A Week Gone By

Things have been hectic the past week, hence the lack of posts. My sister arrived late on Memorial Day and stayed through until Friday night. Between mowing the lawn and teleworking, she also got  some paperwork moving forward on getting some kind of financial assistance for Dad. Cancer racks up amazing bills even with Medicare insurance and then there was the horrific heating bill due from the very harsh winter.

We’d previously gotten things moving on the latter and some help will be coming via SEMCAC with the possibility of more from the state of Minnesota. Initial application for help to the local county social services has produced a denial letter and we’ll have to follow up on that since I’m not sure what all my sister applied for in Dad’s name.

A rare bit of socializing for me occurred on Friday, the first in months was made possible by her being able to watch him. My friends, the Kuglers, had me over for dinner and conversation for a welcome break. Fun was had and I found myself very tired once I arrived home.

Things being the way they are, that socializing came at a penalty.

It took a small eternity to awaken the next morning to the alarm on the feeding pump. Staggering out to disconnect my father, I found him bolt upright watching TV. I asked how long the alarm had gone off. A half hour had passed while he ignored it.

Sure enough, the liquid had hardened in the tube and no amount of force or finesse could flush the feeding tube. Emergency room time again. Watching the nurse attempt to flush the tube was far more entertaining than doing it had been, I must say. The highlight had to be a syringe full of Diet Pepsi blasting back and hitting the ceiling before splattering the floor to my right.

We even had a doctor come in to check it out after hearing about it in the hallway. At least we provided some entertainment.

Of course the tube had to be replaced, making it the third one so far. We were told this happens frequently, but I’d already instituted a more rigorous flushing regime and now have my alarm clock set to go off before he’s finished “eating” each morning.

A silver lining was catching some of the Blue Angels performing their acrobatics routine over the Walgreens pharmacy we get prescriptions at. Turned out to be a perfect view from there and we were lucky to find a parking space in their lot. At one point I’d hoped Dad would be doing well enough to take to the event as an early Father’s Day gift. Alas, this was as close to that happening as we were fated to get.

Sunday was a better day, aided by a neighbor watching my father while I attended church and taught Sunday school. The Coltons, friends who moved away years ago are in the area to visit, so I briefly got to see them between sacrament meeting and classes. Having my should have been little sister actively contributing in class was a blast from the past bringing back fond memories of the La Crosse 2nd Branch that once was.

I’ll be trying to meet up with them again this week, probably during or after Dad’s last chemotherapy session. There is going to be quite a discussion before that over whether or not to proceed given the malnutrition issues and delaying surgery on his stomach.

Okay, enough of this post. I’ve got to finish up a re-edit of a movie review and an opinion on some political goings on in my Congressional district. Both have not been fun to write, which might explain why neither got finished last week. Such is life.