The Aging Parent. It’s Tough.

It’s Sunday. 2:08pm. I’m still in my pajama’s and my mind is spinning. I have not even thought about a shower. I’m trying to clean, like 14 different things at once. This is normal. Forensic Files is playing in the back ground. This is normal, too… I’m sitting at my computer knowing its time to write. Writing frees me. It gets my thoughts out. They seem to make more sense. I poured myself a glass of wine. I just keep thinking.

One week and one day ago, I got a phone call from my Sister. No biggie, really. But, when I saw that she was calling and before I picked up, something got to me. Why is she calling? Is everything okay? “Hello…” It wasn’t. She simply says, “I think you may want to come home – soon…” Me, “Oh, okay. Why? Is everything okay?” She is getting teary eyed. I can just tell. It scared me. We are in that age of, texting, FB Messaging and not much calling. Not that, that is a good thing, it’s just a thing. I live a couple hours away and due to my job, I told her I will see her Saturday morning. I will come and pick her up. She agreed. Through the week, we made a plan and we’re sticking to it. We had to.

What my Sister called me about was our Dad. He is ill. Has been for awhile. Hates the Doctor. Any Doctor. But he is sick. He has lost 80 pounds since the last time I saw him, which was Mother’s day. Almost 4 months ago. He looks bad. And I mean, BAD… He scared me. His nose looked so weird. Kind-of pointy. I have never seen that before. It made me scared. I felt like I was in the 6th grade again.

My Sister and I held up our end. We were strong. Or were we? We became the parents. When your not, that is hard. We don’t want to be the parents. We still want to be the 6th grader. Our Dad has ALWAYS had our back. Still does. I honestly think he loves the two of us more than anybody on the planet.

I had been praying for this day all week. Reached out to my Prayer Warriors and asked for prayer. Okay – I begged for it. Driving home was fine. I was not scared, just nervous. The Lord had my back, again. I just needed this to go. Good… Right?!

My Dad was mad. And I mean, MAD. I think we were expecting more of a hurt feeling senerio. Nope. The madness was scary. And kind-of weird. He would throw his head back and roll his eyes. Several times.

The history is this. He has always had stomach problems. Always. When we walked in the door, I about lost my breath. He appears to be starving. Literally, starving to death. His skin is grey-ish. Our Dad is almost 7 feet tall. Read that again – Seven Feet Tall. He is a big man. He has never been grossly over weight, just huge. A normal shirt size for him is a 5X. That is normal. If he is lucky, he could fit into a 3X, probably a 2X, now. His bottoms don’t stay up.

Yous ask – what happened? I do know that he has been drinking Ensure’s lately. He told me he is doing this “for extra nutrition…”. He had been telling me this on our weekly conversations. This didn’t make me nervous. When we show up and asked what was going on, why have you lost weight?? He tells us, I have a hard time keeping things down. We ask, Does your stomach hurt? He says, No. After continuous conversation he finally tells us that he feels like his stomach is filled with air and when he eats he feels like he has to burp, but he can’t and then the food comes up. WOW! I mean, What?

After this conversation, my Dad wanted us to do lunch. We went and got a pizza. Family tradition. On the way there my Sister and I were just trying to grasp at what was happening. In that car ride we made a plan. She is going to make the Doctor’s appointments from now on. We decided this because, we could not figure out if he was being honest with us when he tells us he has been going to the Doctor. We found it odd, that his Doctor never questioned a 80 pound weight loss? He says he never said anything. I’m pretty sure he has not been going. Due to the weight loss, my Dad is not driving. Why you ask? He has 0 energy. He couldn’t. My Sister will now be in charge of doing this.

After our Dad ate, he didn’t throw up, but he had to spit out his food. It won’t go down, he said. No nutrition. That’s the weight loss. That’s the no energy. This is what is scary.

We have a plan. We have a Doctor some what in place. Pray for us. This is tough.

It’s a lot. My Sister’s is now homeschooling, too. She has a lot more added to her schedule. It sucks. But what do you do? This is where the respect issue comes in. We want to respect his wishes. But we can see more. We know what he is made of. He’s funny. He’s crazy. But more importantly, he is our Dad. He loves us. We want him to want to live. To get better.

His life decisions have been hard. They still are. We see through it. We want him to be well. Why is that so.damn.hard.?

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