Thus, “Jack’s Bad Day.” My timeline is a bit longer than Jack’s. Nor am I the “world’s biggest jinx“ like Joe (it’s just felt that way lately). I’m somewhere in between, I guess.

Just the same, with no sense of exaggeration, it honestly felt like being keelhauled. More precisely, it felt like being shot full of local anesthetic, then keelhauled, feeling pummeled by every crunch, crash, and thud as it happened, but then getting the searing pain from the torn flesh for a long time afterwards as the anesthetic slowly wore off.

It’s been, by far, the roughest month of the 571 months I’ve been alive. But I appear to have mostly survived. The timeline below was partially written during events, but mostly written in the aftermath. For those close to me who read things in this that I didn’t tell them at the time, well, I think you know me well enough to understand why. Like I said, this is what I feel like I need to do to get through this. Get it all out. I hope you can understand that.

February seems like ages ago. But that’s when it began.

Sun. 2/19 — Dad goes into hospital with a return of the irregular heart rhythm he’d first experienced over a year ago.

Mon-Tues, 2/20-21 — Fuji is showing obvious signs of weight loss, and has stopped eating her normal Science Diet hard food. Thinking maybe it’s a dental issue, I buy lots of tuna, turkey, and soft cat food, which she greedily gobbles down.

Wed. 2/22 10AM — I call Dad’s hospital room. He’s not there. They sent him home, just one day after being moved from CCU to a regular room. It doesn’t seem right to me, but when I reach them at home he sounds weak but happy to be out.

Thurs. 2/23 10AM — Mom’s very concerned about Dad’s weak state. My sister and I try to wrangle doctors from 300 miles away.

Thurs. 2/23 2PM — Dad is finally given an appointment with his cardiologist for noon Friday, to check him out, go over all his medications, and answer their questions.

Thurs. 2/23 4PM — Thinking I have a window of opportunity to get Fuji some medical attention for her teeth, I call the vet for an appointment.

Thurs. 2/23 5PM — I try to start my truck, it makes ugly sounds which could be a dead battery, could be the starter. I look behind the seat for my jumper cables, and remember that the person in need who I loaned them to months ago … never got around to returning them.

Fri. 2/24 5AM — Mom has to call an ambulance to take Dad back to the hospital, and he’s put in ICU.

Fri. 2/24 9:30AM — Completely unaware of Dad’s early morning return to ICU, I pack Fuji up in Susan’s car, and head to the vet.

Fri. 2/24 10AM — Very disturbed by the vet’s tone in preliminary assessment of Fuji (it’s rapidly becoming clear this is not a dental issue), I leave her with him for further tests and a check and cleaning of her teeth. I head to Target to buy new jumper cables, and while there, buy a gift for my niece’s first birthday party that Susan and I are supposed to attend on Sunday (as were Mom and Dad, but obviously, we’ll have to take lots of pictures and movies, as they won’t be there).

Fri. 2/24 10:45AM — Arrive back at my truck with Susan’s car and a new set of jumper cables. Go to pop the hood on the truck … and the hood release latch refuses to perform its sole duty. I can’t even get under the hood.

Fri. 2/24 10:50AM — Pondering alternatives for my truck dilemma, and worrying about Fuji, I walk the 100 yards uphill to my building, and climb the ever present 42 steps to my front door.

Fri. 2/24 10:52AM — Susan tells me to sit down, which, of course, I don’t. She’s got the washer and dryer going, and is packing me a suitcase. My Mom had called shortly after I left with the bad news about Dad. Due to an imbalanced level of an industrial strength blood thinner, he damn near bled out, and required three units of blood on arrival in ICU.

Fri. 2/24 11:15AM — I talk to Mom, and it’s plain that I need to clear the decks to hit the road.

Fri. 2/24 11:30AM-1:55PM — I alternate between [1] covering bases with clients on projects in the works that I have to temporarily abandon, [2] efforts to secure a rental car for less than a month’s car payment, and [3] trying to keep from becoming a total basket case of distracted angst, or spontaneously splitting in half due to the overwhelming sense I must now be in two places at one time.

Fri. 2/24 2PM — I go to the vet and pick up Fuji, who is more out of it than any cat I have ever seen in my life. Eyes completely unfocused, unable to echo locate the sound of my voice, tongue hanging out. At nearly 14 years old, the anesthesia has taken a heavy toll on her. The vet said her teeth were so clean and in such good condition there was no need to even clean them. So that wasn’t the cause of her weight loss. The “geriatric wellness exam” he did revealed only one abnormality among the battery of tests; a slightly elevated white blood cell count, we believed at the time, due to a partially ingrown toenail that had caused a small infection in one of her paws. But he said even that wasn’t all that high. He could not find anything else wrong with her. She got antibiotics, vitamins, and fluids, but there’s no diagnosis, nothing to be found.

Fri. 2/24 3PM — After fretting over Fuji’s absolutely pitiful condition, Susan takes me to pick up the rental car. We come back home, I pack up, and spend some more time trying to talk to and calm Fuji. Susan will have to administer antibiotics and otherwise care for her in my absence, and I know it won’t be easy. Fuji has never been a lap cat or one who submits to handling she doesn’t want.

