I have an interesting situation that I am in. I am a complete giver in life..it's my thing I guess.
My husband and I moved back to my parents about two years ago. My dad was in poor health and my mom wasn't able to take care of him. So I did it all. I don't regret any of the time I spent helping him.
I took his drivers license away and was basically his personal assistant for the rest of his life. We had 5-7 appointment each week with different doctors trying to figure out what was going on with him. Not including having to run to the emergency room sometimes weekly over more serious problems. Where he always proceeded to tell his nurses that I always wanted a baby and he was just trying to give me what I wanted.
I miss his silly jokes the most. He was slowly deteriorating in front of me, and they couldn't figure out why. All the symptoms of a stroke, but no evidence of one. After about 6 months of no answers, and he got to the point where he couldn't even walk. We learned that spinal stenosis was robbing him of his life.
At this point I am taking care of everything for him. He can't even feed himself. I have two sisters who also helped when they could, but the main weight of everything fell on my shoulders. My brother didn't even attempt to help during this time. My dad decided he wanted to undergo another back surgery to try and fix it. He said that it wasn't worth living if you couldn't do anything.
Meanwhile my mom starts complaining of a headache. We took off to the emergency room with the results of migraines. I wish they had done more testing then. She might still be with me if they had. Shortly after Christmas I woke up to my dad trying everything to get my attention. My mom was so sick she fell out of bed and couldn't get up, and he was unable to do anything but roll over and watch her. I called the ambulance and went with them. My sisters stayed with my dad to take care of him.
This was a devastating experience when we found out my mom had meningitis, and it had gone to her heart causing damage. The hospital transferred her 3 hours away to one that could properly care for her. Which begins the six months of hell for me.
I went up to be with my mom about every other day. The days I wasn't with her I was taking care of my dad and trying to get him healthy enough for surgery. From the moment I walked back in the door every night I was caring for my dad again. Needless to say I was so drained both physically and emotionally that I spent most nights crying.
My mom would start to get better then would drop like a rock again. She battled infection after infection and I ended up having to make the call on whether to turn off the ventilator or watch her suffered more. I did what she wanted and let her go.
My dad didn't even get to see his wife of 43 years for the last 6 months because he couldn't sit in a car for that long. He saw her once at the hospital before she was transferred for 15 minutes right before he had a minor surgery.
My dad gave up on life and wanted to join her. I completely understood why he would feel this way, but could not take loosing him too at this point. So I cried, pleaded, and begged for him to just try. He finally came back around some and tried again to fight for his life for his family. While his first back surgery took forever to schedule and we spent several months waiting for things to line up; his second surgery one just fell into place and was scheduled within a month of our expected time.
He was walking a little at this point. Which was a huge relief to me. It was so hard to physically lift him to and from my car for appointments.
He never really came back after the second surgery. He had a few lucid moments of confusion where he at least knew who we were. It was about 3 month in and out of the hospitals and rehabs before we go the call that they were sending him home on hospice. At this point he was on a feeding tube and couldn't do anything for himself at all.
We spent the next week watching him die slowly. He was never in any visible pain at least. It was still very difficult to watch my hero disappear.
It has been almost 7 months since then, and I think I will save the next part of this story for another day.
