The great train migration

First off here is a picture of my Dad with his Fire engine, a 1962 Crown with a Waukesha gasoline engine. It is fully decked out with everything a real fire truck would have minus a defibrillator and prescription drugs.

Now to get an idea of the scope of the task involved, remember I have to move an apartment full of stuff that is approximately 20'x15', an 89 Chevy 2500, and a storage unit full of stuff. The fire truck is not going with us. I do not have a pic of my dad's apartment as it was not possible to get one of the whole apartment. Here is the storage unit minus the fire truck. The empty space in the middle is where the fire truck goes, the red lines on the floor and boxes are guides so he can park it himself. Every Apple box in the picture has either books about fire trucks and trains, or pictures of same. Every other box in the picture has trains or toy fire trucks in them. (most everything has been sold now).

Obviously not everything is going with us. So my first job is to figure out what the least expensive method of dragging it all back would be, and which route to take. Through California, and Oregon? (I'd rather suck the snot from a dogs nose than go through CA), or I go through Oregon, Idaho and Nevada? Well this is a tough one because if you remember back in November of 2012 some monster storm was forecast to go through the area and it is winter, and there are road closures and summits to think about. which way??? which way???

First, what method to use? I looked in to several truck rental companies, and against the wishes of my nephew I chose U-haul (he wanted to drive a diesel). There were a multitude of different ways to do it through U-haul, some of which are new. but to save time I will cut to the chase. I found that the least expensive way was to rent a truck and a vehicle hauling trailer to be pulled behind the truck. Even though gas mileage would be 4 MPG this was still cheaper than driving my dad's truck as well as the u-haul. Just to let you know I looked at 5 different scenarios. The truck I chose was a 26 footer since we did not know exactly how much room the stuff would take up, and the real problem was weight. The trucks all had different weight limits. My dad has LOTS of books. Books weight about 30~ pounds per cubic foot. The truck I chose could handle 7000 pounds. The truck hauling trailer was rated at only about 500 or 600 pounds more than the empty weight of my dad's truck. See this stuff is not as simple as you would think.

Now the route. A 26 foot truck hauling a trailer with a truck on it is VERY long, almost as long as a SEMI. Best effort return trip was 3 days for 8 to 12 hours of driving in a truck limited to 55mph (max speed of the trailer). So we have to stay in motels or hotels BUT they have to be able to handle something RV length or Longer. I did not trust the information on hotel websites as to the type of parking they have. I used google earth to scope out hotels with the right type of parking. I also wanted them to have at least one restaurant nearby within walking distance. Once the truck was on the trailer taking it off would be reserved for an emergency (the truck was also a backup in case the U-haul broke down). Being the thorough guy I am, I mapped out 2 routes back to Phoenix, one through OR, CA, and one Through OR, ID, NV. I made sure I had at least 3 choices of hotels at each city we would be stopping in. I tried to pick cities that were about 8 hours apart. I will not bore you with the details. This took about 3 days to plan.

But what to do with a 26' long, 12' tall, 8' wide, who knows how much it weighs antique fire engine? Well That decision came about 3 or 4 days in to my second trip up to Seattle. I would move it to a second storage locker and sell it on ebay.

There was also a lathe and a drill press to think about.

In between all this I was getting calls from the doctor about my dad's condition, and while he was getting better, I was having to contend with the thought that the man I had known for the first 12 years of my life, then had not seen for about 14, and had barely got to know or see again over the last 20 years might not be around much longer or might soon no longer know who I am.



Next Post:

"Securing his release", or "I don't want to go on the cart... I'm getting better!"

Shift Change

In between visiting my Dad and running back and forth through the horrendous traffic I had to take care of his bills. This was "fun" as I had to locate his check book, stamps, envelopes, and the bills. Not an easy task if you saw his apartment.

It was getting down to the wire and he wasn't getting released anytime soon, so I activated my nephew. He would come up and I would get him orientated on what needed to be done and his responsibilities regarding the way my Father was behaving. I requested that he record any conversation with doctors and nurses, and anything unusual the my dad talked about. I also let him drive as he is an extremely good driver and I never get to look around when I am in Seattle as I am always the driver (not to mention the terrible traffic).

