from the beginning.................

Wow I can't believe it, I'm 39 years old and I'm retiring! Sounds like fun?
About 17 months ago 1/22/06 my mom and dad came back from a seven day cruise. Mom feeling spunky as ever, dad caught a bug of some kind. They came home that Monday (I believe), by Wednesday my dad was really feeling crappy. Sore throat, weakness and a little congestion. My dad called to say he probably should go to the hospital to get checked out, he called his doctor's office they wouldn't take him early and said not to go to the emergency room because they couldn't refer him just for those symptoms. They reminded him of his appointment the following afternoon. His doctor did call him in something, I picked it up and took a couple of hours off from work. Brought my parents lunch in and nursed him the best I could, checked his vitals and blood sugar. Returned to work, checked in on our patient, went home made some soup, checked on the patient and went home to my husband.

Now for a little background on the family, hope your ready. Me, I am currently 41, very happily married to my husband Ron for 7 years. I have two adult children from a previous marriage a girl Amber, 23 and Josh turning 20 this year as well as my stepson Blake who is 14. Mom will be 81 this year and dad turned 82 in April. I will add the additional supporting cast members at a later time. Additionally, there is my grand daughter Angelina, who is 2 and a half. For my entire adult life I have always lived by my parents or within a 20 mile range, we always went out to dinner or lunch 2'xs a week. Dinner was always Thursday nights at the steakhouse and lunch was always Dustin's on Saturday. The immediate cast was always invited. Saturday afternoons was usually spent at Target or the pet store. Week in, week out year after year with the annual birthday celebrations and big holidays at our house turkey included. A good portion of my working life my dad has called me daily just to make sure I made it to work on time and everything was alright. "Yes dad I'm ok, no I wasn't late I just wasn't at my desk". My first suggestion is to not take this ever so routine life for granted, for it will take a two by four gain years of momentum and wack you in the head so hard you will not even know what hit you.

I wake up the next morning anxious about a dental appointment that is a cleaning and a filling or something. I get my cleaning complete and am sitting in my chair thinking about my dad and that he's probably already called my job and my cell to find out if I made it to work and an update of his sickness. Now for the record my dad has in the past over reacted slightly about this and that so this was normal. Still waiting for the dentist to see me, I check my cell and see I have about 5 missed calls. Still not unusual, my daughter calls about my grand daughter or from my husband and my dad. I see my husband called so I call him first. He informs me that my dad fell at the house and that he's getting checked out at the hospital and I should call my mom. She answers the phone in a slight panic and tells me that dad fell in the house and couldn't get up, he called the fire department and then realizing that they will bust the door down does he realize that he should get the door. The fire department takes his vitals and thinks he's slightly confused so they take him to the hospital. As I leave the dentist office in a panic, I make several phone calls attempting to find out where he is and let my boss know I will be late. I finally arrive at the hospital and they took labs and xrays and said all is well except the doctor is concerned about his weakness. We then leave together and start home. On the way he says he's embarrassed about what happened I tell him at least you didn't break anything like a hip because that would be really bad. Dad wants to go get breakfast but he left his dentures at home so we have to stop and pick them up and then tell mom he's ok. We arrive in the driveway and I attempt to get out of the car as does he and I notice the recycling bin needs to be brought up so I get it and as I do I notice this in slow motion as he looses his balance and I run towards him all 106 lbs (at the time) and attempt to stop his spinning motion to keep his balance as he tries to as well. We both fall to the ground as the world slows down to a stop and I am wishing and praying he didn't break anything. As fate would have it, he lands on his hip and hits his head on the cement driveway, a neighbor leaving for work around 10 ish waves to us, drives past a few houses stops and backs up and asks if we need any help. I gladly accept and we barely manage to get him to the front seat of the car, thanking him profusely asks if he can do anything else for us and goes about his way. I dream about this from time to time and feel extremely guilty as well. Ahead of our guardian angel helping us, I call my husband who is just beginning a new job and all ready to go out the door. I explain what happened and that I need you now, and he says ok I'm on my way! Dad is in pain. He has a doctor appointment at 3:30 and it's only 10:30, I call his doctors office and am instructed to bring him in at his appointment time. The idiot receptionist is not listening, I should have just taken him to the hospital. Dad weak and confused and in pain, believes he broke his hip. I remember the pain when I broke my elbow he tells me. He can't get out of the car to use the bathroom, we attempt several times to somehow help that situation with no success, just the poor guy sitting in his urine. We eat lunch in the car with my husband and mom, dad still sucking up the pain. We arrive at the doctors office and can't get him out of the car we need assistance from staff lifting him. The office manager says he needs to go to the hospital and then the nursing home, I will never forget that as long as I live. The Arnp looks him over and doesn't like how he looks, agrees he should go to the hospital, duh? You think? Finally we are at the hospital, it's busy and horrid and dad is annoyed and in pain. Lesson learned, with these types of emergencies you have evac take you. He finally get's a bed by like 7:30 and xrayed confirmed the hip is broken, dad in admitted, mom comes home with us, surgery is scheduled for the next day.