Fri. 2/24 4PM — Ready to hit the road (well, not really “ready,” but with no other choice), I go down to the rental car that has been parked in my personal parking space for less than 60 minutes. And find that the #@$%! who lives in our building and is on the condo board of directors has seen fit to put a warning notice on the car because it does not have the Official Condo Parking Sticker in its rear window, and therefore, it says, is at risk of being towed. Before I hit the stop sign at the exit to the complex, I’ve left a strong message with the property management company to pass on to the board about their overzealous enforcement. It’s not a time to get in my way…

Fri. 2/24 4:03PM — Two miles from home, I hit bumper to bumper Atlanta Friday Rush Hour traffic. Lots of people get in my way. It takes me nearly two hours to cover the first 60 miles.

Fri. 2/24 10PM (9PM CST) — I arrive in Meridian and see my Mom.

Sat. 2/25 — During the first three allowed visits in ICU, I watch my Dad’s O2 levels drop from an already lowish 93% to 88%, then 86% ... and when it hits 83%, I nearly have a cow in front of the charge nurse.

Sun. 2/26 — Each time we visit Dad, he is incrementally better, but understandably confused about where he is and exactly why he’s there. Frankly, so are my Mom and I, beyond the obvious. It’s the weekend, the doctors on call are never in sight during the only times relatives are allowed in ICU. And while the nursing staff was, without exception, great, they are legally bound not to tell you what you don’t already know. Only the doctor can do that … if you can corner them. My Mom last had a fleeting chance to speak to Dad’s cardiologist Tuesday night at 8:30pm, and only then because she was camped out in Dad’s room. It’s now Sunday night, five days later. I spend Sunday night girding for battle, but with severely restrictive rules of engagement, due to the paucity of experienced cardiologists in Meridian.

Sun. 2/26 3PM — Time for Caroli’s first birthday party. Instead of being there as planned, Mom, Dad, and I are 300 miles away.

Mon. 2/27 4:50AM — I’m awakened by the phone. Gee, who could that be, and bearing good news, I’m sure? Despite the place your head and heart immediately go when you hear that phone ring at 4:50AM, it turns out Dad is physically OK. But he is frantic to see us, very upset, and eventually the nurse decided we would be the only ones who could calm him.

Mon. 2/27 5:15AM — When we get there, Dad says he’s miserable and is certain he’s going to die that day. He tells us you’ve got to get the doctors in here, now! He basically improved enough on Sunday that he was lying there unable to sleep, looking at perhaps a dozen tubes, catheters, and monitor wires coming out of him … and understandably getting worried about his condition. I promised him, Dad, today we are all going to see the doctor. We eventually get him calmed down enough he’s okay with us leaving until the normal 10AM visit.

Mon. 2/27 6:30AM — Uncertain whether to crank up the coffee pot, or make a likely futile attempt to catch some sleep before the 10AM visit, I opt to at least lie down. I fall asleep by about 7AM.

Mon. 2/27 7:50AM — The cell phone rings. I eventually come out of the fog enough to answer it. It’s Susan. Fuji’s in bad shape. While she ate a bit late Friday night, and was fairly ravenous Saturday morning … after that she shut down. No water. No food. Susan tried everything short of roasted duck and Perrier. She’s called to tell me she’s got to take her back in to the vet as soon as they open.

Mon. 2/27 9AM — I’m on the phone as soon as the switchboard opens to talk to the cardiologist’s office, and his staff nurse. My mom gets on the line, too. We are both fairly stunned to get the level of help and compassion one might expect from the sidewalk outside the hospital. We’re basically told that she can’t/won’t help us, that we need to talk to the charge nurse in the hospital, and “if” the doctor is still treating my Dad, they’ll track him down. I now have a full head of steam.

Mon. 2/27 9:55AM — Waiting to get in and talk to Dad’s charge nurse, Susan calls the cell phone after getting home with Fuji. The vet ran another battery of tests, particularly checking her kidney function, did X-rays, and gave her IV fluids, antibiotics (both of which she got on Friday, too). Fuji gets B-12 and prednisolone to boost her appetite, and Susan is given a high calorie nutrient “paste” and told that all food and water must now be given by eyedropper, until she starts taking it on her own. She tells me that Fuji is absolutely pitiful, and that it looks really bad.

Mon. 2/27 10AM — I immediately corner Dad’s nurse in ICU, and very nicely explain to her exactly how the cardiologist’s nurse has completely dumped on her. And how my Mom has now not spoken to any doctor in six days. I tell her I know she doesn’t work for the cardiologist, but the woman who does has essentially refused to help us. And we can’t live on rumors only for another day. She is completely understanding and compassionate, and goes to work on the problem. Like a Real Medical Professional.

Mon. 2/27 10:10AM — Dad is looking and sounding a world better than he did at 5:15AM. His stats are better, too. More steady incremental progress.

Mon. 2/27 10:20AM — Dad’s nurse pops her head in. The cardiologist’s nurse is suddenly hopping to find the doctor and get him here, so she tells us not to leave at 10:30AM. Then the cardiologist’s nurse called again, saying he was in a procedure, but would be there immediately afterwards. Why she could not have made the same arrangements when we called her directly, I have no clue. But by 10:50AM, the cardiologist is in front of us, and we make sure it is for a while. Understandings are reached. And we finally find out he has pneumonia in the lower lobe of his left lung … and has for days. But no one could tell us that, except the man we’d finally cornered. The man my Mom had not seen for six days. It’s simply insane, but talking with the doctor and getting some actual facts makes us feel like things are on the upswing.

