Documents Everyone should have

Learning the hard way what documents to have on hand can make a traumatic situation pure hell. Luckily, because my dad and I are co-facilitators for the Parkinson's Resources support group for the Lower Columbia Region we had begun to keep a journal of his medical history with pages and forms provided by the Parkinson's Center of Oregon through Parkinson's Resources.

These forms help keep medicines straight, journal incidents and events to discuss with the doctor. Adverse drug reactions or interactions as well as diet and exercise. Also, a durable Medical Power of Attorney and a legal document called Critical Information that should be notarized. It contains "critical information" concerning where your advanced directive is, if you have a medical power of attorney, who should be contacted in case your incapacitated (and who shouldn't be!), where to find legal documents, who your attorney is, if you have made funeral arrangements, etc...

All of this is kept in "The Notebook". Also in "The Notebook" is copies of my dad's dd214 (discharge papers, every once in awhile I have to reaffirm with the VA hospital that he really was in the Navy) as well as a copy of his social sercurity card, his driver's license, his VA card, his Medicare and his supplemental insurance as well as prescription cards. Copies, because hospitals just need copies of copies.

The medicine page is kept up to date and his most recent trip to the doctor's office is in there as well. I don't do very well keeping up on the incident journal (almost tripped today, having vivid dreams, etc...).

Its a real comfort when you head out the door with a sick one in tow to God only knows what to be able to grab up that Notebook and have everything there at your fingertips. When your feeling fine is the best time to get one started. Especially when deciding the hard stuff: Advanced directives; Medical Power of Attorney; Funeral Arrangements. For some forms to help keep a medical journal to help you survive the "event" visit the OHSU Parkinson's center and use their forms. Just remember to white out the word Parkinson's where ever you see it (unless, of course, you have Parkinson's).

On that same page is a link to Critical Information for Caring for the Parkinson's Patient . That form can be adapted to most diseases or chronic illnesses. Don't hesitate to use it, just remember to substitute the correct disease name in.

And, on a slightly cheerier note, you can now pick out your own casket at a low, low price from, yep, Costco! Ride through eternity with "Kirkland" embossed silkiness likeness nestled next to your cheek! Actually, they're not that bad looking and really save quite a bit of money. I am just wondering where to keep it until its needed!

Oh, stop looking so worried, Dad. I told you the tests came back and your fine, just fine. Now, which coffin did you say you liked?

Hospital Hell

The last few weeks have been hell.

My dad had a heart attack. He's 67 and has Parkinsons. With my husband, he forms my base. Two rocks that are hard, firm and something you can anchor yourself to when storms blow.

The whole time I was growing up he was never sick. One time the dock roof at City Transfer, back when Forrest Vaughn owned it, fell on his head. He got stitches and took one day off. His dad was a longshoreman. My dad and mom had four girls before little boy blue was born, on dad's birthday. We played flag football with the little squirt since we were old enough to form a "defensive squad". We played so hard it turned him into quite the tough football player. Small and not a great runner during practice but get his adrenalin going and not much could stop him. We often got his adrenalin going. Four older sisters making life hell. And a father who's only other outlet than family was coaching little league.

Mr. B is what Brian Tarabochia of Salmon for All tagged him with eons ago and Mr. B he has been for generations of kids. People I didn't even know would come up to me and tell me what a great coach he was. He loved teaching kids the dynamics of baseball. He loved basketball too, and often helped me with my basketball teams.

Sister Daintry was the best known athlete of the family. She was the last baby Dr. Fowler ever delivered so my mom let him name her. With that name it was decided no middle was needed. She has a PhD now and is in administration for the State of Hawaii working with the mentally challenged.

Of us kids, though, my sister Sarah was the "natural". If she wasn't so shy she could have gone to college on a sports scholarship. Absolutely anything she put (and still puts) her mind to do she accomplished with what seemed to be utter ease.

But, back to me. This is my blog not theirs (love you #3 & #4)! #1 and the one to stay home, man the home fires, and watch my father struggle as his body goes in different directions than his mind wants it to.

