May 2, 2018. The month of May seemed to be getting off to a good start. According to Mom, she had been successful in getting Dad to walk a little around the house. My heart almost stopped when she told me that she also took Dad to his barber for a haircut. Although you can park in front of the barber shop, it’s not exactly an accessible trip from the parking lot into the shop. Had I known in advance about this excursion, I would have been a nervous wreck worrying that he might fall while negotiating the front walkway. I was glad that I didn’t learn about this outing until after the fact.
When I spoke to Mom on the following day, she told me that Dad had had a good day in physical therapy and that they both liked the new therapist.
I had been in Johnson City for a workshop and had planned to spend the night there. Because I felt like I was coming down with a cold, I decided to drive to my parents’ house tonight instead of tomorrow morning. I wasn’t happy to be visiting them when I was sick, but Mom was looking forward to seeing me that weekend, sick or not. I’d had to be vigilant with my hand washing to ensure that I didn’t spread my cold germs around their house.
May 11. Mom is a meat-and-potatoes gal from way back, so for Mother’s Day, I thought that I would serve her filet mignon. I purchased some nice steaks and side dishes from Omaha Steaks for our early Mother’s Day dinner tomorrow night. Shortly after Stan got home from work, we drove to Temple for the weekend.
When we arrived, I told Dad that I had taken care of tomorrow night’s dinner. He then told me that he had already planned Mom’s dinner, which surprised me. For many years, we had had an understanding that Mother’s Day dinner was my responsibility, although we often discussed the menu and the logistics of the meal. Now that he was confined to a wheelchair, I had assumed that he would not be able to share in the dinner preparation. Because I wanted to grill the steaks, a task better done in the evening, we agreed to have the steaks for dinner on Saturday and the dinner that he had planned on Sunday for the midday meal.
May 13. While Mom and I attended church, our husbands played cribbage. Whenever we were in Temple, Dad did not take his diuretics, which concerned me. In addition to his not taking the pills, he didn’t seem to be following a renal diet or curtailing his sodium intake. Because any mention of pill, diet, or walking seemed to ignite an argument, I tried to limit vocalizing my concerns during this weekend.
Dad had told me that he would need my assistance with the preparation of today’s Mother’s Day meal, which was an understatement. Although he had planned a nice menu for Mom’s dinner, Mom and I ended up preparing the meal. In addition to shrimp cocktail, barbequed spare ribs, green beans, and twice-baked potatoes, Dad also planned on Mom’s strawberry pie and Jell-O salad. We had a full weekend of eating high-on-the-hog. Unfortunately, as I had suspected, Dad did not take any diuretics while we were there.
May 14—17. Dad attended physical therapy today and would do so again on Thursday, three days later. He didn’t get out of his wheelchair on the days between his sessions; however, he felt especially positive after his Thursday session and said that he was getting ready to get rid of the wheelchair. I was hopeful that he had changed his attitude about exercising between sessions and that he was becoming inspired to get better.
May 21. Because his physical therapist did not come to work today, Dad’s therapy session was canceled. Unfortunately, he didn’t take the initiative to walk around the house either. When Mom tried to get him to walk the next day, he said that he was too stiff to walk. If I had been sitting in a wheelchair for 12 hours a day, I’d be pretty stiff too. I hated that wheelchair.
May 24. I suspected that Dad didn’t have the greatest physical therapy session today. According to Mom, Steve, the physical therapist, lectured Dad about the need to exercise between his physical therapy sessions. I hoped that Dad would listen more to Steve than he did to me. Dad had been out of the rehab center and had been attending outpatient physical therapy since mid-April and I could not see much of an improvement in his mobility. If anything, it seemed to be getting worse.
May 26. I had not planned to go to Temple this weekend, but something in Mom’s voice during our last phone call prompted me to change my mind, and Stan agreed that I should go. When I arrived, Dad was in his wheelchair, trying on a pair of new shoes that had just arrived in the mail. The shoe size was larger than what he had been wearing, but he could not get them on his feet. I was appalled by the level of exertion that he expended trying to get the shoes on his feet. You would have thought that he had just finished the four-minute mile. When I later asked Mom if he had been taking his diuretic, she said that he had had not taken a pill in quite some time.
