Friday, October 16, 2009
Maybe it's time to leave....
My hubby got a frantic phone call from his mother the other night. She lives in California with his sister and her family and has been there for about 3 years now...a rather long visit in my opinion. So, my mother-in-law (MIL) calls very upset to report that my sister's husband is secretly videotaping her while she is in her bedroom! Now, if you knew my brother-in-law...probably one of the nicest, most benign people you would ever meet, you would know that this is preposterous. After listening to his mother go on and on about the intolerable videotaping sessions, he called his sister to get the real story. Apparently, my brother-in-law had disassembled an old computer and had placed some of the pieces in his MIL's room for storage. One of these computer pieces was an old webcam that no longer worked. It was placed on a shelf in her room. Well, she recognized it, knew what it was and decided that there was a conspiracy to secretly videotape her and send it out over the internet! She called her sisters in San Francisco and told them the same thing. The awful part? Stu's aunt called him and demanded that he speak to Luis (sis's hubby) to remove that awful camera......(shaking my head)....I truly think it is time for my MIL to head home...3 years is an awful long time to live with your daughter.....
Stroller gets overridden by train - baby survives
The only good thing about this video is the fact that the baby is FINE....just a bump on the head - but how shocking, huh?
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Remembering Dad....
As I mentioned briefly, my father, Bill, died rather unexpectedly this summer, on 6/13/09. I say unexpectedly, but as you may recall, I had seen him 3 months before in March and knew at that time that he was not long for this world. He still was not even admitting to anybody that he was not well, even thought just looking at him it was patently obvious that he was on his last legs. My sister reminded me that during our visit in March, I looked at her after seeing our dad and saying flatly, "he won’t be alive in six months". How heartbreaking it is that my prediction came true with 3 months to spare….
It’s really hard to believe that my dad is gone. He was always so vital to me, never sick really, never weak. Even though his health in the last few years had been plagued by many "middle-age" diseases like diabetes and high cholesterol and the like, he still seemed strong and healthy for the most part. The first inkling I had that he was ill was for about the past year, whenever I talked with him on the phone, he would cough. Around the fall of 2008 the cough was so bad that it was impossible to talk with him on the phone because he was constantly coughing. I’m ashamed to admit that I put off calling him sometimes because it killed me to hear him coughing so. He protested that he had been to the doctor for the cough, but I was not convinced. Nobody can cough like that for 6 months and still have nothing wrong with him. It wasn’t until it was too late to do anything about it that we found out a chronic cough often accompanies liver and kidney disease.
It must be said that my dad was an alcoholic, but a very high functioning alcoholic. For as long as I can remember, alcohol was a part of his life, of my life, but not in a bad way by any means. One of my first memories as a kid was me and my sister playing in a bar as my parents and their friends sat around and had drinks. There was nothing sinister about this; it was just the way things were. Just as it was that our family vacations many times were disguised as golf vacations for my parents. They just found really interesting places to go play golf and turned these into our vacations. I just figured this out relatively recently! So, my sister and I grew up with alcohol being a very constant presence but also a comforting presence because as my parents drank they always were in the company of friends and their friends usually always had kids of their own and therefore, my sister and I were content to play with our friends as our parents drank. I hardly ever remember seeing my parents drunk, maybe once or twice in my entire childhood and even then I don’t recall anything bad happening…they were happy when they drank, which trickled down to us. So alcohol, while pretty much was always present in my dad’s life, never seemed to be a problem for him or those around him. Towards the last few years or so apparently the effects of 40 years of alcohol were slowing making their impact known, in the form of liver disease. Even when he was faced with this knowledge, it still took my dad a long time to quit drinking completely, an unfortunate truth that severely cut his life expectancy down from perhaps a few more years to mere months. Now my dad was not a big doctor-lover and it really took a lot for him to even go to the doctor. In fact, he never admitted to me that he was ill, even when I told him I was concerned over his appearance in March. He just didn’t want to upset us or burden us with his health issues I guess. This in and of itself is a big deal because my sister and I both work in the health field and I am certain that had he confided in us even a year ago, his life would have been prolonged because we would have recognized that his present doctor was not treating him appropriately and that things were much worse than what he was being told.
