Plans Change

How does the saying go? "Humankind makes plans and God laughs." My plan was to go to California between Christmas and New Years and start getting my Dad’s house ready to sell. The first week in January I was going to go back and bring Dad back to Texas. I even found the facility where I was going to have him live.

The pressure sores my Dad had when he went into the nursing home kept getting worse and he got a MRSA infection. He was admitted to the hospital and they discovered from an arteriogram that his veins are like spaghetti. The circulation was so bad there was no way even with antibiotics that the infection would heal. If he was going to live they needed to amputate his leg just above the knee.

I would not give consent until I could get there and talk to my Dad. He was lucid and clear and he knew what was happening and wanted them to do the amputation. He has never been quite as lucid and coherent since that moment. They amputated his leg that night.

He was transferred to a nursing rehab facility Saturday. It is very large and institutional. It is loud and busy with patients, staff and family. There are a lot of patients there who are missing legs, paralyzed, stroke victims unable to talk. It is real and unattractive. I hate it. I am painfully aware that is so all about me.

They are doing all they can for my Dad. He is seldom coherent and he is not eating enough and he does not want to sit up or get out of bed. He has another bad sore on his right heel now. He has sores on his behind.

He knows who I am though and in those rare, ever so brief moments when he is coherent and present, my hope soars. Just as quickly he leaves again into his hallucinations and sleep and my hope evaporates.

Christmas Eve was one of the hardest days I have ever walked through. I knew it would pass and I knew I would not feel that sad and that alone forever. Christmas Day has been better but it was a long 24 hours getting there.

I tell my Dad it is okay to let go and I pray for God to help him. Maybe I am just being selfish but it is hard to watch him deteriorate.

God is big though and all is fundamentally well.