June 3, 2011 -- In Memoriam

Dear Friends,

It's with that combination of sadness, relief and joy that I tell you that my dad passed away around 2:30 this morning.

Dad with Amelia, Christmas 2007

As you know, he had been in hospital pretty much ever since suffering a massive heart attack in late August. There was a 10-day period when we thought he was out of the woods and he did go home, but he wound up living out his last months at Glengarry Hospital, an extended-care facility. After a lifetime as a tremendously physical, athletic man, fiercely independent -- to a fault, as those of us who worried about him living alone can attest -- to have the rug pulled out from under him by a body that let him down was a shock to his system. Being on oxygen 24/7, unable to get up without becoming breathless, depressed at not being in his house with his bees ... it all added up. It is a relief that the Lord decided "enough's enough" and called him home.

Of course, there's the sadness. I'll miss him. So will Amelia, who was one of the great joys of dad's life -- a feeling that was mutual. We both had our premonitions that the end was near: she went to see him a week ago Thursday and when she left, she says he hugged her like he never wanted to let her go. I phoned him on Wednesday just before the hockey game and he drifted in and out of coherence. I got a nudge in the spirit that this was it, although my thought was how to encourage him more to take his eyes off the current situation and reach out towards a new chapter in his life, maybe encouraging the other people in the hospital and thereby make it to age 90 and beyond. ("After all," Amelia told him, "you've got a sister to catch up to," referring to my aunt Robbie, who's 92.) Even so, I believe God has a specific date and time set down for each of us, and 2:30 am PDT, June 3, 2011, was the one written against dad's name. Knowing that His plan always plays out, takes a lot of the edge off the sadness. 

But there's also the joy. Joy for a dad who -- quite frankly -- set a pretty high standard for integrity and willingness to lay down his life for the ones he loves. Joy that we were able to talk about faith issues, even though our "walks" were decidedly different. I believe that, even now, he's learning a Truth that none of us could even imagine in this world. Joy for what he did "in the dash" -- that time period represented by the " - " between the dates on a tombstone. I occasionally run into his former colleagues from CBC, and they speak of him with utmost respect; he also made fast friends in the small but treasured social life -- like the young ladies Amelia called "his chicks" -- waitresses at the White Spot and staff at the Oak Bay Rec Centre, not to mention the nurses. These young people were a joy to him and their caring tone as they've asked after him in the past is genuine. That's some pretty significant "dash content," right there.

Professionally, dad spent so much time living in mom's shadow that it was easy to forget how brilliantly talented he was. He was a musician who, along with his pal, Howie Denike, founded the Chilliwack Boys Band in the 30s. He still played the clarinet until a tendon problem shelved that idea a few years ago. He wrote with an effortless humor, as he did when he started toying with some memoirs about 10 years ago -- and could also tear your heart out, as he did mine when he described his father leaving home during the Depression. When I was in university in Montreal, he described firing the host of the gardening show he was producing and mused about different styles for doing it -- including a variation on John Cleese's "dead parrot" sketch that ended with, "your lettuces have wilted and your radishes have gone to seed! You are an ex-host!"

And then there was KLAHANIE. I'll refer you to a blog entry I posted in January: a source of joy is the knowledge that, with the creativity and the free rein he was given at the CBC, he managed to conceive and produce a show unlike any other to that time and which sent the "outdoors" genre off in a different direction.

Yeah, I was proud of him.

Dad asked to be cremated and his ashes mixed in with mom's, which are in the soil around a lovely cherry tree in the back yard at 638 Victoria Avenue. So we shall do that and hold memorials in Victoria and Vancouver some time in July. I'll make sure notices are duly posted.

Jan. 16, 2011 - Ugly Reality Comes to Call

There has been a bit to update since the last missive in October -- some of you know what's happened, but I stopped sending out the updates because things were, as we said during the startup of TheNewVI (the TV station I worked at for a couple of years in Victoria), "fluid". So now it's a good time to catch you up.

 

Only a few days after the last message, which told of the decision not to amputate the tip of dad's right index finger, there was a major setback. He complained of shortness of breath and -- more alarming -- showed a loss of short-term memory. Dad's neighbour -- the retired Air Force doctor -- called 911 and he was hustled back to Royal Jubilee Hospital.

 

The damage to his heart was much worse, as was the damage to his lungs, and to sum things up, the smart money says he cannot function on his own at home.