Ok, I am coming to terms with the fact my dad was slipping mind wise the last couple of years. But what I was NOT willing to accept is how much anesthesia can hurt someone his age. The orthopedic surgeon calls me at 5:30 am, to introduce himself and that he should be in and out in a 90 minutes. I call periodically to find out when he will be in post op, call my boss, family and give my mom updates. It is now close to 12pm and my mom and I arrive at the hospital. My daughter meets us on his floor to check too. We are all stopped by a women who identifies herself as a case worker for the elderly and she has questions about my parents home life, etc. I am not in the mood, I explain that after I see my father and let my mother sit with him she can then speak with me. Amber is quite upset at her persistence and I explain to her I will handle it. She is a persistent little b---- and I explain my father just broke his hip and if she wants to get anywhere with this situation she will have to wait, I promise to help.

We both enter my dad's room and mom slowly leans in an kisses his hand, I give him a hug and breath sighs of relief he's ok. My dad started to mention being in New York and acted a little confused, he had a little trouble remembering what happened and we summed it up that he was slowly coming out of the anesthesia. After I speak with the doctor, nurse get a feel for what's going on, I make my way to have my visit with the case worker. I enter the room and apologize for being a bit snappy and realize that this woman could make all our lives hell if she wanted to, so I took the easy way out and decided to go with the get along approach and bit my tongue. She says she has the police report that states my father was confused when he fell, the house they live in needs to be picked up and cleaned and she can refer me to help with all of it. What kind of puts your ears up is the state involved with your homelife and private matters and how intrusive that might be. I assure her the family will be taking care of everything and making sure it is done right, what have I gotten myself into? What else do you do? She explains she will be contacting me to check on the situation at a later time.

The following day we are met by a member of the hospital who supposedly knows about insurance coverage and nursing homes which is where he has to go rehabilitate. The hospital suggests 3 different facilities and they all suck royally. This lady from the hospital doesn't like me already, due to my questions and persistence. My husband bless his heart, drives frantically around town with me from 11:00 am till past 7:00 pm scrutinizing at least 10 facilities that are covered by my dad's insurance. We found a nice one but didn't take my dad's insurance, I attempted to drop it and the hospital lady had a fit. He is to be discharged Monday afternoon and I don't like any of these places at all. We narrow our search down to this one place that smells half way decent and we like the fact that the patients aren't all hovering around the nurses station with those half dead expressions on their faces.

I talk to my boss once again and explain I need to get him discharged and paperwork taken care of. No work day 3, feeling slightly guilty but I think this is going to turn into the vacation time I was saving for a real vacation. In speaking with my boss we go ahead and plan on me coming in later in the week. Dad gets discharged and taken by mediquick they charge $50.00 and away we go and follow the van to the nursing home. The room he has is clean, hard tile and everyone is very nice to us and my dad. We all stay awhile then decide to let him settle in and check in on him after dinner. We make visits day and night bring food and make sure everyone is taking good care of him. One night I brought spaghetti and asked if I could heat it up in their microwave back in the break room used by the staff and notice my dad's magazines on the table? Hmm.......The next day I go back to work and leave early so I can go and check on him and he has had his breakfast at least a little and as I am leaving says he needs to go to the bathroom. A majority of the staff are in a meeting and a young man is at the nurses station, so I ask him if someone could help my dad to the toilet. He assures me it will be taken care of, I am feeling better to have seen my dad so off to work I go. I arrive at my job and about 15 minutes go by and my cell phone goes off and it's my dad! He says he still has to go to the bathroom! I get off the phone and call the nurses station and "they took care of it". Either this same day or the next I believe my daughter goes to have lunch with him and finds him on the floor, no one around or trying to help. The following day I contact his doctor's office and go to the nursing home they recommended in the first place. Conveniently, the doctor's office and nursing home take care of all the strings all we have to do is pack him up and meet him there. That night he's met by the occupational therapist and they assess him and what they need to work on along with a physical therapist as well. While there, he must see his primary care physician weekly and they don't see patients at nursing homes. He will also have several appointments with his orthopedic surgeon.