My parents had planned another trip to the barber later today. Instead of taking him in Mom’s LeBaron convertible, I decided to drive him in Stan’s new SUV. We were able to get Dad into Stan’s car, but the trip from the car to the barber chair was a bit harrowing, and we practically dragged Dad the last couple of feet and into the chair. Fortunately, because it was a holiday weekend, the barber didn’t have any customers and was able to assist us. More harrowing than the walk in from the car was the walk back to the car. Once again, the barber saved our bacon and was able to help us maneuver Dad back into the car. The barber and I could barely get Dad safely to and from the shop. There was no way that Mom would have been able to manage Dad without me. Because he had been able to negotiate the walk on May 2, it seemed that his condition was worsening. I couldn’t understand why Dad and his physical therapists were not alarmed.
I could tell that Mom was exhausted, and I was glad that I was there to help her. I also decided that I was going to help Dad to walk. He was able to walk 88 feet once today, but the next two times, he had to stop and rest for a moment at the halfway point.
I asked him if he had to stop because of pain (from the hip surgery) or because of exhaustion. He admitted that it was the latter. We proceeded to have a very civil and productive discussion about his condition. Not only was he easily exhausted, but he was showing signs of severe fluid overload. In addition to having swollen extremities, his legs were weeping fluid. I begged him to take the diuretics, and I told him that if he would, he would regain some of his strength and endurance. He promised me that he would start taking the pills on a daily basis.
The next morning he took his pill, and I left feeling more optimistic than I had in quite some time.
May 29. Dad had his assessment today during physical therapy and he was approved for another 30 days of therapy. Although this seemed like good news, it meant that he was not well. Also, his next appointment was not until June 7, which meant that he had a 9-day gap between therapy sessions.
According to Mom, Dad forgot to take his diuretic today.
June 18. According to Mom, Dad had been taking his diuretics on most days since I saw him on May 26. However, he found many reasons for not taking the pills, like trips to physical therapy. Today he didn’t take a pill because he spent a few hours at the dermatologist having a biopsy for skin cancer on his head.
Stan and I left Houston to spend a week in southern California with his family. While we were there, we also visited with some of my cousins. I wanted to call my parents every day, but the time difference posed some challenges; however, I was able to call them a few times. According to Mom, Dad was taking his diuretics as he had promised me. I was encouraged and looked forward to seeing a significant improvement when I returned to Temple at the end of the month. By that time, he would have been consistently taking the diuretics for three weeks. According to Mom, his legs had stopped seeping, so he was already on his way to reversing his dangerous fluid overload condition.
June 29. Stan and I arrived in Temple at 6:00 P.M. Instead of being pleased with Dad’s progress, it seemed to me that his progress had stalled. His legs weren’t seeping fluid, but his whole body still seemed very swollen. He also wasn’t wearing shoes because he couldn’t get them on his feet. When I asked Mom when he had last taken a pill, she said that she didn’t know.
I tried reasoning with him again about walking and taking the diuretics, but he lobbed excuses at me faster than Serena Williams. When I asked him to walk, he said that he didn’t want to at that time. When I asked if he wanted to get out of the wheelchair, he said, “Not if it means that I have to walk four times a day.” I didn’t know how to respond. My mother was exhausted from trying to care for him, their 3,400 sq ft home, and their acre of property. I wanted him to get better and stay in their house if that’s what they wanted, but not at the expense of Mom’s health.
While Mom and I attended church on Sunday, July 1, Stan observed that Dad sometimes spontaneously drifted off to sleep while they were playing cards, which was also a symptom of fluid overload. He would sometimes fall asleep at the dining room table at the end of a meal.
I was appalled to learn that Dad wanted to install a ramp off of their patio, presumably to enable wheeling the barbeque grill onto the patio, but I suspected that it had more to do with wheelchair accessibility. He kept saying that he looked forward to activities that required him to walk, but it seemed that he was preparing the house for life ahead in that wheelchair. Mom told me that he wanted to walk again, but you couldn’t prove it by me.
During the first weekend of March 2016, our friends Mike and Rhoda visited my parents. The visit went well, and Dad walked around the house with little or no assistance from his cane. We were all pleased and impressed with his progress and felt that his recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Unfortunately, a couple of days after they left, 
As March 2018 approached, these same friends asked if they could join Stan and me during one of our weekend trips to see my parents. My parents love our friends and were thrilled that they had time for a weekend visit. Not only did I look forward to Rhoda and Mike’s company, I hoped that they might be able to provide me with a little perspective. Dad and I are very much alike, and we have a history of digging in our heels. For the past few months, he and I had been locking horns about his 
Unlike during the visit of two years ago, Dad’s gait seemed unsteady to me, and I practically held my breath as he walked around the house. His legs were swollen, and I was pretty sure that the reason was that he was 
Fortunately, or unfortunately, my concerns were validated by my friends when they told me that they also thought that Dad seemed unsteady. My husband, who can usually talk me down when I’m overly concerned, didn’t help much when he said that he was also worried about Dad’s gait and the swelling in his legs.
