The old man goes home

So for the next few days my routine consisted of getting up, taking a shower in my dad's shower (gross), try to do some cleanup of his apartment (gross), getting my sister, getting her Starbucks, and getting breakfast.

Previously I had gotten durable power of attorney and durable medical power of attorney, It was a good thing I did, it helped a lot. We would visit my dad in the morning for a short time and then leave to look in to other things that had to be done. One thing we did was go to storage and start the fire engine, My sister actually did this because she had more experience than I did with heavy equipment. She used to drive a water truck for a construction job she had. The other problem was that the truck required double clutching to drive it and I had never done that. I know how to drive a stick but did not quite get how to double clutch. Starting the truck was rather complicated and was even more so because of the cold and the fact that my dad did not take as good care of the truck as he claims. The truck had 2 monster 12 volt batteries. 1 was 6 months old and the other was maybe 1 or 2 years old. My dad did not keep them on a trickle charge (like I would have) so they were a bit low. To make matters worse the only can of starter fluid there was empty. Oh and my dad's instructions were written on the back of a paper sack sitting on the seat in case the storage units caught fire the firemen would know how to start it. Implying they would even look at an old sack on the seat, and implying that they would bother to do anything other than drag it out of the unit.

Anyways after much trying and a call to my nephew (he knows how to start it), we got it going. We had to let it idle for about 5 minutes to let the batteries charge and make sure the air-brakes worked. My sister drove it out of the unit and we let it sit there and idle while we took a survey of his "stuff".
 
The following things were repeated multiple times as she opened boxes, drawers, looked in bags, etc: "what the heck is this?", "why does he have that?", "why would anyone save this?", "OH MY GOSH!, I haven't seen that since I was a kid!", "here's some trains.", Here's some fire trucks.". Here's some more trains.", "Here are 5 boxes of pictures.", "books, books, magazines, catalogs, books, catalogs, magazines, etc", "why is there a waterbed in here?", "WHAT! here is a hard copy of every weekly email he ever sent us". Ok! now I am getting nervous (I have to move all this?). We get ready to put the truck back inside. It was then that we found her... Yes... we found my Grandmother, My dad had her cremated when she died and when he moved to Seattle he just packed her up and left her in storage.

We opened all the panels on the truck and my sister walked around it making a video. Putting the truck back in storage was real fun. It is loud and had a tendency to backfire. The power steering was not working and so it would NOT turn unless it was moving. My sister got in the cab, I would guide her in with hand signals, and she would use the lines on the floor and such to guide her... RiiiiiiiggggghhhhT! It took a lot of effort and going in and out because it was a very tight fit, it stalled out a couple of times and we had fun restarting it, just when it looked like it was going good. I noticed she was too far to her left and signaled her to stop. She did not stop and wiped out the driver's side mirror... oops. Later she told me that she took her foot off the gas but the accelerator did not pop up like it was supposed to. Finally the beast is back in its pen. We close it up and take off. My sister was completely worn out from trying to steer the darn thing.

I forgot to mention that my dad had been hiding money in his books. We located as much of it as we could, we took some to buy things for his trip home like luggage and I needed cleaning supplies for the apartment. We went to the largest Costco I have ever been to in my life. There was stuff in there that the ones in Phoenix do not have. We picked up some luggage, cleaning supplies and a couple of blankets. One for me and one for my nephew when he comes up. My dad's blankets were not warm and were (gross). 

We went back to the transitional care facility as we had a meeting so that we could learn how to change his bandages and such. Had dinner. I dropped her off and went back to "the apartment".

I did some more cleaning and such and basically passed out on the torture device AKA his bed. The next day started the same. This time I brought my sister back to the apartment as we had to round up some of his clothes and such for him to take back to phoenix. Great googly moogly! My sister is going through his closet and starts making piles, one for clothes to keep, one for clothes that are too big (my dad lost about 50 pounds), and one for clothes that were gross or ratty. The Ratty and "too big" piles were both about 3 or 4 feet tall. I never saw so many flannels and coats in my life. All this crammed in to one closet. A closet that would later turn out to be like Mary Poppins Carpet bag. The ratty clothes went to the trash and the too big clothes went to goodwill (the biggest goodwill I have ever seen).

there was much more that went on in these few days before my dad went back to Phoenix, it was all a blur of nonstop doing something.

On one of the days we secured a day pass for him to go to his old work and say goodbye as well as some other errands I do not remember. Taking him to his work was very emotional for me as well as him. Most everyone was extremely happy to see him (he had been gone for almost 2 months). He walked by himself using a cane. Some of his customers were there and slipped him cards to have him contact them later. I think one of them even gave him some money. His boss however was trying to convince him to stay, as far as he was concerned if he could walk he could go back to work. I tried to explain to him he was very week and could hardly remember much, and could not drive (he didn't care).

The day comes to get him on the plane. we have to constantly assure the nurses and caseworkers that he won't be falling and breaking his hips, etc. We pick up several months of prescriptions. We are off to the airport. My dad is bundled up like an Eskimo, since he is so skinny he is freezing, I think it's a nice cool day. We park at the airport and just our luck someone had left a wheel chair in the parking lot (Hallelujah!). We check him in and holding back "manly" tears I give him a hug. I won't be seeing him for several weeks.

My sister reported later that when they went through security they told my dad to stay in his wheelchair (which means a pat down). He wanted to get up but they would not let him. Oh dear... Not the thing to do with my sister around. When she was a little girl she had a curl that hung down the middle of her forehead, when she was good, she was very good, and when she was bad...


My sister lit in to this TSA agent and said "if he wants to get up and walk through the metal detector, YOU LET HIM!" The woman then tried to accuse her of elder abuse... Yeah not a good idea. to make a long story short, he walked through the metal detector. 

 Next Post:

"Other people's stuff" or "why you should do something about your obsessions before someone else has to"