My morning is starting with the fact that my chirps motel mini fridge appeared to freeze my two energy drinks last night and the cans burst inside the fridge, leaving me with a mess AND no caffeine to start my day. By virtue of this catastrophe, I’m going to try and keep this brief. Yesterday was the diffuser day, the one where I had to attend the hospital and see to my father.I hadn’t been back to that hospital since my grandfather was living in the veterans’ ward within it. Referred to as a “regional” hospital, it’s quite large for the town that it sits in a town of approximately on 7,000 people. As a comparison, Regina has two hospital of equal size and boasts a population of approximately 250,000 people. Kind makes you wonder what they were thinking. But I digress…
Never one to go any way but his own, I walked into the hospital and looked at the directory board and located the intensive care unit. First floor. Fuckin’ marvelous. I walked down the hall and followed the sign until I encountered two ominous doors with signs to report to the nurse’s station. You know, the kind of doors where they wheel someone in while holding back a family member saying “Sorry, sir. You can’t go in there?” Yeah. Those. I looked around absently but saw no nurses station anywhere. Therefore, I pushed my way through and found the doors opened quite easily. That’s because it turns out the nurses station is JUST inside the doors. Go figure. They pointed out my father’s room and told me they would have the doctor join me.
I walked in and saw a tableau that no child should ever have to see of their parent. Unconscious, hooked to tubes and tied to the bed, my father seemed smaller somehow. He was breathing slowly, with a machine beating in time with the breath ring. A strange, beige slurry was dripping from a bag into the tube running into his nose, feeding him artificially. His vitals and numbers were brightly displayed on multiple screens and low volume blips and beeps went off, every few seconds. It’s hard to picture the once strong, powerful man who raised me in such a state. Even more disturbing is finding someone who appeared to be sleeping that couldn’t be roused.
I spoke briefly with his doctor about his condition. In the interest of my father’s privacy and because it doesn’t matter, I’ll leave the details of that conversation out of the post but suffice it to say we discussed next steps, which unfortunately included the end of life-sustaining treatment if it became indefinite. I spent a few moments speaking to my father because I’m one of those people who can never be certain if an unconscious person can actually hear you or not and I wanted him to hear my voice. I left the hospital pretty despondent and wondering how I had gotten to this point in my life so quickly. Now I would get to go visit my mother and see what the state of union is there.
A positive spin on the day is the fact that I was now driving through the area in the daylight for the first time since landing. I got to see the spectacular open bay and the Appalachian mountains that are a signature of the North shore of New Brunswick. Growing up, I never appreciated this view the way it deserved. And that the way of life, isn’t it? We never quite appreciated the beauty around us while we’re in it. One needs to go without and come back to it to realize what they had. And that a little sad in and of itself. To know that I would be able to walk up to the salty water and dip my toes in whenever I wanted to seems like a pretty sweet deal. But I got to enjoy the view on the transit between Campbellton and Dalhousie.
My visit to the nursing home was almost worse than seeing my father on a ventilator. I scoped out the dining room and living room in anticipation of seeing my mother somewhere. No dice. I walked down the hall to her room and discovered she was nowhere to be found. I started walking back towards the nurse’s station when I met with an employee I had passed in the hallway. When asked who I was looking for, I named my mother and was told she had just been sat in the dining room. Let that sink in for a moment. I looked at every face in the dining room and didn’t recognize my mother in any of them. We found her sitting at a table with some other residents.
When the staff did the whole “Look who’s here?” thing, my mother had no idea who I was. When told I was her son, she stated she had no son. Despite this oversight, they convinced her to come sit in the living room with me. We sat on comfortable chairs and I asked how she was. She mentioned that she didn’t know where her husband was, so I explained that he was in the hospital getting his lungs checked. She asked why. I explained. Wash, rinse and repeat over the next hour. The nurse came over to try and have her take some meds. She fought her off and refused. It took a few minutes of back and forth before I switched to French and intervened, explaining to my mother that she spent all those years ensuring I took insulin so that I could stay healthy. So now, it was her turn to take these pills so that SHE could stay healthy.
Something in the change of language reached her and something in her eyes changed. She asked me how I had gotten there and I told her I took a plane. She asked why I would take a plane to watch her take pills. I then asked her where her glasses were. She claimed she’s never worn glasses. I explain that indeed she had. When she argued further, I held up three fingers and asked her how many she saw. She responded by flipping me the bird and asking ME how many I say. Now I know where I get my attitude. But there were some laughs. The fact she doesn’t remember me or even know my name is hurtful but it really isn’t the worst part. The worst part for me is knowing that losing her mind was the ONLY way she didn’t want to go out. For years, while watching my mother deteriorate, she always said she’d rather get hit by a bus than lose her mind. And now here she is. The woman I knew is no longer there.
Although the day was filled with emotion and difficulty, I found some comfort in seeing them both. And that’s what it comes down to, in the end. The only real emotional value is for the child, who still sees their mother and father instead of a man in a coma and a woman whose mind makes you a stranger. It’s not a way to remember them, nor should I, considering they’re not gone yet. But they both deserve better. They both deserved a better life. Even now, they teach the valuable life lesson that you don’t always get what you want. Food for thought… And now, before I accidentally commit a homicide, I need to go find some caffeine. ☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 