Mon. 2/27 1PM CST — Dad is again looking a little bit better each time we see him, and so are his stats. One of the “understandings” reached was that Dad would be in the hospital a minimum of 5 to 7 more days, or however long it took to give him thorough rehab, because it was simply unacceptable for him to come home in the weakened condition in which he was discharged the previous week. So Mom and I decide things are under control enough that I should head back to Atlanta after we get home from the 1PM visit.

Mon. 2/27 7:45PM EST — I arrive in Atlanta, mentally and physically tired, and finally get to see Fuji for the first time since Friday afternoon. It rips my heart out. Again. And again. And again.

Mon. 2/27 8PM — I watch Susan carry Fuji to the couch, and administer her nutrient paste and water via eyedropper. I’m simply stunned at how compliant Fuji is with Susan. Part of it is her overall weakness, but it’s also clear she understands Susan is trying to help her. She whines, but doesn’t really struggle against it very much. Still, each time we are able to get so little into her. Susan goes to bed exhausted at 11, and I stay up most of the night to continue feeding Fuji.

Tues. 2/28 9AM — Fuji seems marginally better in the morning. She’s moving around more, but part of it seems to be that she simply can’t get comfortable no matter what spot she picks to lie down. We continue the feedings (even including the juice from cans of tuna), but she shows no interest in eating or drinking on her own.

Tues 2/28 4PM — With each attempt to feed her, it seems Fuji fights it more with what little strength she has. Her condition is clearly worsening.

Tuesday 2/28 8PM — Susan can’t get our gas stove to light. It’s because Mr. Scatterbrain has been too preoccupied to pay the gas company their measly $69. So they chose today to cut it off.

Wednesday 3/1 9AM — After about three hours of sleep on the living room floor, and an hour or so in bed after Susan got up, I go to my computer to check email. Both monitors are presenting a not-so-kool kaleidoscopic display. It had done something similar briefly when I booted it upon my return Monday night, but went away on reboot. Luckily, I compulsively did a full backup immediately that night, because today, a reboot doesn’t fix it. I appear to have a dead video card on my 3 year old primary computer. Which was purchased with a next-day on-site repair warranty. Length: 3 years. Purchase date: Feb. 10, 2003. Today’s date, Feb. 28, 2006, is 18 days after warranty expiration.

Wednesday 3/1 2PM — Fuji has continued to fight any attempts at nourishment or fluids, and continues to fade. So we go back to the vet, hoping some more IV fluids will help, and hoping for any type of appetite stimulant he can give us. He examines her again closely. She has now lost so much weight he is able to appreciate a mass in her intestines that did not show in the X-rays. He’s very compassionate and caring, but is honest. We can have an MRI done to confirm the presence of the mass, but he says that’s $300 that will not make her better, it will only tell him what he already now knows. He can perform exploratory surgery, but he rated her chances of simply surviving the operation at 25%, no matter what was found. And he said if they found it wasn’t a non-malignant mass, but cancer, he wouldn’t advise even bringing her out the anesthesia. Just let her rest. It was clear to me the chances were slim, and her suffering and pain would be great. A cure worse than the disease, and one with scant hope. I opt to try the syringe of appetite stimulant he’s offered us, and give her another 48 hours to start eating or drinking and break out of this downward spiral. He says to come back Friday, and we’ll decide what to do.

Wednesday 3/1 5PM — After she seems to have calmed and rested from the trip to the vet, Susan and I try to give her the appetite stimulant. It’s some foul smelling stuff to my human nose, and she doesn’t take it any better than she has the nutrient paste, or tuna juice, or water. But we get it down her. She wears herself out trying to resist.

Wednesday 3/1 5:25PM — While cleaning up in the kitchen, for a second I hear what I think (hope) sounds like her drinking water. But when I come out of the kitchen, she’s under my desk vomiting like I’ve never seen. A very very large volume of fluid, likely most of what she was given at the vet earlier. And an absolute river of bile. The appetite stimulant has made her severely nauseous. I stand there like a zombie, hope lost, the writing now on the wall.

Wednesday 3/1 8PM — We continue to try and feed her, and she continues to use what little strength she has struggling. It tears me apart, as we appear to be traumatizing her far more than helping her. I tell Susan I don’t think I can put her through another day of this. I promise that I will keep trying through the night, but if the morning brings no progress, I can’t traumatize her and let her suffer like this any more.

Wednesday 3/1 11:30PM — I try another feeding, and decide to try one more dose of the appetite stimulant, hoping beyond hope that clearing the bile from her belly earlier might allow it to work. She doesn’t get nauseous this time, but as the night wears on, it has zero positive effect.

Thursday 3/2 1AM — Another attempt at feeding, another struggle that traumatizes her. I can’t do it to her any more. I spend most of the rest of the night just talking to her, and giving her strokes. I get a lot of pained groans. And I get a few very hoarse purrs. I tell her that I promise to make it all better.

Thursday 3/2 9:30AM — Susan and I decide to at least give her some water and tuna juice, because her mouth is so dry, and hope that she will respond differently, but we’re not going to force anything else on her. She fights even the water. I ask Susan to call the vet and tell him it can’t wait until tomorrow, because I can’t make the phone call my self.