 

To say this was a shock would understate the case. It appeared to those of us close to him -- including the medicos -- that the only real issue for dad was now his functioning with two wonky hips. He'd been off oxygen, his oxygen saturation rate was vastly improved, and the Quick Response Team -- the medical "strike force" that was monitoring him and checking up on him a couple of times a week -- had taken him off their list. It was believed that, with the twice-daily visits from the home support workers, dad would be OK. For this sudden setback to happen was a bolt from a blue sky.

 

So dad has been in hospital from the middle of October until last Thursday. In fact, he was under the impression that he had been in hospital since August 23, when he had the heart attack. It wasn't until just before Christmas, when Amelia and I visited him, that a couple of memory triggers went off and he realized that yes, he had been home for about 10 days.

 

He still doesn't fully accept the fact that he won't be going home again, but the reality is, there isn't a home care support system around that can provide him what he needs. But it's not all bad news. One of his difficulties was aspirating his food -- a medical term that essentially means "having it go down the wrong way". They'd been serving him was amounted to cat food -- minus the flavour* -- but dad let them know that he was prepared to accept that risk, even though it might lead to a "pneumonic episode" from which he might not recover, they started feeding him real food.

 

That alone contributed to a definite improvement in his outlook. Then on Friday, came another advance.

 

RJH had changed dad's status to "resident", which means that they would start hunting down an extended-care bed for him ASAP. On Thursday, I got a call from one of the social workers at Glengarry Hospital, which is in the Fairfield district of Victoria, and about a 3-iron shot from dad's house in Oak Bay. Since it appeared dad was still under the impression that his next move would be back to 638 Victoria Avenue, I asked if I could break the news to him. To my surprise, he was delighted. I told him he'd be sharing a room with 3 other men, and when I said it would be QUIET, he almost cheered. In fact, he may have, but I couldn't hear much over the vacuum cleaner obbligato in the hospital hallway behind him.

 

And so that is dad's current residence: Chandler Unit, Glengarry Hospital, 1780 Fairfield Road, Victoria. The room is much larger than the one in the hospital ... and made larger still by the absence of the medical machinery that was in the other. It is quiet, and when I went to see him today, he was wheeling himself down the hall in a wheelchair -- something I hadn't seen him do at RJH -- and wearing sweatpants and a borrowed sweater (I have since brought him his own clothes), so he's out of those hospital piggy-jim-jams, at last.

 

He has the option of having his meals in bed, or getting up and going to one of two eating areas, with large windows and movies, and lots of staff (including a Practical Nurse who, it turned out, taught my children how to skate about 15 years ago). He's in much better spirits, although really ticked off at his body for letting him down the way it has.

 

This may not be his last move: he's actually on a waiting list for a "preferred location" -- Mount St Mary's, which is also in Fairfield, on the site of the original Victoria General Hospital -- but at least, he's out of acute care, and for him, that's moving forward.

===

*Not that I'm an expert, y'understand: I often wonder who actually determines that a cat food has a NEW, IMPROVED TASTE. I mean, how can you POSSIBLY improve on turkey giblets, bone meal, taurine, salt, gelatin and beef byproducts?

Oct. 28, 2010 - The Notable Miracle

OK, so that wasn't the last update on dad.

 

As you may recall, dad is back home from the hospital and settling into his new routine of functioning at home again and getting used to the twice-daily visits from home support workers -- who go there expecting to help with day-to-day chores, but wind up spending an hour chatting with him because he's done all the things that need doing. The one thing left to do was go back to the hospital to have the tip of his right index finger amputated because the circulation through the finger arteries had been cut off and he was in a fair bit of pain because of it.  He was more or less resigned to this, and was figuring out how new ways of holding a pen, among other things.

 

Initially, the surgery was scheduled for last Wednesday (the 20th), but dad's GP's office called on the Monday to say there'd been a mistake with his medications and he was still getting blood thinners.  He needed to be off the blood thinners for at least five days prior to the operation.  So it was re-scheduled for the 27th -- yesterday.

 

So yesterday morning, off we went to Royal Jubilee, Clinic #3.  The nurse bedded dad down in one of the small operating rooms, with the ominous-looking stainless-steel dishes and towels and packages of "gut" and bandages and tape.  I sat on a chair near the door, trying not to think of Homer Simpson with his arm stuck in a pop machine, about to have it amputated because he wouldn't let go of the can he was trying to steal, or Spike Milligan's cartoon of a man having part of his legs amputated and the surgeon telling him, "mind you, this doesn't necessarily mean you'll paint like Toulouse-Lautrec ...".

