Normally complaining about a month involves that eternal and universal topic of weather. Yeah, the weather has been weird with ferocious gnats making the good days outside miserable, but it has been the unrelenting bad news that makes me want the month to just leave already.
The latest is my father having to be hospitalized again. After more than 24 hours of vomiting brown blood, he caved and we journeyed to the ER to see now familiar faces. At the rate he’s going, we’ll start being invited to family outings of the staff. Symptoms are the same as two weeks ago, but in greater volume and violence.
Luckily we ran into the doctor who had been in charge of Dad’s stay last time so plans fell together very quickly, even if getting a room freed up did not. He’s going to have his stomach pumped overnight and then an endoscopy will be performed to see what is going on inside the malfunctioning stomach. My hope is that not only will they get to the bottom of the stomach, but also the problem.
A benefit of the J tube operation is that Dad can be fed overnight beforehand preventing the normal loss of weight from being starved while the stomach is being dealt with. Unfortunately, he’s down to 122 pounds after this latest round of misery.
This turn of events caps off a very unhappy week in our rural neighborhood. In a previous post, I mentioned taking a neighbor to the ER right after getting my father home from surgery earlier in the month. That neighbor managed to talk his way out of the hospital after a few days and came over to mow our lawn as a thank you for helping him.
As usual for Brian, he had issues with his Frankenstein riding mower and had to walk home to get his scooter plus what he needed to get it running again. He left the scooter behind to retrieve later and the last we saw of him was Saturday evening. Others saw him the next day, but then he became impossible to find. Calling his phone raised no response and I went over with my father to see if we could find him at home.
The door was locked and no pounding got a response, so we wondered if he was back in the hospital. By Wednesday, our other neighbor Randy got involved and once again no response at the door. Since Brian had a history of heart problems there was quite a bit of concern. Dad placed a phone call to the county sheriff’s office to do what is called a “wellness check” since they could legally get into the house if there was concern. That and they knew him all too well from his many run-ins with the law.
At 11:15 PM that night, we had a knock at the door. Two deputies were there with the news that our neighbor was deceased. They also had some questions about when he was last seen and where. We’d seen his fate coming and like others had been powerless to prevent it.
Alcoholism is often treated as a joke, however people do drink themselves to death. Brian made a lot of bad choices in life and paid the ultimate price. He had his moments where his heart showed a much better man than the one who passed away alone and estranged from his family. This tragic end was predictable, yet it still stung a bit. I hope and pray he’s found some peace now.
Only three more days to this wretched month.
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