Not a drop

How easy it is to go pee. We don't think about it. Even the miracle of getting up from a seated position, walking twenty feet to the bathroom is something we take for granted. I don't ever think, what muscles do I need to relax to go pee?

When you are eighty and have had strokes and trauma to your urethra, you don't take all this for granted anymore.

Tough day with Dad yesterday. Not tough because of him, tough for him. And me. Went to urologist. After a procedure they left the catheter out, so we could see if Dad could go without it. Forever. He tried and couldn't. So we went out to lunch, he drank a large root beer, then two large cups of water. Two hours later, nothing. Not a drop. Oh man.

Ran the faucet, talked about waves and a sailboat bobbing up and down. He stood up, he sat down. I left the room. Not a drop. 


The catheter is back in. We will try again in five days.

The good thought about yesterday was Dad is walking with his walker. Pretty stable. Needs to build up endurance. Got shaky and cold when he was ready for lunch, blood sugar must have gone down.

And the answer to prayer, the thing that happened that I know was God inspired: Sitting in the urologist's office waiting for them to reinsert the catheter, he turned to me and said, I'm ready to march out. I said, Let's just wait, the nurse is fitting us in so she will be with us in a few minutes. No, he said. I'm ready to march out of being on earth. Oh, wow, I didn't realize you were talking about that. Dad, you have some good years left in you. I'm eighty. I've lived long enough. Just telling you. And he smiled.

You see, with a catheter, he has to stay in Skilled Nursing at the WP Towers. Can't go upstairs to Assisted Living, and certainly can't go up upstairs back to his apartment. That last idea seems like a long shot now. Skilled Nursing is sharing a room with a man who can't get out of bed. Who can't eat and doesn't talk. Only one other person in all of skilled nursing uses a walker that I can see. All are bed ridden or wheelchair bound. Dad can walk now. He is living in a bed, with one dresser, one bedside table, and a television. No chair. He has a window. No one to talk to, people there don't converse. He is confused in his thinking, gets really tired easily, but he has his sense of humor and some life left in him still.


So I leaned towards Dad, said, How are you feeling about being in Skilled Nursing? He said, It is where I need to be. They take care of me. I need that. I said, Do you want to not wear a diaper, because you don't need it. No, he said. I need it. Well, I said, I think we can still aim for Assisted Living. Try a few more times for the catheter to be removed. I am patient. Maybe you need another five days. Okay, he says. Then, Sara I am tired of all this. Tired of doctors. Tired.  I know, I know. I'm tired sometimes too Dad. We both smile at each other. Not a smile of laughter. A smile of, we are going to make the best of this. Together.

I see he needs me to not push him too hard, nor too little. And he needs me to not put so much energy into being upset about his environment, and more energy into bringing alittle cheer to him when I am with him. Remember he told me this two years ago (the last hospital ordeal which set him back from being independent to needed daily help with medicines and personal grooming.) I asked him, I want to do something for you, what do you want me to do? He said, whenever you visit me, don't feel sorry for me. Just be cheery. That's what I want.

Thank you for your prayers, dear friends. Surely God was there with us, wrapping His arms around us. This is Dad accepting where he is right now. HUGE step. God has been at work, and it really helps me to hear Dad accept the reality of his health. May I have God's help in keeping him feeling loved and peaceful and not lonely, just loved. In the way he will feel the love (not necessarily the way I want to show it.)  And may I be cheery for him.

Dad's birthday

Eighty years ago today, in a hospital in New York City, Muriel Gessford Seymour gave birth to my dad. I used to have a difficult time picturing my athletic, eccentric father as a baby or little boy. These days I don't.

Eighty years is a long time to us humans. Not to mountains or oceans or even to theories or governing bodies. To us humans, that's eighty years of wear and tear on the body, eighty years of wisdom gleaned through experience. Eighty years of disappointments and dashed hopes. Eighty years of seeing miracles, of hugs and friends and ice cream cones. It all depends on what you decide to remember of those eighty years.

Mack and Tray came down from North Carolina, Corey's here. So we all, his entire family, are taking him to Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding night at Interlachen to celebrate him starting on Decade Nine.

Passages.

Celebrate birthdays.
American Cancer Society has decided to be the group that celebrates birthdays.
I'm jumping on that bandwagon....