 

And then Dr Grey came in.  "Let's have a look at that," he said.  Dad removed the splint and Dr Grey gingerly took off the bandage.

 

And blinked.

 

The last time I'd seen that finger, the tip was nearly black.  Everything the doctors had said about the damage done to the arteries was borne out by the sight of it, and you could see the demarcation between the healthy part of the finger and the bit that "had to go".

 

Now, the finger was completely the color of good-ol' healthy flesh. There was only a tiny bit of dark discoloration at the very tip, which looked more like a scab than anything else.  Dad wiggled the finger, bending it at that top knuckle.

 

Dr Grey was somewhat at a loss for words.  "There's nothing wrong with that," he said, knowing darn well that he'd seen a perfect candidate for amputation just a couple of weeks before.  "That dark tip there is going to slough eventually and be replaced by new skin."  He called in a young intern who'd been shadowing him, and explained about finger arteries and how there are two in each finger and if one gets clogged the other can still deliver blood to the finger ... but when it came to how the arteries were restored, the explanation was couched in "must have"'s and "somehow"'s.

 

"Looks like Nature's cut you a break," he said.  By then, dad was practically bouncing off the walls. Dr Grey looked at me.  "I guess the prayers worked," he said.  Apparently, he'd noticed the Bible in my lap, although I'd brought it in with me for a different reason. 

 

Sometimes, God presents miracles in "Zippity-ZAM" (as Kenneth Copeland would put it) fashion.  Sometimes, though, He gives us a little nudge to say, "I'm right here".  You may recall that I mused on this in my blog, "What Prayer For An Old Man?"  There's the answer: a reminder to all of us, no matter what our age.

 

In Acts, Chapter 3, the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate is described as a "notable miracle".  This would be another, and I thought it fitting to "close the loop" by telling you about it.

Oct. 13, 2010 - a brief flicker of hope

Some might say this is from the "whod-a-thunkit" file, but Andy Snider left Royal Jubilee Hospital yesterday morning after 8 weeks and 1 day and is now back in his own digs in South Oak Bay.

 

It's been an interesting past 24 hours.  There's been quite the parade coming through here, all to do with setting up the amount of home support dad needs in order to keep on functioning in a home environment.

 

The first home support worker was booked to come at 8am, supposedly to help dad get up, bathe and get breakfast.

 

I got out of bed at 7 to find dad already showered and shaved, and in the process of getting dressed.  By 7:30 he had finished breakfast and by 7:45 he was muttering in the kitchen about the fact that I'd had the temerity to use the dishwasher -- which was why he couldn't find the dishes.

 

Rene, a very pleasant fellow with an accent I took to be French but who is really from El Salvador (maybe if his name had been Jose or Oscar or something I might have clued in faster), showed up on time to find out there was little he needed to do.  Help dad button his shirt -- that was about it.  They had a very pleasant chat for an hour and then Rene left to help another client.

 

A nurse from the Quick Response Team then showed up to find out how the day was going and take dad's blood pressure.  Oddly enough she -- and a couple of our other visitors -- seemed to find it necessary to SPEAK VERY LOUD AND CLEARLY so they could communicate with dad.  She did, eventually, dial back the volume as she realized dad's ears were functioning quite well.  And after talking with him, realized that the best course of action would be not to order in any more home support for a few days, and see what he really needs.  We can then re-evaluate things after I've had a chance to observe -- and as Yogi Berra reputedly said, you can observe a lot just by watching.

 

Next stop - the amputation.  One of the side issues (pun intended*) from all this is that the tip of dad's right index finger has basically become dead.  The circulation was cut off in the same sort of problem that caused the heart attack: clogged blood vessels.  The only solution is to cut off that bit of the finger.  The date for that has not been set yet -- some time in the coming week -- and that's produced probably the saddest part of this whole affair: dad's clarinet- and possibly recorder-playing days are probably over.

 

And so here we are: an amazing recovery from a situation that looked pretty ropey 8 weeks ago, when Aidan, Hannah, Amelia and I went up to the hospital.  Thank you for your prayers ... evidently, they have been heard.

 

And with that, I think we can sign this off.

Sept. 28, 2010 - Preparation for The Life Beyond

"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.

Sept. 13 - two weeks along

Looks like it's been almost two weeks since I last updated you on dad's situation, and looking back over the last missive, there's a bit to update.

 

First, there's no way he's coming home yet.

