This Aging Parent Stuff Is For The Birds
So yeah. Tim's dad had a heart attack about a week and a half ago. This was determined after he was in the hospital. And naturally we did not hear about this until a day after the fact, and that via e-mail from brother-in-law Jim. Seems dad was out in the back yard digging up the gladiolas. Mom happened to look out the kitchen window and saw him collapsed on the lawn. When she went out and asked what he was doing, he answered 'resting'. Yeah, right. A trip to MedExpress in Frankenmuth turned out to be merely a detour on the way to Covenant Hospital in Saginaw. Someone apparently talked some sense into dad when he insisted he really felt better and was ready to drive back home.
It's been determined that another open heart surgery is out of the question...he went through that 12 years ago and does not want to do that again. Even if he did, he's a very poor candidate at his age. Two of the bypasses are 100% blocked , plus another natural artery. He's got valve stenosis too ( I never did find out which one). All this is inaccessible even via catheter because his arteries are, according to the cardiologist, tangled up like spaghetti.
So, the last option is treatment with drugs. He is on a pill regimen that had me nearly tearing out my hair Friday morning trying to help mom figure out. Where's that pharmacy degree when you need one?? I swear, it was worse than Bryan's post kidney transplant regimen. They've got him taking pills from 0730 until 2100, mostly in the mornings, at seemingly random half hour or hour intervals. One of them needs to be taken twice a day after meals, but I didn't catch that right away on the discharge papers. They are now marked up with my highlighter yellow and penciled-in descriptions of each pill. If I was confused, mom was completely bamboozled. Dad took absolutely no part in figuring this out or participating whatsoever. Granted, he's got a cold on top of recuperating, and feels terrible right now. Today during another trip up to Frankenmuth to help out, mom made a dry reference to me about an old German saying regarding 'wiping your own rear'. Unfortunately at the age of 86, dad is unlikely to start wiping at this late date. Which just dumps even more on mom (who is 88). I think she's pretty resigned to it by now. But between this and her brother's (Uncle Ottomar) recent medical issues and transfer to the Lutheran Home, she's admitted multiple times recently that this is a little too much for her to deal with.
Thus the drive up after work for me yesterday to pick up some vitamin D and yet another prescription for dad at Satow Drugs in Frankenmuth (I could not even begin to tell you when was the last time I set foot in that place), and to help fill his new multi-compartment pill box (no more plopping pills in a plastic cup on the kitchen table or wherever), sort out all the other prescription pills, bottles and weekly boxes scattered all over. I discovered an error in one compartment and combined pills in another bottle. Mom was really having trouble identifying each pill and comprehending what time he's supposed to take each one. Hell, even with my bifocal lenses I was going nuts trying to see the markings stamped on them. How are senior citizens supposed to deal with all this? I've been feeling downright liberal the last couple of days. Thank God they've got a visiting nurse coming in 3 days a week for the next 8 weeks, and if needed, beyond. This is something they've been resistant to before, but now...
Today both Tim and I drove up there after spending the morning preparing a few days' worth of food for them (grilled pork chops with portabella mushroom gravy, baked rice pilaf and browned butter mashed sweet potatoes. Hell yes, we saved some back for ourselves.). Tim mowed the lawn while I checked/filled more pill compartments, kept mom company and looked through some old photo albums of her family. Then I went outside to help Tim. I began where dad left off, digging up the roughly 7 million gladiola bulbs that they insist on planting along the back edge of the yard every year. When I had already hauled four 5-gallon pails to the shed and had about 10 bulbs left to pull up, mom came outside and told me I 'shouldn't be doing all that'. OK, sure. I let her whisk-brush all the dried mud off my jeans before we left so she'd feel better. And so I wouldn't walk into evening church looking like I'd been mud-bogging minus a truck.
Uncle Ottomar was not left out of all this. We made it to a consignment store in Frankenmuth 10 minutes before they closed and picked up some pants for him. Seems the ones he's got have been falling off him because he's gotten so skinny, and the Lutheran Home has been after mom to get him some new ones. Whether this is pressure exerted by them, or what mom is putting on herself to take care of this, we're not sure--we suspect the latter. We left instructions at the nurses' desk to call us with the size of the pair(s) that fit him (we totally guessed on the sizes) and strolled through the super-heated nursing home air to visit him. 'You drove all the way up here just to see me? Oh, I'm not worth that!' Okey-dokey. This is a pretty typical reaction ('Oh, thanks for wasting your time on me.').