Since my dad has been rehabilitating, my mom has been staying with us and I have been taking her daily to the nursing home for evening visits and my husband Ron attends to her needs during the day as I try to keep my job. It's getting harder and harder to juggle all of this and I see it affecting my work, my boss and supervisor are very sympathetic and flexible with my schedule. My husband is an amazing person, not only has he volunteered all his time to my family but now he wants to discuss where my mom and dad are going when he's discharged from the facility. Since this all began, my husband will tell you I am some what of chicken with her head cut off at times, these past few weeks that's all I have been. Then he asks me, "no really, we need to talk about this", in my mind everything will get better and all will be fine. Then he brings me down to reality, which he does from time to time and we discuss this whole thing. Done. In 5 minutes we decide (Ron's idea) we move in together and help take care of them somehow, they can't go on living alone. We ask mom to sit with us a second and we take care of them, she bursts out in tears and says, "Oh how I prayed and never thought you would be so good to me!" So we "suggest" and I use this loosely because with your parents, even though they are aging you are still their children, that is all you can do. We suggest that they sell their house and we sell ours and look into another home more accommodating for all of us. My dad doesn't like the idea at first but goes along with it eventually. So now I have added yet another stress filled activity to my agenda. I will work 40 hours a week, visit my dad at the nursing home, feed my family, and find us another home! Cluck, cluck I go off again!

I have found out a lot along the way and it's always tough nothing is easy or goes as planned. Perfect example: dad has an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon, because it's a 9:00 appointment they have to have him ready to go at 8:00 so he misses breakfast. He missed his breakfast but they somehow figured they should give him his medicine with a protein drink for diabetics. The way it goes is, they have a service pick him up and drop him off at the doctors office and meet me there. He doesn't look like he is feeling well, I asked him if they gave him pain meds, he said yes. So in a rush he says he needs to go to the bathroom, we don't make it and it's coming out both ends. Oh my lord, what am I doing? So I begin to clean him up and again the faucet returns, thankfully 2 staff members at the office help me clean it all up while I deal with him. Ron has to come with a change of clothes and mental note always keep spares of all! Later I chew out the staff about sending him off with a pain killer and shake for breakfast, he's diabetic for crying out loud!

Still in the nursing home, his primary care physician has to seen him 1x a week so we meet there with an aide who works for the facility to help with the appointment. She waits outside and I take Dad in, the doctor says he is anemic prob. due to the surgery he puts dad on some iron pills. While he's there we all visit daily, bringing food we think he might eat all he wants is junk food and he is loosing weight and getting depressed. One day while I am at work I get a phone call from the head nurse asking if I think dad really means what he says, I tell her no that he just talks a lot. Apparently he went to the nurses station by wheelchair and told the staff that he wanted to leave and if they didn't get him out of there he would come back with loaded guns and shoot everyone. At his next doctors visit, we believe the nursing home ratted him out and the doctor said I can discharge you but you would be a danger to yourself and prob. end up back in the hospital and the nursing home again. He also told him his anemia was getting lower and he should eat better and that if he didn't start trying to do better in physical therapy he would be there a long time. In the meantime, I didn't know the nursing home psychiatrist had put him on celexa to quite his butt down. It took me about 6 months to realize who put him on this and my husband looking on the internet to find out the side effects. So he manages to do what they say and finally they discharge him, his anemia still going down.

We move him to the house and I am still working full time, every day I go to work dad is usually up and thinking if he doesn't get breakfast before I leave he won't get any. Ron bless his heart, feeds them lunch separate times or together depending how long mom sleeps and they are getting sick of hot pockets and tomato soup. One day mom attempts to heat up what she thinks is spaghetti in the microwave to a bubbling, boiling, brew and luckily Ron checking on her sees bubbling strawberries in the micro and asks if he can help and is in shock that she could've scalded her mouth badly. Now we need to give a visual oh how we are living at this point. The house only had 3 bedrooms: we gave dad the master bedroom, josh had his room, mom got Blake's room and we got the florida room that sits off from the dinning room and kitchen and overlooks the backyard. So dad gets the masterbedroom and the king size bed, we get a futon and Blake get's a couch and the dog sleeps somewhere in the florida room with us along with 1 of 3 cat's that happens to sneak in. After a week a futon can ruin the best of backs I found out. What sucks the worst is Blake looses his room altogether and makes me feel like crap whenever I think about it. One of the BIG issues is the bathroom, there is only 2 and dad gets one to himself. So it's 4 on one and my mom usually won that battle. Ron would get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night around midnight and have to wait till around 3 for her to get done. We often wondered what the hell she was doing in there for 3 hours. Taking a shower when she was awake was fun too because it was always the wrong time how long is it going to take. I threatened to get numbers and time limits for everyone but that didn't work. Oh yeah, in mine and Ron's spare time we were still looking for houses too.

