April 26, 2016. I was slow to get up this morning. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 4:05 A.M., but I wasn’t the only one who was slow to get started. At 5:05 A.M. I had to wake my parents. Even with the late start, Dad and Mom got off to dialysis on time, and Mom was home by 7:15 A.M., which meant that Dad was hooked up well before his 7:00 A.M. chair time. The workmen arrived shortly after 9:00 A.M. and started hanging plastic to isolate their work area and to confine their dust to a small area of the house. They worked most of the day replacing the broken tiles.

Now that Dad seemed to be recovering nicely, he didn’t need my constant presence, which enabled me to spend more time at my home in Houston. I left my parents’ home at 12:30 P.M. and arrived at my home in Houston around 3:15 P.M. I logged on and worked until Stan got home from work at 5:00 P.M., armed with some barbecued ribs, one of my favorite meals.

While Stan and I were eating, Mom called because she had not heard from me. I always call them after the three-hour drive, but today, my call was picked up by voicemail. Evidently, my parents had decided to get out of the plastic maze that their house had become, and they had been relaxing on the patio when I called and had not heard the phone ring.

My mother said that Mike’s contractors did an excellent job and that the tile looked as good as new.

April 27. A different set of tradesmen arrived at my parents’ house today. This group concentrated on repairing the cracked walls and spent quite a bit of time patching the cracks and doing other prep work necessary for painting. Dad had also contracted with the crew to paint the exterior of the house. It had stormed during the night, and these guys added to the wet house by power washing it.

While the house was being prepped for its beauty treatment, Mom drove Dad to his appointment with Dr. Elizabeth Ebert, his cardiologist. The doctor said that Dad’s heart and its new valve were fine and performing well. While they were in her office, she accessed Dad’s x-rays and confirmed that she also saw seven compression fractures in his spine. Mom didn’t say why the doctor accessed Dad’s x-rays, but I assumed that Dad had told her about his constant pain.

April 30. Even though Stan and I took the day off from work today, I still woke up at 4:30 A.M. I did some laundry, tidied up around the house, and went to the grocery store. By that time, it was raining (again). By 9:00 A.M., I had my car packed and was ready to drive to Temple. Stan left shortly after me.

When I arrived at my folks’ house at 11:30 AM., the front door was unlocked, and when I went inside, it seemed as if no one was at home. On my third trip into the house while unloading my car, my mother came out of the master bedroom and told me that Dad was taking a shower. Until the dialysis catheter was removed, preparing Dad for a shower was an ordeal that involved securely shielding the dialysis ports and ensuring that we didn’t disrupt them in the process. By 12:30 P.M., Dad was dressed, and Stan was pulling into the driveway. Mom told me that before he left dialysis yesterday, the nurse measured his height, and he was 5’10”, three inches shorter than his height when he entered the hospital less than 12 months ago. Also as disturbing was the news that his weight was down to 143 lbs. During the past year, Mom had also lost 20 lbs—weight that she didn’t need to lose. After years of watching their weight, we were not concerned about too much weight loss.

When preparing the house for the repair work, the contractors had us remove vases, knick-knacks, and any other objects that they might damage. After lunch, I helped Mom return everything to its rightful place—sort of. I couldn’t believe how difficult it was for us to remember where everything had been for five years. I questioned both my power of observation and my memory.

The weather was beautiful in Temple, and Stan and Dad took advantage of the nice day by spending the afternoon outside doing yard work. Meanwhile, inside the house, Mom was baking a cake and I was preparing ham loaf for dinner.

After dinner, we played cards, and Dad beat Mom by one point.

May 1. I compensated for my lack of sleep on Thursday night by getting nine hours of sleep last night.  When I woke up at 6:45 A.M., I heard Mom in the kitchen. She had been up for almost an hour, and the coffee was ready.

Mom and I went to church, leaving the guys at home to play cards and perhaps do some chores. On the way out of the church, Pastor Tom hugged me and told me to say hello to my father. I told him that I’d been eager for Dad to get to the point where I could take him out to dinner. I then asked Tom if he could recommend any good sushi restaurants. He looked at me for a couple of moments and then said that I was still welcome to attend church. Mom hadn’t heard what I asked him, but the people behind us did, and they laughed. Tom loved beef and comfort food, but anyone who knew him also knew that he detested salad, vegetables, and sushi.

When we got home, Dad and Stan had taken a break from some outdoor chores and were playing cribbage, and Dad was winning. After lunch, Dad and Stan went back outdoors for more yard work until it was time for Stan to return to Houston. He left Temple at 4:30 P.M. and arrived at our home in Houston three hours later.

After dinner, we played Oh Hell, and I won.

May 3. I worked at my parents’ house until 11:15 A.M., and then started packing up for my return trip home. Dad had only 1,200 ml of fluid removed today. He still weighed 149 lbs, although he seemed to be eating as much as the rest of us.

I called Holly, the manager of American HomePatient to have them pick up everything except the wheelchair. Unfortunately, a lot of what they had sent us last September could not be used for other patients. We’d either need to sell or donate much of what we still had on hand.

As much grief as I gave Dad for not cooperating with his physical therapists, I had not completed my physical therapy sessions following my wrist surgery last year. I still had a couple of sessions left when Mom had a stroke last year, and I had not been able to see the therapist or surgeon. My wrist had been reminding me of these oversights for the past couple of days. Dad’s Extra Strength Tylenol seemed to help somewhat.

The leading news story of the day was that medical errors were the third leading cause of death in the USA for adults. The report went on to say that one in four people in the hospital would suffer from errors, and some of those errors would be fatal. After all that we had been through during the past year, this news story was not news to us, and not surprising. With all that Stan had witnessed with his parents’ final days, he also shared my sentiments.

Mom had been battling skin cancer during the past few years. Her younger years spent on California beaches and the Jersey shore, coupled with gardening and farming had finally caught up with her. During a trip to the dermatologist today, the doctor took a biopsy from her forehead. We were crossing our fingers that she didn’t require more surgery or radiation treatment.

I watch the election returns for the Indiana primary. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Trump was the big winner again, which surprised me, and Cruz dropped out of the race, which pleased and surprised me.

May 4. Mom woke up in the middle of the night, bleeding from the spot on her forehead where the doctor had taken the biopsy. She was able to stop the bleeding and did what she could to bandage it.

Kathleen stopped by today to assess Dad’s progress with his physical therapy. As she left, the homecare nurse arrived for Dad’s routine check-up. She said that Dad was fine, but she was concerned about Mom’s forehead. She told Mom that she must have the bleeding addressed today.

When Mom contacted the dermatologist, she was told to come to the office. While she was there, the wound was cauterized, which was very painful. The nurse also applied a tight compress to arrest the blood flow. By the time that I spoke with Mom on the phone, she told me that her forehead seemed to be doing fine.

I kept hoping for a couple of weeks in a row where nothing happened to either of my parents. I sometimes felt like we should have one of those signs like the ones posted in factories: 7 days without a medical incident. Today the counter was reset to zero.

A clerk from American HomePatient stopped by to pick up medical equipment, but he didn’t have the wheelchair IV pole on the list, so the IV pole remained at the house. Although we still had some medical supplies in the house, having the larger equipment removed, coupled with getting the repair work done, was a huge milestone a step toward their life as they had known it.