So for the moment, all seems stable, and we are back home, having guzzled beer and polished off a huge pan of chicken nachos for the second night in a row. And we're not leaving the property tomorrow. If all goes as planned, tomorrow will be devoted to getting some neglected yardwork and cleaning done around our own place. I'm actually looking forward to it.
It's been determined that another open heart surgery is out of the question...he went through that 12 years ago and does not want to do that again. Even if he did, he's a very poor candidate at his age. Two of the bypasses are 100% blocked , plus another natural artery. He's got valve stenosis too ( I never did find out which one). All this is inaccessible even via catheter because his arteries are, according to the cardiologist, tangled up like spaghetti.
So, the last option is treatment with drugs. He is on a pill regimen that had me nearly tearing out my hair Friday morning trying to help mom figure out. Where's that pharmacy degree when you need one?? I swear, it was worse than Bryan's post kidney transplant regimen. They've got him taking pills from 0730 until 2100, mostly in the mornings, at seemingly random half hour or hour intervals. One of them needs to be taken twice a day after meals, but I didn't catch that right away on the discharge papers. They are now marked up with my highlighter yellow and penciled-in descriptions of each pill. If I was confused, mom was completely bamboozled. Dad took absolutely no part in figuring this out or participating whatsoever. Granted, he's got a cold on top of recuperating, and feels terrible right now. Today during another trip up to Frankenmuth to help out, mom made a dry reference to me about an old German saying regarding 'wiping your own rear'. Unfortunately at the age of 86, dad is unlikely to start wiping at this late date. Which just dumps even more on mom (who is 88). I think she's pretty resigned to it by now. But between this and her brother's (Uncle Ottomar) recent medical issues and transfer to the Lutheran Home, she's admitted multiple times recently that this is a little too much for her to deal with.
Thus the drive up after work for me yesterday to pick up some vitamin D and yet another prescription for dad at Satow Drugs in Frankenmuth (I could not even begin to tell you when was the last time I set foot in that place), and to help fill his new multi-compartment pill box (no more plopping pills in a plastic cup on the kitchen table or wherever), sort out all the other prescription pills, bottles and weekly boxes scattered all over. I discovered an error in one compartment and combined pills in another bottle. Mom was really having trouble identifying each pill and comprehending what time he's supposed to take each one. Hell, even with my bifocal lenses I was going nuts trying to see the markings stamped on them. How are senior citizens supposed to deal with all this? I've been feeling downright liberal the last couple of days. Thank God they've got a visiting nurse coming in 3 days a week for the next 8 weeks, and if needed, beyond. This is something they've been resistant to before, but now...
Today both Tim and I drove up there after spending the morning preparing a few days' worth of food for them (grilled pork chops with portabella mushroom gravy, baked rice pilaf and browned butter mashed sweet potatoes. Hell yes, we saved some back for ourselves.). Tim mowed the lawn while I checked/filled more pill compartments, kept mom company and looked through some old photo albums of her family. Then I went outside to help Tim. I began where dad left off, digging up the roughly 7 million gladiola bulbs that they insist on planting along the back edge of the yard every year. When I had already hauled four 5-gallon pails to the shed and had about 10 bulbs left to pull up, mom came outside and told me I 'shouldn't be doing all that'. OK, sure. I let her whisk-brush all the dried mud off my jeans before we left so she'd feel better. And so I wouldn't walk into evening church looking like I'd been mud-bogging minus a truck.
Uncle Ottomar was not left out of all this. We made it to a consignment store in Frankenmuth 10 minutes before they closed and picked up some pants for him. Seems the ones he's got have been falling off him because he's gotten so skinny, and the Lutheran Home has been after mom to get him some new ones. Whether this is pressure exerted by them, or what mom is putting on herself to take care of this, we're not sure--we suspect the latter. We left instructions at the nurses' desk to call us with the size of the pair(s) that fit him (we totally guessed on the sizes) and strolled through the super-heated nursing home air to visit him. 'You drove all the way up here just to see me? Oh, I'm not worth that!' Okey-dokey. This is a pretty typical reaction ('Oh, thanks for wasting your time on me.').
So for the moment, all seems stable, and we are back home, having guzzled beer and polished off a huge pan of chicken nachos for the second night in a row. And we're not leaving the property tomorrow. If all goes as planned, tomorrow will be devoted to getting some neglected yardwork and cleaning done around our own place. I'm actually looking forward to it.