4/24/10 Part I

4/24/10 Part 1

This week we fell down the rabbit hole. My brain is still spinning from it all, but this is no way to start a story.

Thursday, I was having a good day. Court was mercifully fast, it was a beautiful day, I went to an appointment at SAGE, also very fast, and found myself with a rare few hours of spare time. I headed towards Dad's house, and stopped to buy him a couple new cds, because we're all going crazy listening to the same ones over and over. I went into Whole Foods, even though I hate the frenetic energy in there, and wandered around, picking out treats for Dad.

I showed up at Dad's apartment around 1pm, and everything went to hell. Marie told me that Dad had woken up unable to stand, let alone walk. In fact, even sitting up made him scream from pain. At first we thought it was his hips, but then narrowed it down to his lower back. Together, we were able to haul him to the bathroom by lifting him so he could sit on his wheeled walker.

I was freaking out but I had to figure out what to do. I didn't want to take him to the hospital if it was going to turn out to be nothing, like the arm issue, but I didn't want to not take him if it was medically necessary. I tried calling his primary doctor, but wasn't able to connect with him, so I emailed my high school friend, Ethan, who is now an ER doctor, who called back and told me that acute lower back pain is considered a medical emergency, and that he could be suffering from a compression fracture of his spine or worse, cancer in the bones. Ethan talked me through the process of calling a private ambulance, and advised me to take Dad to the ER early in the morning, when they're least busy.

I left Dad's house around 11pm to go home, take my meds, and feed my cats, leaving JD in charge of Dad. When I finally fell asleep around 1am, I dreamed that Dad and I were in an ambulance driving through heavy gunfire coming from all directions. In the dream, I was shielding Dad with my body while bullets were zinging all around us.

I got up at 5am and arrived at Dad's around 6pm to find him sleeping and JD incoherent with exhaustion. I couldn't bear to wake him, so I curled up on one end of the couch and JD curled up on the other and we both slept until Dad woke up at 7am. We got ourselves together and dressed Dad, and then I called the private ambulance company, but they didn't have any units available, so we had to call 911.

Two EMTs arrived, a smaller black woman, who was really nice, and a big white guy, who was a total asshole. After they assessed Dad and strapped him into the chair, they carried Dad down the stairs, with the white guy leaving the woman at the bottom to bear all the weight. Of course, they refused my request to take Dad to Mt. Sinai, where his doctor practices, because it's not the closest hospital, so we wound up at the Roosevelt ER.

Ethan's tip about the ER early in the morning was right – the ER was practically empty, and the doctor saw us immediately. He did an ultrasound of Dad's abdomen, and then called in his supervisor, and they both huddled around the screen, clearly puzzled. They decided to send him for a ct scan, both to clarify what they were seeing and to check out his spine. I had to sit in a waiting room while they took Dad away to do the scan and I waited and waited but they didn't return him to me. Finally, I heard a familiar voice shouting “How long do I have to wait here?!” I went to investigate and found him abandoned on a stretcher in the hallway. Thank goodness he can shout!

Luckily, the diagnosis turned out to be pretty simple, just severe osteoarthritis in his spine, the same thing he has in his knees. The doctor offered me a choice: they could admit him to the hospital for a few days until he could be placed in a rehab facility, or we could just bring him home, “if you can handle it.” It was a heart-wrenching moment, but the decision was pretty easy, since the first plan seemed like one from which he might never make it home, and I feel pretty strongly that if he's going to be in an institution, it has to be one that I pick. I asked the doctor if he could order a physical therapist to come to Dad's house, but apparently they can't do that from the ER – I had to get Dad's primary care doctor to do that. So, they sent us home with orders to give Dad 600 mg of Tylenol every 6 hours. On the way out, I stole an unused plastic urinal. I figured we were going to need it – we had gotten through the previous day by having Dad pee in an old, battered pot, but it was a very makeshift process.

The trip home was rough. They had sent two women paramedics, both friendly and competent, but clearly daunted by the idea of lifting Dad up all these stairs. They were really struggling, stopping at every landing to catch their breath and switch places, but they did it, and did it without any negativity. Dad, by that point, had had it. He hadn't eaten much, and was tired and in pain, and when they immobilized him in a sheet and then used four straps to secure him to the chair, he didn't understand what was going and freaked out. All the way up the stairs, he was screaming and yelling and demanding to be let out, and my verbal encouragement didn't get very far. Marie heard the fuss when we were still downstairs and was waiting with the door open for us. The paramedics were so winded that they had to sit down and have some water. I thanked them for the heroic job and tipped them $20.

The next hurdle came when Dad started saying he had to shit. The bathroom is close to his bedroom, about 4 feet down the hall, but when you can't stand, you can't walk. Dad tried to stand a couple times, but that caused so much pain that he wound up screaming. Finally, Marie maneuvered him onto the seat on his walker, which has wheels, and between the two of us, we were able to haul him down the hall to the bathroom door. Unfortunately, the bathroom has a step up, and the doorway is too narrow for the walker to fit even if we lifted it over. There's no option but to lift him out of the seat and lug him to the toilet. After all that effort Dad didn't go. Eventually, the pain of sitting up was too much and we had to take him back to bed.

This was a set up for the disaster later. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I failed the ultimate caregivers' test: cleaning up shit. It wasn't that much, just some seepage, and I tried, but it was right after dinner and my medications make me queasy anyway, and I wound up vomiting up my guts. Luckily, Kate S. had seen the look on my face and ran for a plastic bag, and then finished the job while I was getting familiar with the inside of the toilet. Clearly we had to get Dad to the bathroom again. Kate S. tried and failed to get him onto the walker seat, but with a determination based in desperation, I heaved him on and then lifted him off and onto the toilet. I have always had strong arms and a strong back from pottery and swimming and lifting my notoriously heavy green backpack, but I had no idea I could lift Dad.

The thing about this process is that just when you reach a comfort level with one stage, you get jolted into a whole new situation. This situation is intensely physical, between the urinal and the lifting and the feeding (to sit up, Dad needs to support himself with both hands). It also requires a lot of supplies – we made a list: baby wipes, tylenol, heating bad, icy hot patches, a commode, absorbent bed pads – and Brianna took my card and headed to the neighborhood pharmacy.

I am so grateful for my queer family – at various points yesterday, JD, Kate S., Brianna, Jaelynn, and Jaelynn's girlfriend Suzy were all here, helping out. JD, Jaelynn, and Suzy spent the night with Dad, so I could go home and get some much-needed sleep. Between getting up at 5am, the lifting, the crying, and the vomiting, I was totally wiped out.