“I took out the power of attorney paperwork for you. Do you want it?” my 75-year-old mom asked me before I drove her to the airport for her vacation. I hesitated. “Dear God, I hope I don’t need it,” I told myself.
While my mom was gone, I, the baby of the family, would be in charge of my dad. He’s now in an assisted-living facility, but while she was away and unreachable, if anything was to happen, I would make the big decisions – no big deal. Nothing was going to happen, right? My mom was headed off to her yearly cruise with her only sibling, Patricia, her 80-year-old sister from New Jersey. Each year, they board a jumbo boat and disconnect from all familial responsibilities out at sea.
My mom and my Aunt Pat have lived apart for 54 years. This one week a year is their lifeline. They need it. Pat lost her husband five years ago and my mom has been caring for my dad since his stroke, 16 years ago. This is their week of simply being sisters.
Their affairs of the heart, along with nurturing the drama that has been unfolding in the lives of their 14 grown children (my mom with eight and Pat with six), it’s no wonder they need to board a ship that takes them far out to sea. They could be taking a slow boat to China, it really wouldn’t matter, as long as they were together to escape the insanity.
“Do you have your tickets? Your passport? Money?” I asked, as if she had never traveled before. “Yes, honey,” she said patiently, smiling at the reminder.
I grabbed her hefty suitcase, took her inside the airline terminal and hugged her tightly, like she was about to board the Titanic.
I was ready for my new role as conservator. I stopped to see my pop that afternoon. “Hey, dad!” I said as I hugged him. He was jovial as always, entertaining the nurses.
The next day, I took my 7- and 5-year-old boys to see him. As a result of his stroke, my dad does not remember that I’ve had children, but the boys don’t seem to mind. They’ve discovered the mini-cereal boxes of Frosted Flakes in the recreation room, so there are no hard feelings.
We spent some time with him, and then had to leave. Leaving my dad is never easy but since we put him in an assisted-living facility, it’s even tougher. Every time I visit him, I feel like I’m visiting Heaven’s waiting room. Deep down, I know he is where he’s supposed to be. He’s happy there and in capable and loving hands, but it’s still strange. This is where he lives now. He and my mom are living apart after 54 years of marriage.
When we put my dad in the home, we weren’t prepared for the despair that comes with it but time has helped. We have adjusted. Whenever I visit, if he isn’t falling asleep in his chair, he is in good spirits. My mom can now enjoy the time she spends with him without the pressure and stress of the minute-by-minute care. They are enjoying each other’s company. It is working.
After my mom left, as the only one of my siblings in town, I kept my phone with me at all times. I was responsible for my dad if anything happened. I took my newfound responsibility to a heightened level of paranoia.
I would be in a conversation with someone and panic, thinking, “I need to charge my phone. Is my ringer on? Has anyone called?” I even slept with my cell phone by my head. At my dad’s age and in his frail condition, I couldn’t afford to be lackadaisical.
Sunday afternoon, my husband and I took the boys to the park to play baseball. I put my phone in my pocket just in case anyone tried to call while I was playing the outfield. Sure enough, someone did. It was my dad’s former nurse. “Uh oh. Why would she be calling me?” I wondered. I had a terrible foreboding that it was going to be bad news.
“I just went to visit your dad and he complained he had a bad pain in his side,” she said. “I lifted his shirt to see what the pain was and he has the biggest bruises I have ever seen in my life,” she finished. I was dumbfounded. “Bruises? Did he fall? What happened? Why didn’t anyone at the home call me?” I wondered.
I readied myself as we drove to him in haste.
“Hey there,” I said with a smile as my husband and I walked into the recreation room. I had to stay calm. My dad was sitting with one of his favorite nurses, having coffee. He wasn’t dying, thank God.
“I need to see my dad’s sides,” I said politely, as I carefully raised his shirt. Angry purple bruises streaked across his belly with large, pooled black-ish patchwork bruises on both of his sides. “Jesus Christ!” I hollered.
“What? What is it?” My dad asked.
“You’ve got some bruises on your sides, Pops.”
“Yeah, they’ve been hurting me,” he said before going back to what he was doing. I looked to my husband for reassurance.
