Life Happens

A lot has happened since I last blogged. In early December, my dear father ended up in the seniors mental health ward of the local hospital.  He had headed for home while my mother was at the dentist and got disoriented, ending up at a local gas station, asking the attendant to call an ambulance for him.  You see, he had gone out without his wallet and i.d. and had no recollection of his address.  If he had that kind of information on him, I suppose the young clerk would have just called a taxi instead to take my father home. As it was though, Dad ended up at emerg and I met him there.

It was not a very nice week and that week stretched into a month and here we are at the seven week mark.  It has been an anxious time for him and a stressful time for my mother, and myself, and for my brothers who live far away.  It's been hard for the grandchildren to see him in angst. 

There have been consultations with a geriatric team. The occupational therapist who makes assessments about my father's ability to cope was at one of the meetings. So was the geriatric psychiatrist, the social worker, the liaison nurse, and of course my mother and myself.

It was heartbreaking to make the decision that he could no longer be at home. With the level of dementia he has which affects his frontal lobe, the place where reason, logic, and emotion are housed, it is not a good idea to have him live in the same residence as my Mom.  The guilt gushed forth. How could she after standing by this man for decades of marriage, do this to him?

December 28th was their 60th wedding anniversary. We had a small lunch time gathering for them in a lounge at the hospital. It was as nice as it could be, considering the circumstances.  We had pizza and there were balloons and  flowers. I tried to create a Hawaiian themed party reminiscent of  the honeymoon they had taken to those tropical isles so many years ago.

It was actually my 26th wedding anniversary that same day. However, my husband was out of town at the hospital bedside of his mother who had suffered a stroke over Christmas!  I woke up that morning thinking of that saying "when it rains, it pours"!  It certainly had been stormy over this period!

It's a new year now and we wait for his placement at a care facility.  We keep our fingers crossed that we can get him into someplace close to their home so that Mom can easily visit him.

As I have learned victory always follows crisis. Happiness shows up after despair. Things have not all been bleak. December 31st was the due date for my first grandchild. He or she was to be my parents third great-grandchild.  We played a waiting game, through New Year's and then finally the little one arrived!  On Friday the thirteenth of January, we welcomed a 7lb 9oz boy into the world!

The angelic face of this new addition to our family graces the wall of my father's hospital room.  He is hope for the future.  His photograph is surrounded by other pictures of the two great grandaughters and other smiling family members.  Dad is surrounded by love. He may feel alone sometimes but I remind him every night when I phone him to say goodnight that he is never alone. We are with him in thought. He has caring nurses and every day is a new one for him with a steady stream of visitors.

We have so much to be thankful for. Life happens!