I met him at the apartment and the first things my nephew did was dump bleach in the shower. On his previous visits he stated that the shower looked like it had not been cleaned in years. My nephew stayed with me in my hotel room until I left. He slept on the floor. he had gotten used to that because that was the only place to sleep when he stayed with my dad.

During the time I was up there they put a PICC line in his arm since they were feeding him intravenously it made it so they had to poke him less often. The doctor (who just got back from vacation). Has tests done and determines that My dad needs a second operation to clear a small bowel obstruction. That operation is performed before I left (If I remember correctly).

So now I have to go back to Phoenix, nephew drops me off at the airport and I fly back. I start getting the ball rolling on moving my dad back to Phoenix. all the while getting updates from nephew. In the last day or 2 nephew is up there he starts reporting the grandpa is acting really strange, is sleeping all the time, and talking incoherently (I have a recording that would be funny (later)). He gets really worried about it and calls his mom. She calls the nurse and request they look into it. The nurse is reluctant to do anything...

More back story.
one thing I noticed is that when I got there my dad had the same nurse for several days but then he started getting a different nurse each day. I would have to continually explain to each nurse that my dad was not acting himself and would have to explain how he was before he went had the surgery. That he had a job, drove 15 miles back and forth to work. drove fire trucks in parades, weddings, and other events. For some reason all they kept seeing was an old guy that wasn't doing very well and... (oh well) old people get sick and die (No one ever said this but it was the attitude that I got from them.), or "oh it's just side effects of the anesthesia" *shrug*.

So anyways my Sister reads the nurse the riot act and gets them to do some more "looking". Come to find out that (gee wiz Wally), he had a PICC infection and it had spread to his brain, he also had a blood clot in his leg.... Huh imagine that he had additional problems! He had another MAJOR problem but that is for a later post. So they give him blood and antibiotics and anticoagulants and by gosh he starts getting better. However with Dad stabilized (but not improving) nephew has to come back. He would have stayed longer but he had classes and tests that he could not miss.

So now we realize that we HAVE to bring him back to Phoenix because he may be unable to take care of himself for awhile after he is out of the hospital and with no relatives in Seattle it would be majorly expensive to have someone else do it and they would never let him recuperate in his apartment if they saw it (run on sentence?). I could barely walk through his apt and I was 46 at the time imagine a week 72 year old man trying to get around in it.

Word to the wise! NEVER leave your loved ones unattended in hospital anymore than you can help. Speak up if something seems wrong, I would rather look stupid than to have to plan an early funeral.

Now begins the planning stage!

Next Post:

"The great train migration" or "how do you move 24 years of "stuff" without breaking the bank"

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.

Winding down

I got a call yesterday from Bob's nurse, his condition is getting worse, his kidneys are possibly failing, his swelling has not gone down and he has a rash of unknown origin.

After discussing things with the nurse Bob will receive "comfort care" Hospice will be attending to him as well as the facility. He will receive food and water as long as he will take it but when he no longer wants to eat he will not be force fed. This is what he wanted as he did not want to be force fed like his mother was.

Creepy Stare

I got a call Friday that Bob needed looser clothing because he is retaining water and has gained some weight. We went to Cal Ranch and picked up a bunch of long sleeved T-shirts. We also went to Walmart and got some knit/sweat pants. He has such delicate skin he keeps tearing it, that is what the bandages are for. We also took him one of his fire magazines and more Ensure. When I brought him his magazine he did not recognize me, although he smiled a little at the site of the magazine. They said his face is like that because he has gained weight but it looks more like it is swollen from water retention. The whole time I was in there he just stared at me like you see below. It creeped me out so I left while my wife hung up his clothes.

Bob's Assesment

I had a conference call with Bob's care facility yesterday here is what was discussed:
His cognition was tested and he scored 2 of 15, so he has impaired cognition (DUH!). Bob did not know any of his chronological coordinates.
They stated his goals are "no significant decline" (good luck with that)

He had one episode of wandering, (wanted to know how to get out).

likes to read and look at magazines, slow to respond to the "air ball" game, and has to be coached to catch it, wants to hold the balloon when he gets it.

Is engaged when they have music, but has trouble dozing off.

They listed his Meds.

He is on a bowel program.

He has no uti's

he is on supplements for weight gain (ensure).

He is provided with 8oz of water every 4 hours while awake.

Has 2 cavities and will have a dentist fix them.