Thursday 3/2 11AM — By now when I went to pick up Fuji, she assumed it was for another forced feeding, but she put up no resistance getting into the pet carrier. When we got to the vet, I insisted on paying whatever fees in advance, because I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it afterwards.

We went into the exam room with the vet, and got her out of the carrier, again, with no resistance. She was already shaved in the necessary places from her earlier treatment, so it didn’t take long. I got around in front of her, so I could be close to her face and look into her eyes. I told her it was OK now, that it was going to be all better, and what a good girl she was. The look in her eyes was so markedly different to me than the stare I’d seen for days. I know that much for sure. From nearly 14 years of reading those eyes, it looked to me like relaxation. And trust. And then she was gone.

As I described it the next day, “When we left home that last time, we put Fuji in the pet carrier, set it near the door, and then placed Bosco and Coco a few feet away in front of her. The three of them never really got to be buddies, but over the course of nearly seven years, they developed a relationship. If nothing else, a respect for each other’s habits and space. Their own unique interaction, one that humans likely only understand at a surface level. And I felt we needed to do what we could to help them understand. The three of them looked at each other for a minute while we told them Fuji was going away, and then we picked up the carrier and left. We brought it back empty, and put it in the same spot by the door, still containing the towels full of her scent.”

“Bosco got in and sniffed around. He went to the few specific spots she’d been laying up in her illness, looking for her. Finally he got in the carrier … and stayed there about two hours. I’ve known this cat a decade. If there was ever a cat that was a joker, it’s him. And I have never seen him so morose.”

“At night, the Big Boys used to get shut up in the bedroom with us, and Fuji had the run of the house. Thursday night, we followed the routine of taking them to the bedroom, but left the doors open. About an hour after Susan went to bed, I found Bosco had wandered out. Now able to sleep anywhere in the whole house … he was laying in the middle of the floor on the towels from her carrier, looking pitifully sad.”

And I got down on the floor and cried with him.

Friday 3/3 — I get up out of bed and begin my usual routine, which is a trip to the coffee pot, interrupted by a welcome from Fuji and her ritual request for fresh water. It is the first of a thousand times that the routine will rise up and yank my heart down. In desperate need of some “Caroli medicine,” Susan and I plan on leaving at 2pm to go visit. At 1:55pm, the phone rings. It’s Mom calling to say that Dad had blacked out from low blood pressure, and they almost had to put him back in ICU. It’s time for me to head back to Meridian. So I pack up my grief over the loss of Fuji, and begin pulling together everything I need to leave the next morning, for what could be an extended stay.

Saturday 3/4 — I arrive in Meridian and visit with Dad and Mom at Anderson Hospital. Dad’s heart rate is high, blood pressure is low, and his O2 level could be better. Essentially, the same state I’d left him in on Monday, after meeting with the cardiologist. But he’s in a regular room, stable, and in a decent state of mind.

Sunday 3/5 – Tuesday 3/7 — We have three good days in a row. Dad is now getting twice a day “rehab” sessions, and though they only really involved some leg exercises and walking the halls at this point, it’s positive physically and mentally. He’s gained a little strength and made incremental progress each day. So much so that on Tuesday, one doctor mentions maybe discharging him tomorrow. What? As it turns out, one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing.

Wednesday 3/8 — Dad’s cardiologist decides, now that Dad’s other problems are stable and under control (the reason Dad’s primary physician figured he was ready to go), it’s time to readjust his heart rate. Which was the reason he was originally put into the hospital. It’s locked at 125 bpm, and has been for a week. The new meds bring his heart rate to 68, and his blood pressure comes up as well. But within hours, though his numbers are nearly perfect, Dad is clearly not feeling as well.

Thursday 3/9, 10AM — We develop a plan. After expressing concern at talk of discharge when Dad is clearly not strong enough, both doctors recommended a place in Meridian called Regency Hospital. It’s a smaller more focused facility, complete with ICU beds, but with a big difference. Patients often reach the point where they are medically ready to be discharged from a place like Anderson Hospital, but not yet physically ready to go home. Regency is about both recuperation, and rehab. As they put it, “we want to help you get your life back.” The average patient stay is 20 to 25 days. They have a small gym, and a physical therapy program that has much longer sessions than at Anderson, as well as 7 days a week instead of 5. In short, every medical professional we talked to, including his physical therapist at Anderson, said it would be the perfect place for Dad.

Thursday 3/9, 6PM — All hell breaks loose. When I got back to the hospital, Dad was agitated, and obviously short of breath. I went and found the nurse, told her of his shortness of breath, and the sounds of congestion in his lungs. She came down and checked him out, they got an SPO2 monitor (shows O2 level and heart rate). It read 76%. She figured it must be wrong. I didn’t. She went and got a different O2 monitor and another nurse. By the time they got it hooked up, it read 67%. It eventually dropped down to 55%, and they began getting panicky. Four nurses in the room, plus a pulmonology nurse who couldn’t even read the damn monitor. She said “well, his O2 is back up to 93” ... I said, “um, ma’am, that’s his pulse. His O2 is 70%.” She said, no, it’s the other way around. I had to walk her over to the machine and point to the label SPO2 – 70% ... BPM – 93. “Oh, you’re right…” Eventually, the doctor on call tells them to get Dad downstairs into ICU so they can get him stabilized. Again.