The last two weeks of my dad's life were rather miserable and I regret that he was unable to trust his daughters, if that is what it was, to know the truth. About two weeks before he died, my dad was functioning fairly well. He was going to work as usual, keeping to his usual routine. However, apparently the day before he went into the hospital he was having a bad time of it at work. His coworkers later told us that he had eaten lunch in his car, as usual, but that he had taken an extraordinary amount of time to do so. This was not like him and that concerned them. They could tell he was not breathing well and was weak. My sister was summoned to my dad’s apartment and she was absolutely shocked to find him in such a weakened and obviously ill condition. She was frightened and horrified to find him like that and insisted that he go to the hospital immediately. It is a great testament to just how bad dad felt that he agreed to go to the hospital. He was admitted and it was immediately clear that he was in bad shape. His liver and kidneys were failing and he was at the end-stage of both diseases. He was so bad that kidney or liver transplants were out of the question. He had so much fluid in his belly that it was causing him to have trouble breathing and causing his heart to work very hard. They removed over 10 liters of fluid from his belly. Now just stop and think about this for a minute. Think of five 2 liter bottles of Pepsi standing in a row and that is how much fluid they removed from my dad’s belly. I later found out that this is an extraordinary amount of fluid to remove at one time and in fact, I believe that the shock of this much fluid being removed at once caused his body to go into shock and led to his death, much sooner than it needed to, but that is another story. He did feel better after the fluid was removed but the indignities of being in the hospital and having everyone finally know the truth of what he did to himself over the years, I think caused my dad to lose his faith. My sister called me to tell me about him being in the hospital and while it was a shock, it was not unexpected, as she had been keeping me updated on his deteriorating health. I was glad he was finally somewhere that he could receive some help. Three days later, it was determined that my dad’s condition was grave and he was moved to the hospice part of the hospital. My sister generously offered me a plane ticket to fly down and be with him and I was scheduled to arrive 4 days later. Each day I would call my dad and speak with him and he seemed to be in better spirits after the move to hospice; he had a private room which was a great thing for him. He was happily anticipating my arrival and on Tuesday evening, he seemed like my old dad. On Wednesday afternoon my sister called frantically and told me that I had better try to get an earlier flight, that dad was going downhill fast. I was stupefied as, having just spoken with him the night before and finding him lucid and feeling good, the sudden turn was unbelievable. Unfortunately, an earlier flight was not to be had and I had to wait until my original flight on Thursday. I was horrified that I would not reach him before he died. However, I did arrive just after lunch on Thursday and my sister and I raced to the hospital. I walked into his room and was momentarily confused, thinking for a split second that we were in the wrong room. I could not believe the person lying in that bed was my father. Surely this shockingly thin man was not my dad. He was in and out of consciousness by that point and I loudly announced to him that I was here. He opened his eyes wide, recognizing me I’m sure, but then slipped back to sleep. That was really the only response I would see out of him at all. He was basically comatose until his death 2 days later. This was not an easy death though; and it was not an easy death to watch. There was moaning and thrashing and near the end, he began having strange seizures where he would fling his arms up as if he were trying to catch a ball being thrown to him. His arms would stay up and he would shake. His eyes would roll up into his head and it was just ghastly to watch this and be helpless to stop it. More medication was given but it really didn’t help. He was restless even in his coma. On Saturday, we were all gathered in his room and were reminiscing about him and the fun we used to have with him. We knew the end was near as his eyes opened and would not close anymore. This was eerie and disturbing for us, to see him lying there with his eyes open, so we covered his eyes with a wet washcloth, which certainly made us feel better. We decided to grab a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria. As we were coming back up in the elevator, we heard a sudden thunderstorm boom its approach. We were heading down to dad’s room when the nurse stopped us in the hall and we knew instantly that dad was gone. He had waited for us to leave as he did not want to die in front of us. The hospice nurses assured us this was a very common way for people to die. The thunderstorm continued to make its presence known and it was comforting in a way because all his life, dad loved thunderstorms. This was a fitting way for him to say goodbye to us. My dad was only 66 years old when he died on Saturday June 13, 2009. He leaves behind my sister and I and our 4 children….gone too soon.
My biggest regret is that our children won’t be able to know him the way we knew him. I used to think my dad was the smartest guy in the world. He seemed to know everything about everything. My dad was not perfect however, as evidenced by his decision to leave his wife and children and make a new life for himself on the other side of the country. This was a selfish decision and I still have yet to come to terms with it, even nearly 30 years later. Now that I am a parent it staggers me that he was able to walk away from his family. I loved him despite this, much to my mother’s chagrin, I think. Those wounds will probably never heal, for her or for my sister and I, but we have learned to deal with them in our own ways. In some ways I think I have swept a lot of my initial anger at him under the proverbial rug and now that he is gone, that may be just where it will stay. I choose to remember my dad as someone I have always looked up to and admired and someone I loved unconditionally, the way all parents and children should love each other. I will miss him with all my heart and wish I could hear his laughter just one more time. I love you dad.