The day before his heart attack we were clearing shrubbery and finding that which was covered. A true nightmare of what can happen in the woods when sticker bushes find your discarded items that will "eventually" make it to the dump. He picked up TWO ceramic toilets, tanks intact, and put them on the wheel barrow. Shortly thereafter he said he wasn't feeling well. He had been having spells of tiredness for the past two months and when we told the parkinson's doctor at the VA hospital/clinic we were just told Dad had to either start exercising more or submit to the loss of muscle usage and give in to the tiredness.

He was on Metoprolol for an unspecified, unusual but untraceable EKG. When he was in Japan for my brother's wedding something happened which they thought could have been a heart attack however the EKG kept giving different readings and when they did an angiogram nothing unusual showed except that he had an unusually thick heart wall (what?).

The Parkinson's doctor did not question whether his unusual fatigue was due to his heart. He increased his Sinemet and Mirapex and said exercise more. We exercised him more. Walked more often and asked him to help more around the house getting it ready for sale.

He was life flighted to St. Vincents in Portland. Watching your father flown off in a helicopter to a hospital towards God knows what is really surreal. I couldn't believe it was happening. I was the one to drive him to the ER room at 4 am because of his arm going numb and chest feeling like an iron band was squeezing it. The VA hospital refused to take him if an ambulance brought him. I had been told that by a nurse before. If at all possible we needed to bring him in ourselves because they won't refuse you then but they ALWAYS refuse if another hospital calls.

Bart drove and I called everyone on my cell that I was supposed to. My mom and my son called their lists of people they were responsible for. In our family whoever you call first you are responsible to keep updated. I still owe phone calls. And I am so tired of the horror story that follows.

DO NOT EVER allow a loved one to go to the hospital alone. DO NOT EVER allow a loved one to go to the hospital alone. My father lost his dignity and his pride at St. Vincents by a sadistic nurse and one I should have known not to leave him alone with. 20-20 hindsight.

Another day, maybe? Am I really going to finish this here. This is long enough and I am sick at heart. I have spent the last few days filling out forms, writing letters, trying to get records transfered, checking on all of his meds, consulting with the pharmisist to see which ones conflict. Reading to see when to take which for the best effect. Parkinson's meds can't be taken with protein or they bind to the food and flush right out without taking effect in the body. His heart pills must be taken with food or they will make him nauseous.

When he left that ward he walked out. They didn't even offer him a wheel chair. The night before they had had security guards in his room because they thought they might have to take him to the psych ward because the nurse said he was having delusions! My father said he had peed on himself and the nurse refused to give him a clean gown. He peed on himself because the plastic urinal was full. The nurse was pissed that he couldn't hold it until he got to him and asked him if he liked laying in his own piss. My dad told me he wished my brother was there. He knows he would have punched him. I feel sorrow I didn't stay that night.

I was tired, so tired and went over to the guest house even though the nurse bugged me, sneered when my mother tried to joke with him and barely nodded when we left. The one saving grace was that I told him I was worried that my father's Parkinson's meds weren't being ministered on time and he seemed disorientated. If there were any problems, even if it was 2 am I was to be called, no restraints or other drastic measures were to be taken.

Did he treat my father like that because he could get away with saying he was delusional? I understand delusions in the hospital. I was there with both my grandparents through numerous operations and understand how narcotics can play havoc with the mind. In this CCU ward it is supposed to be one on one care. The nurse had three patients. When my father was wheeled out of surgery I was the one that held the compress on his groin where the angioplasty had been incerted for 45 minutes because the nurse had to prep another patient for a "very tough surgery" and she also had another patient to check on. She didn't want to use the belt because it is painful. She kept on gritting her teeth and barking at my father to "stop shaking your leg, your going to rip open your incision". And no matter how many times I told her he had Parkinsons AND restless leg she would just say, "he has to try harder"!!!

OH! I am so angry. His VA clinic GP NEVER, EVER returned any phone calls. Still hasn't. And dad is supposed to be going to see him sometime next week, according to hospital discharge papers, for a follow up. In another week he is supposed to go back to the heart surgeons. He said it will be a cold day in hell before he steps through the doors of St. Vincents again.

