The Saga Begins

Now that Bob has passed the story can be told.


Since I knew my dad would be going to the hospital in October of 2012 I planned to go up there on the week he was supposed to be released. I went up on 10-26-2012 and was scheduled to return on 11-2-2012. I picked a hotel that was about half way between Everett and Seattle since I was not sure of the exact day of his release. It was a standard (substandard) hotel in Aurora. I would save some money by using my dad's truck (parked at his apartment). I did NOT want to stay in his Apartment. So this trip ended up costing me about $700. I had not been on an airplane in about 4 or 5 years and was dreading all the new security.

I picked a nonstop flight and the flight was mostly boring as I could not get a window seat. I did get to listen to some woman ramble on and on and on and on and on throughout the whole flight. I arrived in Seattle got my baggage, caught a shuttle to my dad's apartment and picked up his truck, after a quick check on his apartment (yup still crammed with stuff). I found the hotel and checked in, then went to the hospital.

Well my Dad had not made much improvement from the previous week. he had a tube in his nose down to his stomach to suck out junk from his stomach since his innards were not working right (this is supposedly normal after this type of surgery). I hung out for a while, then left, had dinner, and went back to my hotel. I made what would become a daily status report to all who were interested (about 3 calls) The next morning I was taking a shower and reached for the soap and.... threw out my back YAY! I toughed it out. Went to the hospital and hung out there since this trip all ran together I will summarize some of it.

I would help my dad out during the day with his walks and whatever he needed. Take some breaks for lunch and dinner and usually leave around 5 or 6 pm. My back was seriously killing me and I found a Chiropractor in Bothel that I really wish was here in Phoenix. They fixed me up, but a day later my back went out again. They fixed me up again and I think I went for a third visit on Halloween whereupon I had my back worked on by a Jedi. The costume was quite good except for the mag-light light sabre.

It became apparent that a couple days in to my stay that My dad would not be getting out while I was up there. So I put my nephew on call as he could come up for a few days past when I had to leave. My nephews "father" works for a small airline that can get free tickets and so my Nephew can go places on a moment's notice.

It was during this trip that I began to notice something was not right with my Dad. He has always been a story repeater, but this time he was repeating stories within an hour of the last time he told it instead of days, weeks, or months. Now, we had been trying to convince him to move back to Phoenix for about a year or two but he was always reluctant. Before he went in for surgery I had him mostly convinced to move back. Seems he thought that he would have to move all his stuff by himself. Once I told him people would come up and help him he became more receptive to the idea. HA HA HA (silly me) "help him" (wipes tear from eye).

I was filling out an application for an apartment for him, for his move back to Phoenix. When I asked him how long he had been living at his current apartment he said since 2003...  No that's not right. He lived there since about 1998. I reminded him that he moved there in 1998 then around 2003 he had to change apartments so they could renovate his old one (#8) and install a bathroom. he informed me that no that was not true. He had always been in apartment 3. The rest of the conversation is too confusing to write down. Suffice it to say he was completely confused about where he lived, how long or when he moved up there. In fact after more questioning it was apparent that he was having severe memory problems. I brought this up with the nurse and the doctors and they dismissed it as being a symptom of the after effects of the anesthesia he had been given (2 weeks ago).....riiiiiigggghhhhT.

I later learned that, that can be the case, but in my dad's situation something else was going on. This is about the time I began recording all the conversations between me and the hospital staff, Mostly because of the daily briefings I had to give my wife, my sister, and my nephew.



Next post
"Shift Change", or "why it is very important to have family with you as much as possible when in hospital"

The uncomfortable one

One of the things I noticed about Bob is that he never liked being "comfortable". Sure he liked being warm when it was cold out, and cool when it was hot out, and he had some favorite foods, but Bob seemed to seek out and possibly even relish being uncomfortable.

Here is why I think this:
When he moved to Seattle after his break up with Joyce, he at some point moved in to an apartment in the part of town he called "china town". This apartment was in a very inconvenient location, on a hill next to a very busy street that was difficult to get on to at rush hour. There were no good restaurants nearby, and no grocery stores nearby. The apartment had terrible parking in back, and parking in front was on a hill.

