Video Time

One more makes..."a lot"

Last week my dad had another stroke. My mom and I can tell what he has lost as far as mental and physical abilities. He is not as coordinated at fine motor skills as he was even two weeks ago and he is having trouble where he switches words around and his sentences come out confusing everyone.
When he was taken in to the hospital with this last stroke, as this one was accompanied by massive amounts of pain, he was given an MRI. When the doctor came to admit him to the hospital my mom asked if the MRI showed anything, and the doctor replied "Just that he has had a lot of stokes".
That's as close as anyone can come to a number, no one really knows how many he has had. When he started having them, or how many he has at any given time. I myself have lost track of the ones we have actually known about and had documented by MRI.
Some how, and for some reason, I feel like I should know the number. I feel like I should know how many times this thing has happened to him, ultimately resulting in the disappearance of the father that I grew up with, but in the end the doctor is right "a lot of strokes" is what I am going to have to be happy with because I will never know. There is no way to find an answer.

It's the Little Things That Get You.

Over the last couple of years my dad has been slowly declining. He has lost memory here and there. Lost his ability to recall words, now has a limp, can't follow a list of verbal instructions, has very little short term memory, has bladder spasms, problems with his vision and eyesight on and off, lack of personal care. However, it is the small things that crop up that disturb me the most. I understand that his is going to have his limp the rest of his life, his brain has affected the function of that side of his body and the way the muscles-brain communication happens. Yet, what I have more trouble dealing with is when he is short with me or my mom for no reason other than he is just feeling, well, childish is the best way to associate it. Or when he has entire conversations with people and you ask him what was said and he has no idea what he just talked about AT ALL! He was not processing what he or the other person was saying. I understand the big things like his body is going to start failing, that is not to say I have accepted it, but it is the multiple ways that the mind can turn on someone that truly upsets and unsettles me. Something that makes you who you are, where your personality is rooted, can be all upset and changed because of something like a disease and as of today there is no recourse one day you just cease to exist as everyone has known and loved you and you become someone else. Basically a stranger that people have to learn all new habits and personality traits about, while mourning for the loss of the person you used to be.

Back and Forth

So this past week started with my dad in the hospital. He woke up one day with having trouble focusing his eyes, and thus having trouble with his balance. On Tuesday night my mother took him into the hospital's ER to have him looked at. It was decided that he was having enough cognitive and balance issues that he would be admitted into the hospital for evaluation. He was not kept as long this time and was released on Wednesday night with the understanding that he would have to start full therapy again.
I know, I knew in the back of my mind that these trips to and from the hospital were going to be happening, and were going to become more and more frequent as his disease progressed. However, the reality of the situation I am finding much harder to deal with than the idea. I hate hospitals, between my mothers long stays for her osteoporosis and back surgeries. And now my fathers long stays I have been to this hospital more than most people in their entire lives, and I am only 28. Just the idea of going to the hospital makes me whiny, tired and emotionally drained.

On the Road Again

We have had to take away my father's drivers licence. His strokes have severely interfered with his reaction time, his thought process, memory, and the function of his right leg (gas/break leg). The therapist originally told him not to drive for awhile until he could be tested, that was over 2 years ago. He was determined to get his ability to drive back. He insisted he would drive again, and at that point there was a chance he could have. Then he continued to have small strokes and his cognitive abilities continued to decline and his therapists pushed his ability to return to work and to drive further and further out. After a year had past he wanted to get a drivers manual, as his therapists told him that at this point in order to drive again he was going to have to take and pass a behind the wheel given by the hospitals occupational therapy department. He was never well enough to take this test, or even had enough focus to study the book.
The therapists agreed that the idea of driving should be put on hold until he showed some occupational improvements as he was having trouble focusing for very long. So for the next 6 months talk of the driving test was tabled and he was told he could not drive.
One day several months ago I came home to find the car gone, and my dad missing. He had taken the car to be washed. He had snuck out of the apartment with the keys and drove the car, he knew he wasn't supposed to. When I finally found him (and took the keys away from him) he knew he had snuck something he wasn't supposed to.
The next day my mom asked him whether he wanted the doctor to take away his licence or have the opportunity to give it up himself now, knowing that he could always earn it back. He decided that he would rather have an active roll and gave it up. All the while saying he could get it back when he wanted.
Then about a week ago he tried to drive again:( This time when I kicked him out of the car (caught him this time) all he had to say when i brought up the issue of his lack of a drivers license was that he could drive he just couldn't "legally drive". Yea! a new trick:(