When I got called to his room at 2 am and got him calmed down I went out to talk to the nurse. I was calm, he was all sweetness and light. Didn't know what came over my father, he just went off! I said that he had mentioned that two of his meds were refused him. The nurse said, "Oh, it was just his Parkinson's meds and it was just his 10 oclock night time one and his midnight one". May I please have them, thanks. Going back to my father's room I felt so cold. If he was right about the meds, how much of the rest of the horror story was delusion and how much was real? How would we ever know? I know this man gave me the creeps when he came on and I told my mom, "I'm too tired to break in another nurse and this one looks like a real prick. Do you think dad will sleep through the night?" She said we can hope so and leave our names with the nurse. You aren't supposed to sleep in the room or be in the room after 9:30 PM each night but we stretched as long as we could to keep him from being agitated.

The tears are burning down my face now. I don't like hospitals. I know, I know. I know it all, the pluses the whys and the wherefores. My sister-in-laws are hospital administrators, nurses, and my daughter is studying to be a nurse. It probably just means I know that much more to keep me scared and sad. If he has another attack he says he won't go in. I don't know what I am going to do.

Two arteries to his heart were completely blocked. He had stints put in. One person coming through doing some sort of paperwork asked if we knew why they waited two days before doing surgery on my father. We said what? With this type of blockage, shortly after the sonogram shows the problem, apparently, they usually do the "procedure" (no longer known as surgery). Did we know why there was a two day delay. No, we just thought they were stabilizing him.

What was that about?

If you've stuck around this long, thank-you for "listening". Here's to a brighter tomorrow and a prayer that no more trips to a hospital will be needed. Ever.

You are always somebody's child

I have written about this before and will again and again. Living multi-generationally has its pluses and its, um, detractions. My twenty-five year old has been heard to wail, on more than one occassion, "I am an adult, I shouldn't have to report where I am going." To the people who are watching her child while she is out "going" wherever it is she is going to.

I do understand. I SOOOOO understand. She was hollering, blindly, over her shoulder at her brother and her grandmother, and probably a parting shot at me. When I leave I am talking to my husband, my son, my mother, my father and my grandson who is frantically pulling on shoes saying, "I come with you 'Bika?" I say, " I am heading to the store, anyone want anything?" and then one of them, inevetably says, "So and so just came from the store, why are you going now?" BECAUSE I WANT TO! My mind screams. My mouth mutters, "Because I forgot to mention the soap and toilet paper we were out of." To shut the men up I usually mention a feminine product. Immediately their eyes go out of focus and you can see hair grow inwards in their ears.

My mother is on loan to me from my sister as we prepare parts of the property for sale, mainly the house. She is an energy dynamo, who also has taken over duties with my father, her ex-husband, with whom I think there is still a good relationship. I say "think" because sometimes I wonder if they are going to kill one another. My mother has taken it upon herself to lay out all of his medication each night. She follows the list that we made. Together we made that list. All three of us. So, all three of us should be able to read it the same, correct? Oh, hell no! I write "one dose" meaning the dose it say on the bottle. She reads it as one tablet . Luckily this only happened one day so we were able to straighten it out pretty promptly. The child proof bottles supposedly aren't a problem since they use tools to pry them off. I guess the VA pharmacy doesn't give a choice on the type of bottle tops.

While they get the bottle tops off and discuss the correct dosages my mother throws out any meds she feels are outdated. The problem being NONE should be since my father is on all prescription meds and they come at the correct time through the mail so what the hell is she throwing away which pisses my father off. Plus, my mother is partially blind. But she's the one reading the meds to see which ones are outdated. One of these days I am going to walk over to my dad's house and find them both dead. Scenario: He killed her and then died from eating the wrong pills or they stabbed each other when trying to open the damn pill bottles with dull paring knives and box cutters. Lucky for me I haven't pissed anyone off in a high office or I might get myself framed for a murder!

The other day I tool ALL the pills away and bought seven pill dispenser, one for each day. I fill them once a week with the correct dosage and give my father his new, corrected list with a picture of the pill and correct dosage to be taking at each interval. Neither of my parents were impressed or happy about this change of events. I didn't discuss it with them, I just did it.

I mean, dammit, I am not a little kid anymore. I am not, I emmit, I emmit! And if I am going to be held responsible at some point by my own siblings for whether or not pills are being taken or our blind mother is wielding sharp objects to open things I have to put my foot down. Over and over and over again, if that's what it takes!

