3/9/10

3/9/10

Jaelynn and I took Dad to the ear doctor on friday. The appointment was in the afternoon, but Dad was asleep, and he was pissed about being woken up and dragged out of the house. All the way down the stairs and in the cab, he kept complaining “This is stupid! This is insane!” Finally, I realized that he thought it was the middle of the night rather than mid-afternoon. I left JaeLynn and Dad sitting in the waiting room while I filled out various forms, and when I turned back to them, Dad had taken Jaelynn's glasses and was wearing them himself! It was pretty funny.

In the exam room, the doctor quickly caught on that you have to address Dad LOUDLY, and he used his best loud voice to ask him how long he'd been having trouble hearing. “I don't have any trouble hearing,” said Dad, looking confused. At that point, the doctor decided to address his questions to me. After he examined Dad, he sent us down the hall to the audiologist. I had some doubts about whether Dad would be able to remember the instructions well enough to complete the hearing tests, but he did pretty well, and they were able to determine that he is pretty much completely deaf in his right ear (which we knew) and fairly deaf in his left ear (which was a surprise). I feel pretty bad that I let him get this deaf without bringing him to the doctor, but it's hard to figure out what part of his misunderstandings is his brain and what part is his ears. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does with his new, very expensive, hearing aid – it's supposed to be ready on the 22nd.

Saturday night, two of my now-grown former youth dropped by – one of them is a real estate agent who is showing a storefront near Dad's house. JD was there to spend the night with Dad, and he had brought along his girlfriend, Sam, so it was a full house and Dad, my party animal, seemed to be enjoying it. At one point, he asked how many people were there. “Five – plus you!” JD told him. “Fuck you?” he asked, causing everyone to laugh. Sam and I, who both saw the mischievous look on his face, are convinced that his remark was not a misunderstanding, but Dad having a little fun.

Last night started out to be a boring, gloomy evening – Dad headed to bed as soon as I arrived, and Marie said that she thought maybe we should start him on Ensure since he's not eating as much because he's always asleep. Luckily Brianna was feeling antsy at home, and decided to come visit us. I lured Dad out of bed with the promise of lemon sorbet, and he sat on the couch gloomily. “I feel really bad,” he said. “I feel ancient.”

Brianna had brought play-doh, thinking that maybe Dad's sleepiness is just boredom. I handed Dad a piece of play-doh, which he inspected, but didn't seem to know what to do with. “Can you make a ball?” I asked him. He couldn't figure it out, so I took it, made a rough ball, and gave it back to him. “I'm making it smooth,” he said turning it around and around in his hands. Once he had perfected the ball, I took it from him, and made something else. “It's a snake,” I said giving it back to him. He felt it carefully; “here's the head,” he said, before giving it back. Next I made two balls and handed them to him, “there are two now,” he said. Then the two became four, which Dad carefully counted. When we got to eight, he said, “I'm not going to drop any,” cupping them all precariously in one hand. I took another piece of play-doh and made a bowl, which I balanced in his other hand. Gingerly, he placed all eight balls in the bowl. We played with the play-doh for forty minutes, which is a really long time for someone with Dad's attention span.