"You're humoring her, aren't you?"
"Of course."
The Community Care Nurse had come in to talk to dad about The Life Beyond -- beyond his hospital stay, that is -- and while she happily discussed in-home care and visits from nurses and therapists and the "Quick Response Team" that would be tailoring their follow-up care to dad's needs, she seemed most insistent about steering the conversation around to dad moving into assisted living.
When she offered to bring dad some brochures, dad readily agreed, and after she'd bustled out, I asked him the question above. The conversation was actually an anomaly among the conversations I've had with the medical staff at RJH: others have been interested in listening to dad, finding out what he wants and getting an idea of what his needs are; this lady seemed more intent on telling him what he wants and working from there. I can't believe she suggested cooking for himself must be a drag and that going to the dining hall would be SO much more enjoyable!
Not to dad. He loves preparing his own meals. He cooks various dishes in his crock-pot -- tarragon chicken, beef stew, a sausage and sauce concoction -- then freezes them in individual portions to be microwaved when needed; he also makes his own green salads and bags them up ... and he's been rhapsodizing about Red River cereal topped with the honey from his back yard. Presenting dining-hall meals as a viable alternative was not a good idea.
In other words, while she means well, bless her, and it's clear she was trying to present all options, she unwittingly missed the boat when it came to offering dad the incentive he needs to get well. This past Wednesday, I talked at length with his nurse, who told me dad was not even getting out of bed except to go to the washroom: even getting his shower -- which he loves -- would tire him out and he'd sleep for two hours. Both she and the current house doctor have talked about setting goals for dad, and the best one is the real possibility that he'll be going back home.
And that is a real possibility. Dr Ming has just taken over as house doctor (I guess they work in rotation): a young man with a slight British accent that made me think of Detective John Ho in "The Chinese Detective" -- a British TV series from the 80s that I seem to be the only one who remembers -- and an uncanny ability to speed-read a medical chart and see what he's dealing with. He actually believes that, with the right support, dad could go home within a couple of weeks and not be considered "at risk". That's a first.
It's been a weekend of "firsts". The first thing dad said to Amelia and me when we walked into the room on Sunday was, "my heart's in worse shape than I thought". We knew the best thing would be to get him the heck out of that room, so we bundled him into a patient transport chair, hooked him up to oxygen, and took him on a tour of Royal Jubilee Hospital, pointing out the different architectural styles (not unlike touring York Minster, which was built during a succession of conquering peoples -- Romans, Normans and Saxons, if I recall correctly) and the changes they're making (I think RJH has been in a constant state of renovations for the past 20 years). We went out onto the balcony of the cafeteria and got a great view of the developing fall colours, then outside for a stroll -- or rather, a roll -- around the front lawn with the trees and shrubbery. It was an amazing tonic.
It was also a first-time that dad conceded there were some things he'd never be able to do again -- like yank the vines away from the front window. "I know exactly where to cut and then I just give one little tug, and down they all come." "You know," said our friend Gail, who's dad's neighbour and a retired military doctor, "you're never going to be able to do that again." "Yes, that's right," dad said, after a pause.
Dad finished Adrian Raeside's "Return to Antarctica" and thoroughly enjoyed it -- although found it very sad -- so I brought him his cassette deck and a stack of tapes. Among them is "The Other Day", a collection of "nonsense" poems mom wrote and recorded not long before she passed away -- with musical settings by Amanda Lince. Dad loves listening to it -- for obvious reasons -- and would burst into one of the poems at a moment's notice in the hospital. (In bizarre moments, I've wondered if that was part of the "delirium" the nurses have told me about: after all, what would you think if a patient started saying, "The other day, I met a panda/Sitting on a blue veranda ..."?)
But I digress (pause while Amelia exclaims, "oh Drew! Say it isn't SO!") .....
So how are things looking? Well, as I said above, dad's heart is in worse shape that he thought. The pneumonia appears to have cleared up, but there's a lot of scar tissue on his lungs; his weight has dropped to 120 lb., which would be why they've put him in bright sun-yellow pajamas: at 6'2", were he to turn at a certain angle, he'd disappear entirely without them. He forces himself to eat all the food they bring him, but since he's on a "cardio" diet, they don't put any salt in it, so meal-time is not the most enjoyable part of the day. You can see why he's rhapsodizing about Red River.
And yet, as I say, there are a lot of positives from this past weekend. Thank you for your prayers: I believe God is sending yet some more trials in making dad "perfect and entire, wanting nothing", as Jesus' half-brother, James, puts it. He doesn't send trials to find out what we're made of; He sends them to show us what we're made of.
And He doesn't send us anything we can't handle.
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