Enjoying the little neckers

For dinner tonight: Clams, olive loaf, corn on the cob, squash, black beans, and rice. I love razor clams. I hate digging clams. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate sand, actually. It hurts. It gets in all the cracks and crevices of your body and takes forever to wash out. It gets in your teeth and between your toes and everywhere in between! Crunch, crunch, crunch, sand in the teeth. Yuck!

When I had had enough of my first marriage and packed my children and my bags and left I went on food stamps. I was the first person in the history of my family to "go on" food stamps. Not a crowning moment. My grandfather decided to help me "go off" food stamps. "Honey, whenever we needed food we would go clam digging. Why don't you just go clam digging?" "The season's not open, " I would reply. "Honey, it will be okay, if someone stops you you just tell them your getting off the public dole, they'll understand." I didn't think they would so I wouldn't go when the season wasn't open. Then came the battle when the season was open!

"Honey, lets you and me go clam digging." "That's okay grandpa, we'll be okay." "You'll feel better about yourself if your not on the public dole, honey, lets get some clams." Why was I fighting him now? Because he didn't think going over the limit was that big of a deal when you had hungry mouths to feed. My aunt had four mouths to feed, I had two, my uncle had three and grandpa would reason that was four adults, including him, whose limit we could dig. The problem was they weren't with us. He would say, "Oh honey, the ranger's a reasonable man, he's only after the crook. If he stops us we just tell him what we're doing and he'll understand. He's looking for the poacher, not us. " Um, you want to get clams out of season and you want to get more clams than we are supposed to, um, we are the poachers. But no, no we weren't and nothing I could say would convince him otherwise. I rarely went clam digging with him, the pressure was too great and I knew the rest of the family would blame whoever was caught with him, although now that I am older I think I would have just handled it different. I would have just made sure I had the limit in my bag and let him put all the overlimit into his bag. Then, if we had been stopped I would let my grandfather talk to the man for about an hour as HIS punishment for having stopped us.

I swear, one time my grandfather went through a stop sign in front of a cop and when the cop saw who was driving he just nodded and waved. "That's too bad he didn't stop me for something," grandpa remarked, "I didn't get to finish telling him about how we used to have fill out reports when we brought abandoned boats in that had been stuck on the sand bars. Triplicates, and it was a royal pain in the you-know-what if you made a mistake because you can't scratch it out, it has to be a clean sheet of government issue paper, which if you wasted you had to fill out another form informing someone of why you were using so much paper ..."

One day my grandfather launched into, "Honey, you'll feel better if your not on the government dole," speech and I had had it. "Why don't you get off the dole if its so bad being on it?" I asked, hotly. "What are you talking about?" came the retort. "Your darling Limbaugh was saying how no one should be taking a hand out of Social Security. Why don't you "get off" that?" "I earned that!" he grouchily said. "Grandpa, you have been retired for 20 years. You are making more in retirement than you did when you were working! You are on government 'dole'!" At the time he was collecting two retirements plus social security. He was coast guard twenty years then he went to work for the school district as a custodian and worked another 20 years. He had health insurance from Tri-Med and VA, as well as Medicare. He literally was making almost three times what he had when he was working, even given cost of living increase. He muttered again, "I earned that!" I replied, "I don't deny that, but I've been working since I was fourteen and I've never been on unemployment insurance. After all of these years, I am looking at these food stamps as my "insurance," I earned them. Now, can we never talk about "dole" again?" "Sure thing, honey, or Rush Limbaugh either."

Pride and Joy

In the store the other day my grandson sings, "If your happy and you know it clap your hands," and follows with a clap, clap, clap. No one is in the aisle with me to enjoy my precocious two and a half year old. "He's so intelligent and adorable," I think. He's got his head bobbing and he's really enjoying whatever beat he has going on in his head.

We round the corner and go down the next aisle. This aisle is pretty full of people. My pride and joy is still bee-bopping away. He's singing something else now. What is it? I am bending down, getting something off of the bottom shelf so don't quite catch what it is he's singing in a very melodramatic, raspy voice. I hear an elderly voice ask him, "What's that your saying sweety?" I stand up just in time for him to shriek: "You can't kill the Metal, the metal won't die! Smack it to the ground!" The lady looks at me in indignation. I look back at her and shrug. I offer, "If your happy and you know it clap your hands?"