It’s really hard to believe that my dad is gone. He was always so vital to me, never sick really, never weak. Even though his health in the last few years had been plagued by many "middle-age" diseases like diabetes and high cholesterol and the like, he still seemed strong and healthy for the most part. The first inkling I had that he was ill was for about the past year, whenever I talked with him on the phone, he would cough. Around the fall of 2008 the cough was so bad that it was impossible to talk with him on the phone because he was constantly coughing. I’m ashamed to admit that I put off calling him sometimes because it killed me to hear him coughing so. He protested that he had been to the doctor for the cough, but I was not convinced. Nobody can cough like that for 6 months and still have nothing wrong with him. It wasn’t until it was too late to do anything about it that we found out a chronic cough often accompanies liver and kidney disease.
It must be said that my dad was an alcoholic, but a very high functioning alcoholic. For as long as I can remember, alcohol was a part of his life, of my life, but not in a bad way by any means. One of my first memories as a kid was me and my sister playing in a bar as my parents and their friends sat around and had drinks. There was nothing sinister about this; it was just the way things were. Just as it was that our family vacations many times were disguised as golf vacations for my parents. They just found really interesting places to go play golf and turned these into our vacations. I just figured this out relatively recently! So, my sister and I grew up with alcohol being a very constant presence but also a comforting presence because as my parents drank they always were in the company of friends and their friends usually always had kids of their own and therefore, my sister and I were content to play with our friends as our parents drank. I hardly ever remember seeing my parents drunk, maybe once or twice in my entire childhood and even then I don’t recall anything bad happening…they were happy when they drank, which trickled down to us. So alcohol, while pretty much was always present in my dad’s life, never seemed to be a problem for him or those around him. Towards the last few years or so apparently the effects of 40 years of alcohol were slowing making their impact known, in the form of liver disease. Even when he was faced with this knowledge, it still took my dad a long time to quit drinking completely, an unfortunate truth that severely cut his life expectancy down from perhaps a few more years to mere months. Now my dad was not a big doctor-lover and it really took a lot for him to even go to the doctor. In fact, he never admitted to me that he was ill, even when I told him I was concerned over his appearance in March. He just didn’t want to upset us or burden us with his health issues I guess. This in and of itself is a big deal because my sister and I both work in the health field and I am certain that had he confided in us even a year ago, his life would have been prolonged because we would have recognized that his present doctor was not treating him appropriately and that things were much worse than what he was being told.
The last two weeks of my dad's life were rather miserable and I regret that he was unable to trust his daughters, if that is what it was, to know the truth. About two weeks before he died, my dad was functioning fairly well. He was going to work as usual, keeping to his usual routine. However, apparently the day before he went into the hospital he was having a bad time of it at work. His coworkers later told us that he had eaten lunch in his car, as usual, but that he had taken an extraordinary amount of time to do so. This was not like him and that concerned them. They could tell he was not breathing well and was weak. My sister was summoned to my dad’s apartment and she was absolutely shocked to find him in such a weakened and obviously ill condition. She was frightened and horrified to find him like that and insisted that he go to the hospital immediately. It is a great testament to just how bad dad felt that he agreed to go to the hospital. He was admitted and it was immediately clear that he was in bad shape. His liver and kidneys were failing and he was at the end-stage of both diseases. He was so bad that kidney or liver transplants were out of the question. He had so much fluid in his belly that it was causing him to have trouble breathing and causing his heart to work very hard. They removed over 10 liters of fluid from his belly. Now just stop and think about this for a minute. Think of five 2 liter bottles of Pepsi standing in a row and that is how much fluid they removed from my dad’s belly. I later found out that this is an extraordinary amount of fluid to remove at one time and in fact, I believe that the shock of this much fluid being removed at once caused his body to go into shock and led to his death, much sooner than it needed to, but that is another story. He did feel better after the fluid was removed but the indignities of being in the hospital and having everyone finally know the truth of what he did to himself over the years, I think caused my dad to lose his faith. My sister called me to tell me about him being in the hospital and while it was a shock, it was not unexpected, as she had been keeping me updated on his deteriorating health. I was glad he was finally somewhere that he could receive some help. Three days later, it was determined that my dad’s condition