Friday 3/10, 9:40AM — As I approach the lobby door to enter the hospital for the allowed 10am ICU visit, I see dad’s cardiologist heading in just ahead of me. He waves, smiles, and continues in the door (the man is an Olympic caliber sprint walker). I rush to catch up and ask “did you know Dad got put back in ICU last night?” He didn’t, so I have a literal running conversation with him as he sprint walks down the hallway, and fill him in on what happened. He says he’s got a procedure scheduled, but will stop in to see Dad when he finishes … and then he’s heading out of town for a week.

Great. Next week is spring break in the local school system, and Dad’s primary physician has already told us he’ll be on vacation next week. Now, his cardiologist will be as well. Just great.

Saturday 3/11 – Sunday 3/12 — Though Dad’s O2 crisis had passed by midday Friday, and there was talk of moving him back up to a regular room by day’s end … it didn’t happen. Which means a 48 hour period of weekend hospital stasis. Nothing happens in the hospital on the weekend that isn’t absolutely necessary. Wherever you are on Friday, that’s where you are Monday.

So … now we have a plan, but instead of being in a regular room, able to get up and move around, and preparing to transfer to Regency, Dad is stuck in ICU, catheterized again, unable to move around at all, and limited to 4 thirty minute visits per day. He is understandably frustrated and cranky.

We try to get the TV set up so he can watch the ACC tournament that’s going on that weekend (Mom and Dad met on a blind date to an ACC basketball game, 56 years ago). Dad says he does not want to watch basketball on that TV, he wants us to get his clothes and take him home so he can watch the games on his TV, in his home. When I tell him that he knows he’s not ready for that, and he’s going to have to settle for watching the games here, he says “well, you’re being a pain in the butt.” This, to me, is a good sign. He’s feeling physically good enough to get feisty, and is mentally cognizant enough to recognize his genetic heritage playing out in front of him (i.e., where that “pain in the butt” thing came from).

Monday 3/13 10AM — Mom and I show up for the 10am ICU visit at Anderson Hospital, assuming we’ll be helping Dad get moved back into a regular room during the day. But when we get into ICU, we hear a rumor that he will be moved to Regency straight from Anderson’s ICU. The doctor on call apparently decided that instead of moving him back upstairs to his old room, it would be best to go ahead and move him to Regency. They have “high observation” rooms that are similar to ICU, and that’s where he would go first.

I’m a bit confused by this development, especially with everybody on spring break, but if the doctor on call has determined Dad is physically ready for that move, I’m certain that it will be beneficial mentally. And indeed, when Dad hears the news, he’s ready to go. So we leave a little after 10:30am, and tell Dad when we next see him, he’ll be at the last way station on the trip home.

Monday 3/12 8PM — We came to Regency earlier in the day for the 1pm visit, and Dad had only been there about 30 minutes. Long enough to go into a deep sleep. The trip was only two blocks in an ambulance, but the move completely wiped him out, which the nurse said was common for patients in a weakened condition. She said we shouldn’t expect him to be very awake until possibly tomorrow morning. When we came back at 5pm, we got a brief response from him, but he was mostly in a sleep state.

At the start of the 8pm visit, at first I thought he was still completely out of it, but it became clear, no, he was just waking up, and simply groggy at first. By the end of our 30 minute allowed visit he was still obviously tired, but mostly awake, coherent, and happy to be in his new locale.

Tuesday 3/14 10AM — The 10am visit is about like 5pm Monday, he’ll respond briefly, but is mostly asleep. Still, his stats are all good and stable, and after a full day of observation, I’ve seen no signs of the slightest reason to be concerned about his care at Regency.

I’ve now been away from Atlanta 10 days. It’s been stated to us repeatedly by staff, like a mantra, that the average patient stay at Regency is 20 to 25 days. We’re all prepared for that, but Mom and I decide it is time for me to go home for now. I certainly plan on returning for a week or more when he’s ready to be discharged so I can help them at home, but that is weeks away.

So about lunch time, I head back to Atlanta. After a long hot shower, I take my much-missed wife out for an Italian dinner, and we have an absolutely wonderful night together. After she goes to bed, I find Fuji’s ashes at my desk. But I am far from ready to deal with that.

Wednesday 3/15 – Friday 3/17 — I spend several days getting my primary computer working, and my truck running, trying to decompress a bit, and generally basking in the false feeling that things are finally looking up. But in the forefront of my tasks and planning is the fact I might have to pack up and quickly hit the road back to Meridian at any time.

Friday 3/17 7PM — In talking to Mom throughout the week, Dad has only been slightly more wakeful and responsive than he was on Tuesday morning. Dad’s primary physician made it back into town Friday, and wondered if perhaps he needed to be weaned off some of the drugs he’d been on for so long, or if there was a neurological issue.

So, he called on the neurologist with whom he normally consults, only to find … he’s on spring break. So he tries to contact the doctor on call for him. But … he’s on spring break, too. Dad’s doctor, who just returned from spring break, is now pissed that these other doctors have gone on spring break and left him holding the bag.

I empathize, Doc. I truly do. Disease and illness don’t take the weekend off, never mind spring break. It’s now clear to me there’s another Monday showdown with the doctors coming … since they’ll all finally be back from spring break. So I start making plans to head back over to Meridian Sunday afternoon.

