“My girls have you surrounded, Doctor,” Dad said.
It occurred to me that Dad’s army had mobilized once again. This time my platoon was at the front with him. I felt a lot better knowing that I had my team with me, everyone with a role, everyone with a job to do. And things were going well.
Since Dad was getting better, we decided that my brother and the girls would return home. Dad would be released within a few days. We could regroup by phone. We promised to call if we needed them.
Dad came home a little weak, but always the good patient. I did not have to consider Plan B. At least not yet.
CHAPTER 26
Cared For, Caretaker
AFTER SEVEN YEARS of living with my father, we’ve settled into a routine. Though at times there are missteps, we recover quickly and move easily now, even gracefully, as we dance together through life. If something or someone is out of rhythm, we notice.
Most mornings I come downstairs to find the coffee started and my mug on the counter, indicating that Dad’s already gotten his and is sitting in the den watching the news. Every now and then, the kitchen is dark, the coffee is not ready, and the mugs are not out. I always stop and take a deep breath. Then I go to find him. Usually, I find that he slept late or that I’ve forgotten his appointment for lab work, which requires that he not eat or drink anything beforehand. Now I know to look first for his car before heading up the stairs to his bedroom to see if he is still with me.
Typically, Dad goes upstairs at 8:00 each evening to wind down by listening to a game on the radio before going to bed. I’m up a little later, locking doors, turning off lights, finishing laundry or a show before I head up, too.
I’m not sure why I changed the routine one night, but for some reason, I decided to stay downstairs later than normal to watch a movie. Normally, I’d have been upstairs and asleep when I heard a loud thump. I stopped to listen but heard nothing else. Probably a branch hitting the roof, I thought, as that is not unusual. Nothing. I headed upstairs.
By the time I got to the landing I thought I heard something else.
“Nancie.”
I thought I could hear Dad calling me. I opened the door to his room and heard with more clarity: “Nancie.”
Dad was lying on the floor next to his bed, his arm pinned under his right side.
“Dad, what happened?”
His voice was weak.
“I fell,” he said. “I landed on my arm. I can’t move or push myself up.”
I am still amazed by how calm I was. Probably because this was about him. Not me. My focus was on the man on the floor. While I kneeled down and assessed the situation, I noted that he was speaking clearly, though his voice was weak. I asked him to tell me exactly what happened as I lifted him up and off his arm.
“Dad, can you get up if I help?”
“I can’t move my right side.”
I could have run immediately for my phone to call 911, but something told me it was important that he have as much control of this situation as he could.
“What do you want to do, Dad?”
“I guess we should go to the hospital. I’ll need an ambulance.”
“Calling now,” I said, dialing my phone.
There it was. His decision. It wasn’t that I didn’t know we needed to call 911—I did. But it was his call to tell me to dial 911. Short of my being unconscious, I would want it to be my call, too, were I him. As I spoke to the operator, he said what I was about to say to her: “I think I’ve had a stroke.”
By the time Dad got to the hospital, the feeling and ability to move his arm and leg had returned. So had his sense of humor. They admitted him and every day I’d hear laughter coming from his room as a nurse, doctor, or other staff member tended to him.
The MRI showed that the stroke had been serious given where it had occurred in his brain. But his recovery belied the seriousness. For a few days, there was a back and forth about whether or not he could have in-home care or would have to go to a rehabilitation facility. It seemed that every time I came in there was a different story. I was seldom there when they spoke to him and when I pressed for more details, he either didn’t know or was confused.
There was confusion about his medications as well.
“Here,” he’d say some days while handing me a bottle of pills. “They want me to take these now.”
“‘Did they say why?’ I’d ask; or, “Do you take this in addition to the one you’re already on?”
“I don’t know,” he’d respond.
Since I handled his medications at home, I’d look up any new prescriptions or changes in dosage. It was confusing for me, let alone someone recovering from a stroke. I asked the nurse for a copy of what they were administering. What they had did not match up with the list Dad’s primary physician had given him. Their list contained medications he no longer took and omitted ones that had been prescribed before he was admitted to the hospital. We got everything updated.
One afternoon I came into his room and sensed he was upset. He was holding some brochures.
“What have you got there?” I took them from him. They were pamphlets from a residential facility.
“They want me to go to a place, but I don’t want to. I don’t think I need it.”
I agreed with him. It was my opinion that though I was sure he might need some physical therapy for regaining strength and tips on maintaining his balance to prevent falls, all of that could be done at home or on an outpatient basis. As far as I knew he hadn’t even had an assessment yet.
“Who spoke to you about this?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
I had a flashback to the last time he was in the hospital and watching the back of my daughter as she walked out of his room to the nurse’s station and handed them the “Post-it Note”. It was my turn.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll be right back.”
I approached the nurse’s station, and the nurse smiled at me.
“Can you tell me who spoke with my father and gave him this information? And if they’re in the hospital, I’d like to speak to them now or as soon as they are available. I want to make sure I understand what he was told.”