There was no way to get in to the apartment without going up or down stairs. His apartment did not have air conditioning, and it did not have a working heater. He never tried to get the heater fixed or figure out how to use it correctly. The apartments were all studios and when he moved in none of them had a private bathroom. He had to go down the hall to a shared bathroom to shower or do anything. When they had him move from one apartment to another so they could renovate his old apartment and add a bathroom he was not happy. He did not care that the new apartment had it's own bathroom, he was just upset that he had to move his hoard. His apartment was filled with books, trains, magazines, and fire truck stuff. The bed he slept on was 15+ years old when he got it, and held together with clothe hangers because the bed frame was slightly too big for the mattress and box springs. I slept in his bed for about 3 weeks and it was the most uncomfortable and noisy thing I have ever slept in. I hated it and when we took it to the dump I stuck around to watch it get crushed.
His apartment was packed with stuff, so bad you could barely move around in it. for some odd reason his bed was at an angle which meant that when you got up in the middle of the night you had about 6 inches to squeeze between the bad frame and a book case. I asked him why he never straightened the bed out and he said it wouldn't fit and you could not open the bathroom door.

huh... weird, it worked when I did it. He had only one chair in his apartment and it was a very uncomfortable straight back chair. Actually he had 2 chairs the other one was covered in boxes of fire truck pictures and for some reason several brand new cookie pans. When you visited him the only place to sit was on his bed. The truck he drove had no air conditioning and the seats could not be adjusted more than a couple of inches back. I now own the truck and it is very uncomfortable to drive, yet he loved his truck. His commute to work was 45 minutes one way and he always complained about it.

When we moved him to Phoenix I bought him a nice second hand office chair, which I thought was very comfortable. He used it for a while then complained about it and bought another second hand office chair, this one was made in the 60's was metal, heavy, and if you leaned back in it, it killed your back as  the back cushion was designed weird and it was just plain terrible. He loved it. We tried to keep him from filling his new apartment with crap but in short order he had filled it up to the point that no one could visit him as there was no place to sit except for the bed. I bought him a fan so that when I visited I wouldn't swelter in the oppressive heat he kept the apartment at, he complained that the fan took up too much space and had me take it back.

When we moved him to the HUD housing we once again tried to get him to have an apartment that was not filled with junk and that people could visit him, once again he filled it up and there was nowhere for visitors to sit.

When we moved him to memory care we spent a week decorating his apartment and making it comfortable, we put in a couch, and a recliner.

He was not impressed and wanted ALL of his books and ALL of his trains moved in to this apartment. Thankfully the management did not allow this and he had to live in a comfortable room for all of maybe 6 month before he got kicked out for becoming belligerent. At least when we visited him we could stay for a little bit with a place to sit and talk.

After that I had, had it. When he went to the next place all he got was one book case of books and a couch. When he was kicked out of there all he got was his Alf doll and a few magazines at the skilled nursing center. By that time he no longer remembered his stuff.

Home Again

Bob is home now, I picked up his remains from the funeral home, signed the paper work and received the portage papers.

He is divided up between 2 boxes, one for me and one for my sister.

Still waiting on the death certificates.

The after time

The day after Bob passed away we went to the funeral home and paid for the cremation, however they required the approval of all immediate family members. I signed, my sister signed, we did not give them the contact information for the other 2 sisters since one lives in Georgia and the other lives in (who cares).

A day after that they contacted my brothers and needed them to sign the paperwork. I had to intervene and have them come to my house and sign the paper work then sent it to the funeral home. Yesterday they sent me an email requiring me to sign and notarize an affidavit that the other 2 sisters were estranged and I would assume all liability. Both sisters would probably have wanted him to be cremated while he was still alive and I did not want them to be notified.

Today I got another email saying that the doctor finally signed the death certificate and Bob will be cremated 8-17-2017, we can pick him up the day after that.

I had notified many of his friends from Seattle but I only got responses from 2 of them. We did receive a card from my wife's former work where many people signed it, however none of them knew him.

The day after he died we went to the facility to get his belongings, the only thing we wanted was his ALF doll and the cross he wore. Someone had taken the ALF doll. A couple days later I got a call that they could not find it, but they did find his cross (a nurse had locked it in the nursing cart). We gave all his clothes to the facility.

It Is Finished

Bob's care facility called about an hour ago, Bob passed away some time in the night.

Death Rattle

I got a call this morning from Bob's care facility that his condition has suddenly worsened. He is not responsive and the nurse said that he could go at anytime. My wife and I went down there and my sister showed up later. We stayed for a while, he would stop breathing, then he would start to try and breath, which would build to the point where he would snore and rattle and gasp for air. Sometimes his eyes would open but they would not fix on anything and then his eyes would close again, he would settle down and it would start all over again.

Hospice came and they ordered morphine and other drugs to be administered. We left, had lunch, and came back a hour or so later and he was still doing the same thing, we left for the day since he could linger on like this for hours or days.

He will not be transferred to a hospice facility probably because this facility can handle everything that needs to be done.

Seizures

Over the weekend the nursing home, and hospice called me to tell me that Bob was having seizures. He was being medicated for them.