Saturday 3/18 11PM — After Susan has gone to bed, I spend some time pulling together things for the suitcase. While taking a break at my desk, I notice Bosco has taken up one of his “usual spots,” one I haven’t seen him in lately. It’s a place where he knew he was far enough away from Fuji’s territory to not get in trouble, but close enough that he could watch her every move in the kitchen.

He’s in that spot, doing his peculiar back and forth motion with his head, which he does when he’s trying to zero in on something he thinks he sees. I follow his stare into the kitchen, and I see a laundry basket from which I was packing, which now has just a few clothes in the bottom of it … like it did when Fuji would lie in a basket. And behind the basket, visible through it, is a black cat-like shape.

It’s a pair of dirty pants I’d piled off to the side. But 16 days after she died, Bosco is still looking for Fuji. Now he is transfixed because he thinks he sees Fuji, and when I realize it, I dissolve into a puddle. For the first time, I finally pull out the container with her ashes, and allow myself a few minutes of unrestrained mourning. Because I know that tomorrow afternoon, I have to head back out.

Sunday 3/19 10:55AM — The phone rings, and it’s Mom, but she only speaks briefly and hands me off to talk to Dad’s nurse. He informs me that Dad’s condition has drastically worsened, that he’s running a temperature of 103, and the nurse suspects sepsis. They called the doctor, who ordered some heavy duty antibiotics, but now Dad was having serious difficulty breathing. And (the nurse phrased this almost like he was asking me a question) now they were wondering if they should intubate him and get him on a vent.

I suddenly realized the reason Mom had handed the phone off so quickly was that the decision about a vent needed to be made, and she didn’t know what to do. Of course she didn’t. As I told the nurse, “that’s a medical decision, and if he needs it, do it.” The nurse started to tell me about how they couldn’t just put him on and take him off, and I interrupted “I know, he was on a vent before, and I know it will take time to wean him off, but if that’s what he needs right now, fine. That’s a medical decision, one I doubt a doctor should make over the phone, so you need to call him back and get him down there.”

Even though I wasn’t planning on departing until about 3, I tell Mom I’m heading out the door. When I do, I find another parking notice on the car I’d borrowed to make these trips, when it had been parked in a guest space for less than 24 hours. It infuriates me, as I’m in no mood for the Lot Gestapo.

Sunday 3/19 4PM — After getting call in Atlanta at 10:55am, by 4pm I’m 300 miles away walking into Regency Hospital. I find Mom, and she tells me Dad is now on a vent (and I later see he has a central line, too) and essentially comatose, but stabilized. When the doctor on call finally came down to the hospital, he was able to diagnose that Dad’s pneumonia had returned, and it was full blown this time. Thus the high temp and breathing issues.

We spent a good bit of time in Dad’s room (they’d waived the usual visiting policies for us), talking with his nurse, who was exceptional in his care and in explaining things to us as best he could. Dad’s stats were all over the place, with low blood pressure, a high but wavering heart rate, and 02 levels that were better than earlier in the day, but still bothersomely low.

The nurse explained how it might take some time for the antibiotics to start really kicking back the pneumonia. And since it was Sunday, as well as the last day of that damned spring break, we knew we’d gotten as much medical intervention as we were going to get. By about 7pm, we decided to head home so we could have dinner, and so I could gird up to be the Relentlessly Assertive Advocate From Hell that I intended to be from the moment the doctor’s offices opened Monday morning.

Sunday 3/19 9:25PM — The phone rings, and it’s a nurse at Regency. She says Dad’s blood pressure has been dropping drastically over the past few hours. Despite trying three different drugs to raise it back up, it continues to drop, and the doctor had asked her to call and tell us that Dad was not expected to make it through the night.

For the first time in a month of Hell, I see my Mom break down. She’s the strongest person in the smallest package I’ve ever known. I hope I’ve inherited even half of her strength. But all that she’d held in for weeks, now came out. I held her, and told her it was OK to let it out. And her first thought was to say “but you’ve got to let it out, too.”

But I didn’t, not then. When I got the phone call from Mom the day after Fuji died, saying that Dad’s condition had worsened … for lack of a better way to put it … the knowledge that I now needed to shift gears and be there for my Mom and Dad gave me the strength the deal with Fuji’s death in the short term. It gave me focus. Now the immediate knowledge that, especially over the next few days, I would need to be there for my Mom gave me the strength to deal with the imminent death of my Dad … in the short term. But it would come to a crashing end in a few days.

Sunday 3/19 9:40PM — When we arrived at the hospital, the staff was very kind and professional. They explained everything they’d tried, and it was clear simply from looking around Dad’s room that they’d been busy. It was also clear that the monitor said his blood pressure was something ridiculous like 60/30.

Mom debated about whether to even call their pastor at this hour, but I told her he would want her to call. She finally did, but told him, no, there was no need for him to come down to the hospital, she just wanted to call and let him to know. Ten minutes later, he was there. Dr. Raymon Leake is everything you could ever want in a pastor, and more.

The three of us stayed with Dad, talked about him, prayed over him, and kept our hands on him. And I kept glancing over at the grim readout on the monitors, with the BP updated every ten minutes. Eventually his blood pressure had dropped to 48/23. Then dropped again to the point it didn’t register. His heart stopped about five minutes after that.