was grave and he was moved to the hospice part of the hospital. My sister generously offered me a plane ticket to fly down and be with him and I was scheduled to arrive 4 days later. Each day I would call my dad and speak with him and he seemed to be in better spirits after the move to hospice; he had a private room which was a great thing for him. He was happily anticipating my arrival and on Tuesday evening, he seemed like my old dad. On Wednesday afternoon my sister called frantically and told me that I had better try to get an earlier flight, that dad was going downhill fast. I was stupefied as, having just spoken with him the night before and finding him lucid and feeling good, the sudden turn was unbelievable. Unfortunately, an earlier flight was not to be had and I had to wait until my original flight on Thursday. I was horrified that I would not reach him before he died. However, I did arrive just after lunch on Thursday and my sister and I raced to the hospital. I walked into his room and was momentarily confused, thinking for a split second that we were in the wrong room. I could not believe the person lying in that bed was my father. Surely this shockingly thin man was not my dad. He was in and out of consciousness by that point and I loudly announced to him that I was here. He opened his eyes wide, recognizing me I’m sure, but then slipped back to sleep. That was really the only response I would see out of him at all. He was basically comatose until his death 2 days later. This was not an easy death though; and it was not an easy death to watch. There was moaning and thrashing and near the end, he began having strange seizures where he would fling his arms up as if he were trying to catch a ball being thrown to him. His arms would stay up and he would shake. His eyes would roll up into his head and it was just ghastly to watch this and be helpless to stop it. More medication was given but it really didn’t help. He was restless even in his coma. On Saturday, we were all gathered in his room and were reminiscing about him and the fun we used to have with him. We knew the end was near as his eyes opened and would not close anymore. This was eerie and disturbing for us, to see him lying there with his eyes open, so we covered his eyes with a wet washcloth, which certainly made us feel better. We decided to grab a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria. As we were coming back up in the elevator, we heard a sudden thunderstorm boom its approach. We were heading down to dad’s room when the nurse stopped us in the hall and we knew instantly that dad was gone. He had waited for us to leave as he did not want to die in front of us. The hospice nurses assured us this was a very common way for people to die. The thunderstorm continued to make its presence known and it was comforting in a way because all his life, dad loved thunderstorms. This was a fitting way for him to say goodbye to us. My dad was only 66 years old when he died on Saturday June 13, 2009. He leaves behind my sister and I and our 4 children….gone too soon.
My biggest regret is that our children won’t be able to know him the way we knew him. I used to think my dad was the smartest guy in the world. He seemed to know everything about everything. My dad was not perfect however, as evidenced by his decision to leave his wife and children and make a new life for himself on the other side of the country. This was a selfish decision and I still have yet to come to terms with it, even nearly 30 years later. Now that I am a parent it staggers me that he was able to walk away from his family. I loved him despite this, much to my mother’s chagrin, I think. Those wounds will probably never heal, for her or for my sister and I, but we have learned to deal with them in our own ways. In some ways I think I have swept a lot of my initial anger at him under the proverbial rug and now that he is gone, that may be just where it will stay. I choose to remember my dad as someone I have always looked up to and admired and someone I loved unconditionally, the way all parents and children should love each other. I will miss him with all my heart and wish I could hear his laughter just one more time. I love you dad.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Oh my....so long.....
Just wanted to check in and say I am still here, still alive, although it has been a hell of a couple of months - lost my grandmother, lost my dad, Lulabell had more surgery...and may need even more....lost our power for a day and i thought I would die - school is back and kids are doing well...almost halloween and my daughter yearns to be a vampire - literally. She has been reading the True Blood series and the Marked series and of course, loves Twilight....My son is now a senior and we will have to get senior pics done soon - he is looking for a job at the moment, wish him luck! Stu and I still plugging away at our jobs - no news there - same old crap....still only 1 car between us and that sucks big time - my grandmother completely blew my sister and I off in her will and that hurts so bad - my dad died unexpectedly and that hurts the worst. I can't believe i don't have a dad anymore - we got to go to florida (my third time this year!) for his memorial service, which was nice. What are we doing in icky Pennsylvania? the kids are dying to live in florida....i don't know. So, that's about it for now - i will be back soon for more updates - need to get back into this again....
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