September 19, 2022. Sherman Oaks Hospital, Sherman Oaks, CA
There I was again, in a spare room, next to a hospital bed where Dad fidgeted, trying to get his long legs comfortable in a too-short bed. My chair, though, was considerably more comfortable than the one I had occupied for hours back in April, at a facility a few miles to the east of where we sat this September day in a small community hospital.
The paramedics had brought my dad to Sherman Oaks because the considerably larger, regional hospital 10-minutes from his home had no beds available. My step-mom called 911 five days earlier when she couldn't get Dad's blood sugar stabilized. It was the third or fourth (the exact number is a bit fuzzy) low blood sugar event he'd had in a week.
Those previous events were why I was in the Los Angeles area again. After several phone calls with my parents' weekend caregiver, and one of my step-cousins, I made the decision to beeline it to LA to help my step-mom, Mary, secure a caregiver for Monday-Thursday. When she had decided to move Dad home from an assisted living facility in July, she had agreed he would benefit from having a caregiver seven days a week. Now, six weeks later, she had only hired someone for Friday-Sunday, and the difficulties my dad was experiencing were all happening on the days it was just he and Mary at home.
I drove the 1,400 miles to California, expecting my dad to be at home, but in the two days it took me to make it due south from Washington, he landed in the hospital. Each day that I walked into his room, Dad's face erupted into a cheery grin and he said something along the lines of being so happy I decided to drive up again (like last visit, he had me squarely placed as still living in San Diego with my birth mom).
That driving may be why on this Monday, while we sat in companionable silence watching MSNBC, he suddenly asked, "Say, honey, when do the new model years of cars come out?"
I told him I couldn't remember exactly, but that I thought it was usually in the Fall of the prior year. That sounds right, he agreed.
A few minutes later, he piped up, "OK, listen, Dad's going buy you a new car." He suggested we should wait until December or so, and that I could come up again and we'd go shopping together.
I jumped fully into the conversation and told him the car I really want is a hybrid Honda CRV. He thought that was a good idea, remembering that his buddy Eddie has a hybrid Chevy Volt.
Honestly, though, I suspect Dad will not make it to December. His discharge papers from the hospital said the reason for his stay was "failure to thrive."
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| I took heart that the bougainvillea in Dad's beloved backyard was blooming in splendor. |
Mary is struggling with the notion that their previous life is truly in the past, and so I do know that the Monday-Thursday caregiver she finally hired just before I left could be let go at any moment. It sunk in on this second visit of mine since Dad broke his hip in April, and his dementia simultaneously accelerated, that Mary will make decisions based on her wishes, which don't always align with Dad's needs - or her needs, for that matter.
In so many ways, they are both failing to thrive.
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