“I think he’s got to go to the hospital. What do you think?” I asked.
“This is really bad, Maryann. He’s got to go,” he answered.
I wanted to scream, “What the hell people?” but I didn’t. Instead I asked as calmly as I could, “Did my dad fall?”
“No, not that we know of,” the nurses replied.
“Then what the hell is going on here?” I wanted to shout but instead I asked, “Do we know how this happened?”
They said, “No, he began getting the bruises two days ago.”
The past two days that I’ve been visiting? Come on. I bit my hand to stop myself from saying anything boorish. These nice people take really good care of him. If I said something accusatory, that wouldn’t be fair. But I had to say something.
“Why wasn’t I told? I am his emergency contact,” I said. I put his charge nurse on the spot. It wasn’t gracious but it was important to me. Did I miss a call? I wanted answers.
They had left messages for my mom and messages for my dad’s doctor. Of course, my mom was out of town and my dad’s doctor wasn’t on call because it was Sunday.
“We don’t have you on the list,” the nurse said. I looked at my dad’s binder, flipped the page and saw my name on another list as the second person to call if ever my mom wasn’t able to be reached. They had not seen it. I had to move on.
I quickly got over my frustration and focused on my dad. He is on high levels of Coumadin (a strong blood- thinning medicine), so time was of the essence. How was I going to get him to the hospital? We had to call an ambulance, I thought. But what if I was overreacting and nothing was really wrong with him? Was this going to cost my parents a fortune? Was I making the right decision?
The paramedics got my dad on the gurney and looked at his bruises. “Does this hurt?” they asked as they carefully pushed on his bruises.
“Ow, are you trying to kill me?” he replied.
“Do you know how you got these bruises?” they asked. My dad didn’t answer but told them he needed to get to Grand Central Station in New York to pick up his sister Rita. From then on, most of the questioning was directed at me.
I gave the paramedics his medical history, medical records and a list of his medications that the home gave me. I only knew a few of his medications and didn’t know the dosages of those. I felt I should have. They looked them over, asked more questions and off we went.
It was late and dark outside. We drove the freeway without the siren. They had me sit in front. “If this was your dad, would you bring him to the hospital?” I softly asked the driver.
“Yeah I would,” he said. “You have to figure out how he got those. You’re doing the right thing.” I really wanted to believe him.
The emergency room doctor saw us right away. He tried to ask my dad questions before turning to me. He set up a CT scan and an X-ray of his chest. He tested everything. In between tests, my dad would drift into his dementia and babble a little, then come back to me and say “I’m so proud of you. Oh, I love you. You’re my angel,” and then he would smile as he would take me in, like he hadn’t seen me in months. I sat at his bedside as he held my little hand in his. “This is my daughter,” he’d say whenever a nurse or technician walked in. I reveled in the fact that he was remembering who I was.
My dad didn’t have any broken bones, it turned out. We left the hospital with the cause of the bruising undiagnosed. The doctor wanted my dad’s blood-thinning medicine reduced and told me to check his bowel movements for the next few days for blood, to rule out anything going on in his colon. I guess this is what it means to have power of attorney.”
We brought my dad back to his room in the nursing home and once he was in bed, I took a permanent marker and drew around the edges of his bruises. I knew it was the only way I would be able to tell if they were growing or receding. I had to figure this out. Once I was done, and my dad was in his pajamas, it finally hit me.
His undergarments were being pulled too tightly across his sides. That had to be it. For a normal person, it would be not be a big deal, but for a 78-year-old man who’s been on Coumadin for 16 years, the pulling of the material across his sides was bruising him.
If the bruising had been from a fall, he would’ve had broken bones or bruises on his elbows or shoulders and/or hips, which would have hit the ground first, but not on his sides. My dad was going to be OK. He wasn’t dying. This was not life-threatening.
“Thank you, God,” I whispered on my taxi ride home. I could finally breathe normally again.
We addressed the situation and each day that passed, I marked my dad’s bruises as they receded. His Coumadin dosage was lowered and I don’t think he remembers what happened. But I do. I won’t forget it. I won’t forget feeling like I should have asked my mom the important questions and addressed some scenarios before she left. If I am going to have power of attorney, I should act like a real attorney and do my research.