 

Second, dad is now at his third address at Royal Jubilee Hospital, which is starting to rival his son for shiftlessness (I've had no fewer than 17 addresses since 1988): after about 10 days in the regular ward, he was moved on Saturday into the Richmond Pavilion, where they do physical therapy and basically work on getting people mobile again.  This is good news, and he's been able to get himself to the bathroom and back and take longer strolls down the hall and back under the watchful eye of a physiotherapist.  He still has to rest and get his breath back after these excursions.  The pneumonia is gradually clearing up, but it's a long process.

 

Mentally, he's still sharp and his face lit up when Amelia walked in yesterday. Any kind of contact with family and friends boosts him -- he got two long and thoughtful letters from friends last week, which definitely blessed him.  But he also talks of strange dreams, and one of his nurses told me he has periods of delerium, which are not uncommon, she says, but are cause for, if not concern, certainly vigilance.

 

As you can see, I try to keep upbeat while dealing with realities.  One of those is determining what kind of care and what level of care he'll need once they do release him.  I hope to meet with the hospital social worker and some of the medical team today to get a better picture of that.

 

One of the blessings has been the amount of time we've been able to spend talking.  We talk about faith and about life and all sorts of things: the dreams and what he plans to do at home when he goes back.  For a while, he talked a lot about his childhood, but the last couple of visits, we've talked about the future.  I read to him from Return to Antarctica, although he's also been reading it by himself when I'm not there -- he likes to say, "I read it until my lips get tired" -- so I've been missing bits and pieces of it.  (Adrian, what did Scott do after he got back from the South Pole?)

 

He said, "I love you" at least three times in conversation yesterday: more than I've heard him say it in about 35 years. 

 

On Friday, as I was leaving to go back to Vancouver (we came back over on Sunday morning), he called me back.  Actually, I didn't hear him call: a nurse passing by the room caught me and said, "are you Drew?"  I admitted it, and she said, "you're dad's calling you".  I went back.  He held my hand for a moment and prayed quietly.  I've never seen him pray.

 

You think God isn't working this through for His glory?

 

Speaking of prayer, Amelia stepped in during Saturday's service at Gospel Mission -- just after Worship -- and told the guys (some women come to the Mission, but they're all known, generically, as "the guys") about the situation with dad and asked for prayer: not for him, but for me.  "Drew's having a rough time of it," she said, which is true, "and while you guys rely on him, he relies on you."  Also true.  We are family.  And they all prayed.

 

And something interesting happened.  One of the guys spoke up and asked for prayer, too, since his mother is in her final days with Alzheimer's.  So he was prayed for as well ... and I was reminded I'm not the only one going through this.

 

While it's positive news that dad's been moved to a rehab unit at Royal Jubilee, there is a down-side: he's no longer under the care of Nurse Olga.  Despite any mental image the name might conjure up ("lovely like steppes -- delicate like tractor"), Olga is a lovely, caring person who was able to give me the straight goods on dad's condition in such a way that I was able to get a handle on his future prospects and needs.  She was also the first person in the hospital who was able to shave dad without carving him like a salmon and give him showers -- one of dad's favorite things: "they hose me down front and back with this lovely hot soapy water -- it's beautiful!" -- and she told me of one night when they actually wheeled dad out to the nursing station to sleep, because he was having difficulty (she didn't elaborate) and they wanted to keep a close eye on him.

 

Why would someone do that?  Why go to such lengths to make an 87-year-old man with pneumonia and who was recovering from a massive heart attack comfortable and prolong his life and not just leave him be -- or not be?  Why would they be so caring?  In fact, why would they double-check and confirm that, if something further happened, "do not resuscitate" was, indeed, his desire?  Certainly, with the media hype about "failings" in our health-care system, I'd point to Olga, her colleagues and the doctors treating dad and say, "case dismissed".  I think that's what it means to be human, God's workmanship created for good works.

Sept. 7, 2010 - "Contrariness"?

News from Royal Jubilee Hospital is still encouraging: as I mentioned before, dad was moved into a general area of the hospital -- as opposed to the Coronary Care Unit -- last Monday, and after a brief period of contrariness (the nurse used other words), his attitude is improving, as well.

 

The hard facts: blood pressure is on the "low" side, but nothing alarming; heart rate is regular again; kidney function is still low, but treatable.

 

Of course, there's still no idea when he'll be able to go home, but at least the medicos are talking in terms of dad actually going home, which was not the case two weeks ago.

 

Give God the glory for dad's improvement!  Something that's worth noting is that the guys at Gospel Mission have been asking after him, even though only a couple of them have ever met him.  It's an indication of the family that's developed there over the past few years, that we would care about one another's parents.