She had just returned home from the Scott & White Hospital, where she had left Dad. It seemed that shortly before 7:00 P.M., Dad had fallen while stepping up from the sunken sunroom to the family room. Although the sunroom was carpeted, the family-room floor was a hard-tiled surface. Dad was in a lot of pain, and Mom had called 911. X-rays showed that he had broken his hip in the socket and would require surgery to insert two or three pins. His 
Because of the potential for infection, only RNs can work with 
Several years earlier, my mother had been the president of the 
Because Dad received co-pay bills for physician visits to the dialysis center, he decided to take advantage of his VA benefits. Temple is near 
December 21, 2016. Dad had continued to progress well. Not only was he eating more, but he was also eating foods that I had assumed would be off limits for a patient who had been deemed a chronic aspirator. I recall 
As the time approached 11:00 A.M., I wanted to get Dad across the parking lot to the CCH before Dr. Smith left the building for lunch. Before we left, I gave Adan some of my homemade biscotti to share with his wife and some cookies for his kids.
While we waited to see if the doctor was still in the building, I asked the receptionist if we could see Marty, who was the case manager at the CCH. I had had somewhat of a rocky relationship with Marty during Dad’s two stays at the CCH. She had been very negative during about Dad’s prognosis and 
December 23. My parents have a large vegetable garden on their acre lot. Dad had decided that he wanted to change the footprint of the garden, which was designated by cinder blocks and bricks. Stan and I didn’t want my parents to move the cinder blocks themselves, so we volunteered to help Dad with the garden, and today’s weather was perfect for the task.
As our friends showered us with kindness, Mom and I would ask ourselves how we’d ever be able to thank our friends. After almost a year of nonstop kindnesses, Dad was stable and was well on his way to leading his pre-hospitalization normal life. During one of our discussions about our friends, Mom and I decided to host a dinner and invite everyone who had lifted us up by their deeds and prayers. We contacted the Hilton Gardens and Inn and met with one of their banquet representatives. We selected September 30, 2016, as the date and Giving Thanks Day Dinner as the theme. Although I had good reason to be very thankful for a couple of our healthcare providers, we decided to exclude Scott & White employees and invite only friends. Unfortunately, four of the 14 people that we invited would be unable to attend.
When Mom and I arrived at the hotel, the room looked great. While Dad was hospitalized, I had kept real or artificial sunflowers in his room, and today the tables were decorated with sunflower arrangements. I had originally planned to let each one of our guests pick up a place card and choose an available seat. However, to ensure that everyone would be seated next to at least one acquaintance, I arranged the place cards, which also included the menu choices. Without realizing it, the placement of the place cards matched the order that I had planned to address our guests during my following remarks:
Jane and Mickey: In my 60-some-odd years on this planet, I never realized the importance of giving food during hard times. However, this was the first time in my life, and probably my mother’s life, that I was losing weight without trying or without being sick. Sometimes we came home from the hospital so emotionally exhausted that the thought of preparing a meal was more than we could fathom. Jane’s yummy salads from Austin and homemade goodies were like manna from heaven, and Mom and I kept saying that we didn’t know how we’d ever be able to thank her.
Marilyn and Earl stopped by the hospital a few times to visit with Dad, but 
In addition to the fondness that we developed for Don, we also came to love his wife, Wynn, who Mom met on July 22 and I met a couple of days later. Wynn worked at Memorial Hospital in the chaplain’s office, and we became accustomed to her visits to Dad’s room. There were several reasons that we hated to leave Memorial again for the CCH, and not being able to see Wynn was one of them.We lost count of the times that Don visited Memorial and the CCH. He is so special and important to us, and Mom and I kept saying that we didn’t know how we’d ever be able to thank him.
During Dad’s first stint at Memorial, he was the church’s Member of the Week, and he received many cards from the church members, but I’m pretty sure that Kris sent more cards than all the other members combined. And each card contained special messages of hope, faith, encouragement, and love. Joan, who is a retired nurse, also helped guide us through some of our darker days, providing support, advice, and comfort to Mom and me.And we kept saying that we didn’t know how we’d ever be able to thank them.
