Deconstructing My Father – Part Two
Deconstructing My Father is a linear narrative about a weird point in my life – late 2018 / early 2019 (I’m not entirely sure) – where my estranged father developed dementia and I had to take over running his life and the lives of both of my little brothers. I started documenting it in a weird journal using pseudonyms for my brothers and family. It was probably the most stressful time of my life.
You should probably start with part one if you want this to make any sort of sense.
Faking It … For Reals
“How are you feeling?” This is the ER doctor sitting patiently next to my father.
This day started at his doctor’s office, transitioned to the ER, and will eventually end up with him being admitted.
My father scans his surroundings. He can recognize that he’s in a hospital and that’s the last place that he wants to be. He scrambles, again, to attempt to seem not helpless. He wants to go home. At home he can smoke and drink and no one tells him that’s not a bad idea.
He looks the Doc in the eyes, moves his arm up and down like he’s doing curls, “Good,” he says, “arm’s doing fine. Doesn’t hurt at all.” Confident that this is the answer to get him out the door.
The doctor pauses for a moment before he drops the truth, “That’s not why you’re here,” and my father lays back into his ER bed defeated.
My father is a long term, dedicated alcoholic, of the worst kind. Not that alcoholism can be classified but of all the ways to drink yourself to death, my father has been doing it via pink Franzia box wine.
There’s no way to spin that.
He’s laying in the ER bed and he looks bad. He’s malnourished, dehydrated, and barely a wisp of a man. I remember when he used to be big and daunting. Now he looks exactly like the pictures you’ve seen from Auschwitz during the liberation. He’s missing his top front teeth – and neither of my brothers can tell me when the fuck that happened.
The doctor and I step out into the hallway.
“He forgot who I was twice before we got here today.”
“We’ll run some tests; but I’ll probably request to admit him for monitoring.”
We ended up in the ER because his resting heart rate was 41 – which is heroin addict low – on top of everything else.
“Good. He wants a book, or his kindle. I’m going to run to his house and grab those.” I’m going to get out of the god damned ER and think.
The doctor says they’ll run some tests and make recommendations and I’m wondering what it takes to make sure that he doesn’t go home. There’s no one at home to look after him, and there’s no way in hell he can look after himself. In order to get him in the car to go to the doctor it took Patrick and I fifteen minutes to get him to move from the couch to his walker/wheelchair thing.
It was six inches away.
“He tried to sneak out to smoke.” This is the ER nurse who is obviously in the mood to take no shit. I’ve been gone for about two hours.
“I told him he couldn’t. And then I took his god damn clothes and put him in one of those stupid ass gowns.”
This man is, instantly, one of my favorite parts of the day.
They’re preparing to admit my father. He’s obviously in no shape to go home. I plug in the phone charger I brought him and put his phone on his chest.
“Here you go.”
“Have you talked to Kim?”
I had a First Sergeant in the Air Force named Kim who was friends with my dad and stepmom.
“My First Sergeant?”
“No, my son.”
Fuck
“Ryan?”
“NO”
“Patrick?”
“Yes. I wish he’d move home.”
“He lives with you. He’s not there very often because of work and school. But he lives with you.”
He goes quiet and stares at the ceiling. I play on my phone and text both of my brothers. A long period of silence goes by until he comes back to earth.
“You look like you might not be an idiot.” Thanks dad. “Think you can figure out how to turn that TV on so I can watch the news?”
This is the babysitter of the elderly, and shut in. The desperate who want to hear a familiar voice that speaks their language.
I turn on the TV to a local news station and like a baby lulled by the soothing voice of mother he closes his eyes and drifts off.
I write a note to the doctors on a piece of paper from my notebook.
Hi I’m Travis,
This is my father. He began exhibiting symptoms of dementia. Any answer to any question is highly suspect. Please call me to verify anything he says and I’m sorry for the trouble.
I slipped it on top of his personal effects, packed my bag, and headed out. He’s safer here, in the hands of trained professionals, than anywhere else.
This is the most time that I’ve spent with my father in the last two years.
