Good Morning Gentle Readers,
My dad marks his 88th birthday today, something that seems rather impossible, but true it is. I spoke with him for a few minutes recently. Mind you, there was a time when he'd yak until your ear bled, but he's done after a few minutes these days.
Once he escaped rehab......I mean, his wife rolled up to the front doors. Think: Bonny and Clyde doing a bank job. He hobbled on out, down the concrete steps as fast as any walker can move. The admitting nurse shook her fist and demanded that he get back inside. Bam, he was in the car and with a tire chirp they sped off. I think she threw a little gravel, too.
He wore the neck brace for a while after the great escape. Then one day, he figured the broken neck was healed and off it came. He don't need no steenkin' doctor's OK to take it off. And by golly, the pacemaker is working fine, too. No need for it to be checked, neither.
And, really, that's all he wanted in the first place. To go home. After the broken neck and collarbone in 2015, the hospital was talking palliative care. Palliative is a three-dollar word that is code for *we're going to give you some good drugs to make you comfortable. If you live, well lucky you, but we don't think that is going to happen*.
He figured as much and opted for home. The hospital countered with rehab and a pacemaker. But first he had to learn how to swallow food again. Stubborn old man said, hold my beer and watch this. OK, it was a plastic water cup with a straw, but you catch my drift.
Long way around the barn to say that pop is still pretty lucid, but his world has become very narrow. That doesn't seem to bother him much, he seems content with being home.
That's dad circa 1943 in St Paul and dad at Doctor's Hospital in Modesto, October 2015.
As Ever,
Photo Credit (unless otherwise noted): ©TWC, all rights reserved