The nurse discretely turned off the monitors and said we could take as much time as we wanted. I quietly waved everyone into the hallway and told Mom to come out whenever she was ready. As I told Dr. Leake outside, after 56 years together, I figure they deserved a few last minutes of privacy together.

Sunday 3/19 10:55PM — Before we left for the hospital, I’d briefly called both Susan and LeeAnn to let them know they needed to prepare to get to Meridian quickly. By the time we got back, I didn’t want to call Susan and wake her up again. But I had the very difficult task of calling LeeAnn, and letting her know that our Dad had died. Mom and I stayed up for a while talking about what we needed to do Monday, and we both attempted to go to bed. But I don’t think either of us slept.

Monday 3/20 – Tuesday 3/21 — While our loved ones made their way over from Atlanta, Mom and I made funeral arrangements. It was a difficult morning, but medicine was on the way. If you’ve never met Miss Caroli, you may not understand, but she was absolutely the best medicine Mom and I could have at that moment; a happy joyful new life to celebrate and enjoy. She made some painful days a little easier, just by her presence.

Tuesday night, we attend the visitation at the funeral home. Half the room is filled with flowers, and a long line forms of people who’ve come to remember Dad. My Mom is blown away by the response, but I’m not surprised. My Dad has been well know and respected in Meridian for three decades. He touched a lot of lives, and that fact is now on display.

Wednesday 3/22 — The weather is beautiful for the day of Dad’s funeral. We arrive at the funeral home, and are greeted by a gruff buzzard of a man we’ve never seen before, who proceeds to start ordering us around like a drill sergeant. First he asked if I’m a pall bearer (“No,” and I keep walking), then he asks the rest of us if we’re guests (“No, we’re family”). He then demands “what relation,” to which my poor Mom replies “I’m his wife.”

This spurs the buzzard to order me to move our van to the other side of the building to be at the head of the procession of cars. I tell him that just last night we were told we’d be driven in the lead car, as in, you’re providing a vehicle and driver. He gruffly said “we’ve never done that” and walked off.

I’m now angry. At the treatment we get at the very door of the home on the day of Dad’s funeral. And at the fact we’ve been mislead, and now I have to worry about being able to walk straight from my Dad’s eulogy to the van to drive my remaining loved ones to the cemetery. But this is not the time to make a scene or even vent, so I swallow it.

And it passes fairly quickly when I enter the chapel and see the turnout. Dad’s casket is draped with the American flag that was on the casket of his Dad, a WWI veteran, when he died in 1984. I can’t begin to do justice to the eulogy given by Dr. Leake. It was letter perfect. I hope I can do half as well with the tribute I hope to place online in the coming weeks, and it will be informed by the same document as Dr. Leake’s eulogy; Dad’s story of his life and Mom’s life, starting in the Depression. In his own words. A half megabyte of text.

It’s never possible to do justice to a long full life in a short funeral. But Dad’s funeral left little wanting.

Thursday 3/23 — Since LeeAnn and Danny both have to be back at work on Monday, and have been staying at a hotel with Caroli all week, Susan and I decide to head back to Atlanta. That way LeeAnn, Danny, and Caroli can check out of the hotel and into Mom’s second bedroom. They can stay through the weekend, and get Mom some more of that special Caroli medicine. Then I can come back from Atlanta Sunday afternoon to help Mom the following week.

I also want to get Susan home, as the stress of the past week is causing her Crohn’s disease to act up. Though she covers it well, I can see it plain as day, and the last thing we need now is for her to get sick. Later that night, my concern will take a particularly ironic turn.

After helping the threesome move in their mountain of gear (Caroli doesn’t have parents, she has sherpas and porters), Susan and I hit the road. Perfectly timed to hit Atlanta at rush hour. Oh, well. This is a trip that normally takes five hours or less, even including stops to gas or pass. And it’s going at about that rate, until we hit the Alabama-Georgia border. There’s a full hour long traffic jam, as traffic has to condense to one lane. As far as we can tell, all they are doing in the other lane is putting out barrels to block it. At 5pm.

We eventually get through that only to hear on the radio that Atlanta traffic is screwed, and sure enough, we hit a parking lot of traffic trying to get onto the Downtown Connector. So while sitting stopped dead in traffic on an overpass at conjunction of I-75/85 and I-20 near Turner Field, I call Mom. It’s 6:15pm, six hours since we left there, so I figure she might be worried that we haven’t called to let her know we made it safely. I tell her I’m stopped dead in traffic, so I must be home in Atlanta. But we’ve only got about five miles left. How long can that take?

Those five miles take another 90 minutes. I know downtown pretty darn well, and I bailed out of the completely stock still interstate for a parallel alternate route. And then another one further east. And then another. And finally a fourth that put me up against Piedmont Park, i.e., no more alternate routes to the east. Every one was slap jammed shut with traffic. Never seen anything like it. Not even in Atlanta.

And then … in the final 30 minutes of the trip, the skies opened up in a manner that would make Noah wince. We were now 297 miles and 7.5 hours into a 300 mile “5 hour” trip (average speed, 40mph … all but five miles of it on the interstate). It was like a bad movie pitch, “it’s Groundhog Day, but set on the road, and they never get home!” My legs are cramping, I think my head is going to explode, and Susan has already gotten sick once. But finally, at 7:45pm, we make it home. Simply exhausted.

