Heading to Sarasota
A couple of weeks ago, I had planned to go down to FL to visit with my father this coming weekend, given that his health had been declining. In the last couple of days, however, his health has taken a decidedly negative turn, as he was hospitalized on Sunday for dehydration and malnutrition. I tried calling today and, although he picked up the phone, he was not able to talk intelligibly. I have been on the fence the last couple of days, wondering whether I should go down to FL before this weekend, in part, because I have my own CT scans scheduled for Friday and I’d kinda like to know what’s going on with my health.
My sister (who, by the way, is feeling better than the last time I talked about her in this blog) is also the medical expert of the family; she is a nurse manager / evac nurse up at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and we all go to her when we are dealing with medical issues. Marjie has been keeping in contact with my step-mother these last couple of days and it seems as if Dad’s condition is getting worse. Marjie called me up tonight and said that if I wanted to go down to FL it might be better to do it sooner rather than later. So I’m hitting the road tomorrow (Marjie is flying into Atlanta in the early morning; I’ll pick her up, and we’ll drive on down the road to Sarasota.
I continue to experience a whole host of emotions these last couple of days. As I was talking to MaryBeth this afternoon, I think more than anything, my father’s failing health just puts into stark reality my own impending health battles. I am not currently showing any signs of illness and as far as I know, I remain cancer free. However, my father’s ill health just serves as a reminder of my own issues. In part, I think it goes back to a post I made last December. I remember I was at Hamburger Hannukah when my father told me his cancer had come back (though, at the time, this ended up not being true — a radiologist had misread the scan). I remember I was devastated, writing something along the lines that as long as Dad was doing okay, I would be okay; I looked toward my Dad as a model for dealing with health “challenges.”
My father’s current condition just reminds me of my own mortality; something that I have been quite flippant about recently (if you haven’t noticed, I tend to use humor when dealing with stressful issues). Now that I face the possibility that my father may die, I find it harder to be flippant about my own situation. I have been fortunate enough NOT to have had a member of my immediate family die. Actually, that’s not entirely true — my parent’s first child, Sandy, had Down’s Syndrome and he was institutionalized early in his life. I never knew him; never met him. Thus, while he died when I was 7, his death is substantively different than the potential death of my father and the rest of the immediate family. My grandfathers (on both sides) died before I was born; my maternal grandmother died when I was quite young (in fact, I think she died the same year as Sandy). My paternal grandmother died in 1990, a week after MaryBeth and I were married (oy! was that an odd funeral — everyone was congratulating us on our marriage while also sharing their condolences for the loss of Granny). Although I loved my Granny, I was not especially close with her. I was sad at her passing, but not nearly as much as I feeling currently.
In the end, I am not sure how I should be feeling / responding. I have been told over and over again, however, that there is no right or wrong way to feel. I was hoping to be able to talk with my therapist about this tomorrow, but that will have to wait until I get back from FL. I guess at one level, if my father does die (and as much as that will sadden me deeply), I will be happy that at last his pain and discomfort will finally be over.
Merle
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