Sitting Vigil with Daddy

Update Thursday morning 10/8/09:We are still at the hospital. That is most likely where we will remain. It was a bad night. I am staying with him most of the time. I have some stories to tell... but not now.

I took this picture of a rainbow after the rain last week. Rainbows symbolize promise. Today all I can promise him is love and peace - those two things I know for sure.

Thanks for your prayers. I wanted to keep you up to date. I know the peace globes are spinning. I will be back to tend to them as soon as I can. This year more than ever for me, the word peace has eternal significance.
What does it mean to you?

Update Sunday 10/4/09
Thank you all...
For your prayers, emails, text messages, phone calls, support and love. He has had a difficult week with many ups and downs. My Dad went from Palliative Care to a place that just didn't suit his needs and is now back in the hospital trying to gain some strength. This morning he is feeling better and asking for more bananas. (lol) I'm telling you...the Comeback Kid is amazing. We are bringing him home tomorrow with Advanced Home Health Care, a hospital bed, day/night sitter (hopefully) and whatever he needs.

Now we have to make some difficult decisions, and more importantly, the right ones.

I hope to get back on the blog next week and do more visiting with you and of course, promoting peace globes. I apologize to my meme players last week on The Queen's Meme. I didn't have time to do it myself or even read yours but I promise I will. I have been with him much of the time with the help of my wonderful sister..... spending nights at the hospital, feeding him, driving back and forth, learning a LOT I never wanted to know frankly and just being with him. We are a tag team and I even learned how to face the dreaded needles without screaming (see below).

And you have been here too.
Travis of Trav's Thoughts and newlywed Vinny/Bond of The Big Leather Couch have written posts and sent out a call for peace globes on their blogs. They know this is push time for me with the launch and are keeping the peace spinning while I tend to this. They have asked bloggers to post a short snippet each day for the next 30 days 'til BlogBlast for Peace on November 5th.
I don't know what else they have planned but I trust them completely. Their efforts
really touched my heart. You have no idea what it meant to me when I read what they'd done. I've been worried about losing momentum with peace globes and feeling completely overwhelmed. Please thank them. It just proves once again what an amazingly kind group of people you are and how we are demonstrating a sense of community and unity - a perfect personification of the movement itself.

I hope to get my blog legs back soon. I need a tad bit of sleep you see.
I will see you a little later this week when I can settle in a bit and breathe. You will never know what it means to know you're here. Please continue to pray for wisdom and strength and send those positive vibes. We do feel them.

Love to all of you,
Mimi


And This Is Why I Love My Dad
Monday Mimisms: Monday September 28, 2009
So this weekend on Saturday evening my dad was taken to the hospital. His potassium levels were almost non-existent and ammonia levels too high. He needed some serious assistance.
Back we go to the land of IV drips and finger sticks in the middle of the night. When I arrived it was obvious he'd had a bad night. A very bad night.
He was exhausted. He hadn't eaten hardly anything in several days and as much as you all know who've been reading about him that he is the ultimate Comeback Kid time and time again, this time I wasn't so sure. When you hear phrases like Palliative Care floating around, it's time to look at things maybe a little more realistically whether I want to or not.

My sister and I are polar opposites. She is the nurse. I am the frady-cat. Time for insulin shot? Mimi needs to excuse herself. Time for IV changing? Mimi suddenly needs a Coke from the machine down the hall. I don't make excuses anymore. They just roll their eyes and I leave. But I always come back with something like, "Wow, that really hurt me, Daddy. Do you think you could stop with all the stuff that's causing me so much grief!! I can't stand all these needles!"
More rolling of the eyes.
But today he vacillated between the land of the lucid and the land of the loony. Both broke my heart.
And made me laugh.

"Daddy, do you know where you are?"

"Home."

"Where?"

"HOME."

Glad to clear that up. Moving right along.

Then it was time for my sister and I to tag team him with the lunch tray.
He needed to eat.



Let me just make this clear: If there are no pinto beans in Heaven, he ain't going. And praise be we had two trays. One with chicken (he won't touch chicken) and one with fish (he likes fish).

Sister Nurse decided to use the shovel-in approach sans the airplane sound - 'cause after all, he's 75 and he could probably still send us to our rooms if he wanted. But today we are in HIS room and he is stuck with us. Like it or not.







"OK, Daddy. Don't you want some pinto beans? They look so good."


To our surprise he said,

"I reckon. Don't run 'em in too fast."


He ate every last bean on two plates with vinegar on top. He usually likes mayonnaise on them but I digress. You don't want to know what he eats on peanut butter. Anyway, then we convinced him to eat the cabbage and we didn't have to water board him or anything. It was a tough assignment but since there were no needles involved I could handle it. And then he asked for jello. I go down to the nurse's station and fetch the precious gelatin. I'm such a wannabe nurse. But before I leave I notice that there is a patty of glorious flounder still left untouched on his plate.


"I really wish you would eat that fish, Daddy. It's good for your brain ya know."

(Am I good or what??)

"My brain don't need no help," he said.

Wise guy.



He slept like a baby the rest of the afternoon and I only had to leave the room once. I stayed while they took his blood pressure. This is progress.


When the nurse returned to wake up him up to see if he was asleep, she noticed the second tray with the uneaten chicken breast.
"Why, Mr. S, won't you eat chicken?"

His eyes got huge and he looked at her like she'd lost her mind.
He raised up in the bed and yelled, "Cause it's foul!!"


Nope. He doesn't need any brain food.
More bananas maybe.
But no brain food.