Coming home from work I felt like a princess, mom and dad waiting in the living room for me and mom especially wanting to go anywhere! We did have a humana represented physical therapist who did what he could for 5 or 6 visits. After 2 weeks, Ron and I decided that we needed to either hire help or hire me to do this. One night, Ron and I sat down with them both and I explained they would either have to hire a stranger or hire me. Dad had been hinting and I think my mom didn't believe I would do it or just wasn't sure about the whole thing, but dad was all for it. Mom at first laughed it off and then a few days later she made her decision. In the meantime, my job is getting further and further put on the wayside and I'm feeling a little pulled by the threads so a speak. The social worker or case worker visits to close the case checking on dad's progress and telling him that his mom had a replacement and is bowling now. She tells me if there is anything she can do let her know. Backing up a week or two at a doctors appointment, I peek at his file and notice some notations from the orthopedic surgeons pathology report that there is some kind of lymphoma looking cells in the marrow. So I approach the nurse and she says oh yea that's not really a big deal. The doctor asks him if he wants to know what is making him more anemic, dad says he feels ok don't worry about it. In making my decision, I ask the same nurse does he or doesn't he she says yes about the lymphoma. So I think my dad is dying (sooner than thought) and so I use this in my resignation to take care of my parents. I do my 2 weeks, (barely) with constant calls home, to the realtor, doctors, etc and I attempt to train a co-worker for my duties.

We finally find a house after 2 other home inspections totally flop. The cost is much higher than what I was aiming for but we justify the set-up and the lake as a plus. Josh's got the kick butt view with the bathroom separate egress and we have 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, dad has the master and joining bathroom with mom on the opposite side of the hallway. Blake lucks out as we attempt to give him privacy time to time in the Blake room/living room when he's here and not here room. I felt all aside that it was a peaceful area that my dad and mom would enjoy as well as the family. We move in April 18th closing in the morning and the moving truck is ready to go, Ron organizes it so they will set up somethings during closing and lunch. Ron and Josh do mostly all the moving till his brother gets off work, Josh's friend Matt helps put beds together which is immense help because my dad sleeps a lot. We spend the next months with lab tests going lower and lower and daily outings to lunch which get more difficult as the time passes.

June 2006 doctor appointment with his primary his blood is around a 9, to give an idea a young male could be 15 an adult at his age should be at least 12. He is asked again silly questions by the doctor if he wants testing or scans done, dad says nope. The doctor releases him and says he can now see his ARNP from now on. He is now on 375 mg of iron 3x's day, and it doesn't work. We try omapropozole, it helps slightly. We have a lab done and now a month later we are at a 5. something, the ARNP is quite upset now and we discuss the lymphoma. She can't find it in the file so she calls me later and asks me to ask my dad if he wants to know if he has cancer. After thinking about it I change the question to; do you want to know what's making you sick. So he says no but I convince him to why not see if we can make you feel better? Ahead of that he gets his transfusion at the 5. and he stays about a 9 and slowly slips to 8ish, the ARNP finally suggests a hematologist. We go back 2wks later still no referral to the hematologist, so now I decide to call every day till I get him one. The office is now annoyed, I am nice but persistent. At the same time I am working on getting power of attny for both my parents just in case I run into trouble with this stuff. Finally in late August or September we meet with the hematologist, dad has his witts and likes this doctor. We like the fact that he wants to listen and thinks he can help, but he has to get labs on this and that and scans.

MRI's and CAT scans of his hips,abdomin,chest,thorax,neck,head and tissue in his brain. No inflammation, no malignancy, then the fun colonoscopy (ahh how I remember the prep work for that one) every child should be made to partake in that with their parents!

We start off with weekly Procrit shots and tandem pills at night, Procrit is used to boost the immune system which increases his blood count gradually the tandem is used to replace what the Procrit takes out of the blood. So it's Wednesday labs and Thursday shots, along with whatever appointments these two have. A few months later we meet with the doctor and are allowed every other week! Wow, his anemia is improving! The doctor leaves it up to the family to decide whether we want him to get a lower gi which he would need anesthesia. I explain to the doctor there have been changes in his behavior odd stuff like: yelling, physical (hitting,bitting,spitting, kicking) and lots of verbal abuse. He looks in dad's file and admits there is fluid in the soft tissue brain areas which causes this. Well that explains a lot, so it's dementia related we find this out in October of 2006.