Thursday 3/23 12MID — Susan’s already been in bed an hour, and though I’m tired, my brain won’t let me go to bed yet. But I’ve had a fairly relaxing evening since we finally got home, and have really done nothing but try to chill and decompress. Until there is a sudden and pronounced churn in my bowels.

Sudden and pronounced enough that I pretty much immediately get up from my chair to head to the bathroom. But on the way, I realize this is not just that end, I’m also suddenly feeling quite nauseous. Well, to make this as brief and non-graphic as possible, I then spent what seemed an interminable amount of time with everything coming out of both ends, violently. I have not had nausea that severe and unending since some barely remembered frat party long long ago.

I honestly don’t know how long it went on. I’d estimate 20 to 30 minutes. By the time I got it “under control,” I was left completely limp, drained, exhausted, and out of breath. I didn’t know if I had a Martian Flu bug, or food poisoning, or what, but I knew I needed to get to Susan. The problem was that she was as far away from me as you can get in our home, and I barely had the strength and balance to make it there. I threw the bedroom door open, and literally fell face forward onto the bed moaning “I’m sick, so sick.”

Never mind the obvious, Susan immediately knew it was bad because I hardly ever get sick at all, and when I do, I’m not the whiney needy type who comes running to her. But I sure did this time, with what seemed like my last remaining strength. And I laid there next to her, exhausted, unable to catch my breath, yet tossing about in agitation.

In the midst of this, my brain is trying to self-diagnose, and coming up empty, because I’ve never felt like this before. And then I feel something else new … a rapid vibration in the left half of my torso. No pain, just what feels physically like … fibrillation. I wait for it to pass, like a muscle twitch, And I wait some more. And I still am agitated and can’t catch my breath. And the only self-diagnosis I’m coming up with now is really bad, because the vibration isn’t lessening, it’s getting more pronounced. After all I’ve been through, I’m not going to take a chance. Because I’ve never felt anything at all like this, and it feels like dying. So I tell Susan to call 911, because I may be having a heart attack.

Of course, I’ve now completely freaked my wife out. While she’s on the phone, I stagger back into the living room and fall onto the couch. And my mind became oddly detached from my body. I was still feeling the rapid vibration in my chest, still felt short of breath, and still felt generally sick in a way I never have.

But my mind was following Susan’s side of the 911 call (“oh, come on, do I really look grey, honey?”), and thinking about the things she needed to do (“put your cell phone in your purse”), making sure she knew where my insurance info was, taking a mental inventory of the cats’ location since they might freak and try to head out the door, wishing I’d bought some low strength aspirin to have around the house like I’d said I was (done now) ... my brain was a calm hive of odd activity. My body was still a mess. And I now had pretty violent full body shakes and shivers on top of everything else.

By the time the paramedics from the fire department got there (and climbed our 42 steps with their gear), I no longer had a clue what was wrong with me. I told them right off the bat, “it may be food poisoning, it may be my heart, or it may be an anxiety attack, I don’t know.” I surprised even myself at the way I spilled out an inventory to them of how and what I felt. That odd detachment.

They pretty quickly had me hooked up to their portable monitor, and I remember hearing one of them say to Susan “well, he may very well be very sick, but he’s not having a heart attack.” I had a normal rhythm, pulse 72, blood pressure a bit high, and an 02 level of 100%. Which is a sign of hyperventilation. Which is a sign of an anxiety attack.

They ran a couple more strips, and even checked my blood sugar (82, a touch low, but within normal range). But I am relentlessly normal. And during the course of the half hour or so they are there, my symptoms lessen (though the vibration merely calmed to a mild flutter), I calm down, realize I’ve experienced a full fledged anxiety attack, and feel a bit foolish. But I still don’t regret having Susan make the call. Because it sure felt like the worst.

I hated scaring her like I did, but I knew Susan would do whatever it took to take care of me. However, throughout the whole time the paramedics were here (five of them, including one 300 pounder who I’m sure hated our steps), Bosco also planted himself about 7 or 8 feet in front of me. He didn’t give an inch to the big uniformed strangers, and watched me with kitty concern through the whole thing. Times like that, you really find out who your buddies are.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that I hit the wall like that, at that time. All the stress of the past month had broken. After my Dad’s funeral, and the hellish drive home, there was no longer a need for me to be “up.” The adrenaline or its psychological counterpart or whatever it was that got me through the previous month … ceased production. Shut down. Crash. Reboot.

So there you have it, the timeline from the first hints of trouble February 19, up to my own personal “crash and burn” on March 23, thirty two days later.

And at the time I’m writing this, it’s one month after that. I spent the first week of the past month in Meridian with Mom, helping her deal with many tasks and errands, and generally just being there with her during what I’m sure is the most difficult time of her life, as well.

The past three weeks or so that I’ve been back in Atlanta, it seems like I’ve just been going through the motions. Oh, there’s been lots of motions to go through. Lots of catching up to do. And I’ve done it. Mostly. I needed to catch up enough to be able to create some time for myself. To do things like write this. And to not do things. Just be. Get reacquainted with the things that make me happy. See if they’ve changed, or no longer make me happy. Maybe find new things.

My focus for weeks has been on being there for others. I’m now trying to do a better job of being there for me. And I’m not there yet. But what you’ve read (I can’t believe you made it this far … you skimmed, right?) is a big step in that direction.

There will be a couple more big steps in the coming weeks. But that’s it for now.