This day is done

Today was one of those days. I am excited about selling and moving back up to the upper property, developing our home there that has been put on hold for seven years. Seeing if we can get a neighborhood school developed, etc. Yet, today was one of those days. Those days when I see what I had once wanted to do here. This house which is not so special, except ....

It was the home of my grandparents. It was where each and every one of their grandchildren ran for comfort. It has meant safety to generations of people. It is where we hung our first deer, canned our first beans, strawberry's, made our first pickles. It is where we made our first popcornballs with grandma's recipe, baked our first crazy cakes, knitted our first afghans. It is where we buried our dogs, our cats, our turtles, our birds, our pigs, our goats, our chickens, ducks, hamsters, mice, trantulas, ant farms, doves, and pigeons and learned hard lessons about life and death. It is where we heard story after story after story after story of the Coast Guard, Eloquiam Valley, Hoquiam Creek, Aberdeen, prohibition, clam digging, and Coast Guard, Coast Guard, Coast Guard.

I am entrusting to the next owners the cherry blossoms that fall from the tree planted for our cousin Badi. The dogwood which harbors the ashes of our dear friend, Gary Barker, who died from AIDS thirteen years ago. The lilac from the grave of Grandpa Roy's father, honeysuckle from the cabin in Westport, wisteria from the house on S.E. 2nd.

I can take with us the memories, photos and clippings. Leave an essence of the joy, an echo of the laughter, a wisp of the tears, a drop of the anger, a dollop of the fears. A gallon of love and a bushel of spirit. When you sell your house to someone who is going to be your neighbor you give the house an extra touch of yourself, hoping that you find not only someone who will love it and care about it more than you did in your lackidasical it-will-always-be-there cavalier way, but also as an investment in a new friendship. Biting you lip when the cherry tree falls, and the dogwood dies and their dog digs yours up.

This is hard. But it is time to go. I want to be done, I want to be gone and started on a new chapter, in my own home, creating new memories for and with our grandchildren. We still will live on land that was ours, walking where my father's, father's, father's, father walked and as much as that comfort's the soles of my feet, and even causes my blood to throb, my soul's comfort still ache's for Haifa. God willing, that's where we will return. Until then, we will work hard to give what we can here and travel where we can when we can. That is so exciting to be able to say and do and something utterly impossible while living in the current house.

While I acknowledge one of those days, and let it run its course, I look forward to tomorrow and all of the days to come!

Are they fake or are they real?

Very busy week spent doing a dozen different unrelated things, in the end it looks like nothing got done. That is no way to proceed with everything that I have to get done! It seems like life is hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. I seem to be reflecting or anticipating. I need to live more in the moment. Its so hard trying to figure out what's most needed in reality, what needs my immediate time and attention, what will figure itself out and whats best left entirely alone. Prioritizing has always been a problem with me.

My hayfever is really out of control. I am either clawing my eyes out or have medicine head without a care in the world! The packing and finishing the trim on the house is going so slowly. I need to list a bunch of free stuff on freecycle but I just don't have time to sit and do it. I fidget too much in front of this screen, like there is something else I should be doing, much more important than writing. HA! Like there could be something more important?

I finished the novel by Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind and even though he has the whole trilogy written they are only releasing one book a year. SIGH! I would have waited. I hate reading a book that is part of a trilogy only to find out I have to wait years for the finish. Robert Jordan's Wheels of Time series should have prepared me, alas, it didn't. I read so much to prepare for Area Coordinators meetings and tutor trainings, secretary and Spiritual Assembly consultation matters, planning and development of teaching plans and programs and personal growth I really enjoy the fantasy novel genre of Tolkien, Jordan and now Rothfuss. I got into the Pern books for a while and then, suddenly, I can't remember why, they lost their "magic".

I am also reading Sherman Alexie's Flight! That man is brilliant. I have to watch Smoke Signals about once every other month, which is he wrote the screen play for and is directed (Chris Eyre, Klamah Falls) and produced by Oregon natives. It is a marvelous movie, excellently written and acted about Couer d'Alene Indians leaving the reservation for the first time in their lives for a cross country road trip. John Wayne's teeth ya ho, ya ho. John Wayne's teeth ya ho, ya ho. Are they fake or are they real Are they wooden or maybe steel?