The nurse immediately picked up the phone, and within minutes the patient coordinator arrived. The three of us huddled at the desk. I explained that he was not processing all the information they were giving him, not because he wasn’t capable of understanding or wouldn’t, but because he’d had a stroke, he was eighty-nine, he was on information-overload, and hard of hearing.
“People are walking in and out of the room, introducing themselves so fast and then talking to him about things that are new to him and don’t necessarily relate to what the last person was talking to him about.”
The patient coordinator and nurse both nodded and smiled. They were fantastic.
“I need you to speak to me, too, so I can make sure we both understand what he needs.”
I told the patient coordinator that barring an assessment that contradicted my own, Dad could come home for in-home or out-patient care. She said there would be an assessment and that she thought from her observation that he would not need to be in a facility unless it was something he preferred.
I went back into Dad’s room and let him know, then said, “Dad, I’ve told them that they have to talk to me, too, because I’m the one living with you and I want to make sure we’re both on the same page so you can make the best decisions for you.”
“Understood,” he said. “Good idea.”
Dad was released and we spent the next four months monitoring his vitals and weight each day. The doctors, physical therapists, pharmacists, and nurses to whom we conveyed his numbers each day were wonderful.
Less than a year after Dad’s stroke, Dad fully recovered and is back to playing golf—though less frequently and using a cart rather than walking the course. He still goes to breakfast with the FOGs a few times a week when they’re not teeing off.
Our overar
ching routine still exists, which relies on the both of us supporting it while still leaving enough time each day for our own interests and activities. We each have our chores, though I slowly—when he allows me to—relieve him of one or two at a time. I expect that to happen more and more.
I handle the housework, the grocery shopping, meals, and filling his pillboxes. He keeps track of what needs to be done—cars to the shop, when property and equipment maintenance needs to happen, how the furnace, water heater, and lawn mowers are working. I handle making the appointments. He drives his thirty-year-old pickup truck and me to the County Waste Transfer Station once a week, but now I empty the truck into the big containers by myself.
We still take a drive to the ocean or visit a different Eastern Shore town once a week whenever possible, but those trips are shorter now as he tires more easily.
His favorite activity is playing the slot machines at one of the nearby casinos. He wins. I lose. A disciplined gambler, he takes only so much money into the building with him, leaving his wallet and charge cards outside in the car. If I go with him, he gives me what he calls the “Flying Forty” because when I play it, “It just flies out the window.”
Like the time I spend with him. It just seems to fly.
CHAPTER 27
Bridging the Divide
“WHEN DID YOU MOVE IN HERE?” Dad asks.
I calculate and then say, “Almost six years ago. Why?”
“Just wondered. That was quick.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun, Dad.”
“Yes, it does. It’s been good,” he says.
Once I was asked to make a list of what I wanted out of life. The basics. If I could have what I wanted, what five things would they be? I listed the following:
My own family including children and grandchildren.
To live within thirty minutes of the ocean.
To be no more than four hours from New York City.
To travel.
To write full time and publish at least one book.
I share this with Dad.
“That’s pretty good,” he says. “You have what you wanted.”
“And I have you,” I tell him.
“Me and Fox News.”
I grimace. “You had to mention that.”
“You know, Dad. I’ve asked you a lot of questions, but I’m curious about one thing. How did you see me as a child?”
He looks a little startled and says, “What do you want to know that for?”
I’m immediately uncomfortable and sorry I asked. I’ve put him in an awkward situation. I stifled the urge to change the topic or laugh. I wait.
After a minute or two, just about the time I’ve given up that he’ll answer, he surprises me and says, “You were my little side-kick,” and smiles. “We were always together.” We talk about that. I share some early memories I’ve carried around with me since childhood. He shares some of his.
There isn’t much we can’t talk about now. It’s easier for me to share how I’m feeling, not just the good things, either, but when I’m sad, anxious, or afraid. Though there is one topic we try to avoid. We still can’t discuss some things political for too long.
“They’re trying to impeach Trump,” he says, but I don’t respond. “They can’t impeach him. He didn’t do anything,” he continues. I try to divert him by discussing it generally. I try to move it away from the President to the presidency, something more general or operational.
“In some quarters there are thoughts about whether it makes sense for the country to do it. Whether it’s good for the country.”
“They’ve got nothing. Mueller’s report said he was innocent.”
“Actually, that’s not quite what the report said.”
“Yes, it did.”
“Dad, did you read the report?” I know he hasn’t. I open the car door and start to climb out.
“Yes, I did. Did you?” He knows I have.
“Oh, you did? When, Dad?” I ask as I head up the sidewalk, my back to him.
“None of your business,” he says to my back.
“You didn’t read it.”
“When did you read it?” he challenges.
I lift my right arm up to the sky without turning around.
“Wait! Did you just throw me the bird? Did my daughter throw her father the bird?”
“Yes, Dad. Yes, I did.”
“Wait till I tell your brothers,” he says.
“Tell them I have one for them, too,” I say, lifting my other arm. I hear my father start to laugh.
“That’s nice,” he says. “I’m going to tell the FOGs this, too.”
Now I start to laugh.
EPILOGUE
Riding Shotgun
I ROLL DOWN THE WINDOW of my father’s SUV and point the lens of my iPhone’s camera toward a small portion of the landscape in front of me.
“Dad, do you mind slowing down?” I ask. “I want to take a picture.”
Dad says nothing, but I know if I look, he’ll be checking the rear and sideview mirrors before his foot hits the brake pedal as he pulls closer to the shoulder of the road.
We’ve just crossed the Wicomico River from Whitehaven on a cable ferry to Mount Vernon in Maryland (not George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Virginia), just twenty miles from Salisbury, where I live with my father in the final house my parents bought and planned to live in between visits from their children, grandchildren, and hopefully, great-grandchildren. The house in which my mother died.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.
“Do you mind? I love this view. I’ve always wanted to come back and take a few shots of it,” I tell him.
The first time we were here, about a year ago, there hadn’t been time or, perhaps, I hadn’t felt comfortable asking for the favor, so I didn’t. I was afraid he might become impatient. Instead I made do and tried to capture everything in my mind in case I never made it back. Today it was more beautiful than I remembered.
“You’ve got it,” he says, and pulls the car to a stop.
As I get out of the car, I pan the scene before me. There is so much to see. A narrow bend in the winding river hugged by a cluster of old clapboard houses. On the other side, tidal pools, sea grasses, different shades of blues ranging from sky blue to what a microbiology professor of mine once referred to as “Prussian blue” when describing the color of a stain on the slide we peered at, taking turns, through a microscope at some organism pressed between two slides decades ago. And the greens, mostly faded this late in summer.
“Take your time,” Dad tells me. “We don’t have anywhere to go.”
Out of the corner of my eye while I walk back and forth trying to find the best shot, I catch him fiddling with his phone, turning up the volume on his satellite radio, and admiring the scenery himself.
On Saturday or Sunday mornings, Dad and I explore the Eastern Shore. He has calculated that we if we leave no later than 9:00 A.M. and drive no further than fifty-seven to seventy miles one way (based on the location of restaurants he’d like to try), there will be ample time to enjoy the sights, eat lunch or brunch, and return home in time to enjoy the rest of the afternoon in front of his television watching golf, baseball, or basketball, depending on the season. My father has to be on the move. He has a routine to follow, and on days when he doesn’t get out to breakfast or golfing with his buddies or to play the slots at one of the local casinos, he gets antsy.
For me it’s reminiscent of the drives we took on weekends or between transfers from one military post to another when I was a child—anywhere, no matter where we lived or traveled to. As a family we drove across Germany, Austria, and Italy. We drove from New York to California, from California to Texas, from Texas to Virginia, from Virginia to North Carolina…. So many days and miles in the car. Dad drove most of the time, except on long trips when Mom would spell him for an hour or two. A passenger then, I still am now.
I walk up and down the shoulder. I cannot decide where
I should stand. How close in? How far out? At an angle? Standing? Kneeling? I resort to what I typically do when I’m confronted with too much to process or am overwhelmed: I change positions. I stand, kneel, squat, lean, twist, and flex, trying to find just the right place while I point and click, point and click, point and click in my attempts to not miss anything. I tell myself I can look through the images later, toss what I don’t like or focus in and crop the images I do.
I walk back to the car.
“Done already? Are you sure? You can take your time, you know. Relax a little,” my father cautions. “Make sure you get everything you want. There’s no need to hurry.”
“I got it,” I say, hoping I did. I got something at least.
As he pulls back on to the road, I flip through the photos quickly, and one grabs my attention. In it, the ferry moves back across the river toward its ramp in front of the old houses on the Whitehaven riverside. Soft-edged tidal pools nestle among patches of vegetation, and seagull silhouettes dot a blue sky. And there, in the foreground, one perfectly placed, solitary stalk of seagrass stands among the others, caught mid-sway in the day’s breeze, as though looking at the scene I see. Centered in the frame.
It’s not a perfect picture. But it’s close. I’m still new to this. All things get better with practice.
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A FRIEND TOLD ME that the acknowledgments were the hardest part of the book to write. For me, the writing of it is not hard, but the starting is. I have an army of people I could and should thank. But this section cannot be longer than the book, so I am forced to whittle the list down. I’ve tried to include anyone without whom this book—this specific book—would not have been written, let alone published.
This book has everything to do with family and is dedicated to my parents and my three daughters, and I feel I must expand on why. For Mom, because she knew when I was a toddler that words were my salve, read to me incessantly, and, when I was old enough, pushed me to search for the right ones, use them, then write them down. For Dad, who I’ve learned was always there, even if we didn’t live together at the time, and who brought me home—sometimes kicking and screaming—before I knew I needed to be there. A huge thank you and apologies to Jim and Clint, my brothers, who I thought were my own babies from the time they came home from the hospital, despite the reminders to me that they were not. Thank you for being supportive and watching out for me. Thank you mostly for enduring my bossing you around as patiently as you did. It was bossiness in those cases, not assertiveness.
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