And when my father came home, Stan transformed my parents’ bedroom into a functional hospital room. And every night when I called him, he’d listened to me cry, complain, and rant. I know that we had vowed to be there for better or worse, but he really raised the bar. And his mother-in-law and I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to thank him.
Yesterday was an anniversary of sorts for us. One year ago yesterday, my father was discharged from the CCH into Home Care. Six days from now, the man who doctors said would not live to see his 87th birthday will turn 88.
The finished cake sported numeral-shaped candles, each candle representing the second digit of our ages: 1, 2, 8, and 9. I had not considered the weights of the layers, and when I was finished, the cake resembled something that you might see in a 
Like many of the other procedures that Dad had had, this one would be simple and would be performed in the 
After dinner, I asked Dad if he or Mom had checked his dressing since he had come home. Mom said that she hadn’t checked it, so we asked Dad to unbutton his shirt for us. The dressing was very bloody, and even Dad was concerned about the pool of blood that had collected. It was now after 7:00 P.M. on a Friday and holiday weekend. This was the second time that we had scheduled a simple procedure on a holiday weekend, which made me question our sanity.
After reviewing both photos, he said that he didn’t see anything emergent and suggested that we stop by the IR clinic on Saturday after dialysis. As much as Dad hates the Scott & White emergency department, he, Mom, and I decided that he should get rid of the oversaturated dressing before tomorrow afternoon. I texted the doctor and told him that we were going to the emergency room. While en route to the hospital, he texted me as asked for our ETA. When we stopped at a signal, I responded that we were less than five minutes from the hospital.
For all intents and purposes, this surgery marked the official end to Dad’s health care odyssey—a mere 420 days after he entered the hospital for elective heart surgery. He would still need to gain some weight and strength, but he was now driving, attending church, and getting around my parents’ acre lot with little to no assistance from his cane, and he used his walker only when he went to dialysis. He had beaten the incredible odds against him and was a walking miracle.
My husband suffers from 
Unbelievably, the waiting room was empty. Two nurses triaged me and took me right to an examination room. Although this might seem like standard operating procedure (SOP), in my experience with this ED, triage was followed by 
And then the woman with the traveling laptop entered the room to resolve my bill. After handing her my insurance card, she told me that I had a very good insurance plan for emergency care. My bill had come to $6,000.00 (approximately $1,000/hour), but my out-of-pocket portion was only $2,000.00 (gag). She started to say that if I were to be admitted, there would be some other process, but stopped midsentence and said that I would be admitted. When I asked why, she said that the doctor would return soon and she would tell me. After all of these tests and the pending admittance to the hospital, I wondered what the heck was wrong with me. When the doctor returned, she said that she was admitting me because I had pneumonia. I had spent a lot of time with someone who had had pneumonia twice during the past year, and I was pretty certain that I didn’t have a single symptom that would warrant that diagnosis.
The good news was that they were going to give me a nice IV cocktail of concoctions that would make my headache go away. Although I was grateful to get rid of the pain, I was not convinced that it wouldn’t return after all of the good drugs wore off. When I asked her if she had any idea what caused the pain, all she said that she doubted my assertion that I didn’t get headaches, which was hugely annoying.
June 2. Fortunately, I had the prescriptions from the urgent care center, which we filled after breakfast. Because my pain had started in my head and extended down my back, the urgent care doctor had prescribed one medication to address the backache and another for the headache.
While Stan and Dad spent the day on outdoor activities, I kept running through my Pilates routines and noticed that my headache and back pain had diminished significantly.
Before Dad’s extensive hospitalization, my parents worked 
A dove had built a nest of sorts (Doves are inept at building nests.) on our front porch. Whenever I walked up the porch stairs, I would stop and check on the status of the (ugly) baby dove and its mother. Today when I got home, the mother dove was gone, and it looked like a dead baby bird was in the nest. I checked before going to bed, and the mother dove had returned. I assumed that I was wrong about the baby dove, but marvel at how still baby doves could lie. We had also had a dove nesting in a crepe myrtle tree in our backyard, but that nest now seemed to be empty. During the past couple of years, the porch had become a favorite nesting location for doves. Stan said that he didn’t like the messy doves nesting on the porch, but I enjoyed having this bird’s-eye view of spring.
Although I had planned to limit my time in Temple to long weekends, the upcoming holiday weekend and family reunion scheduled for the next weekend caused me to extend this trip to two weeks. Unfortunately for Dad, I would be commandeering his computer workspace during this time. After my father had been unable to get up while adjusting the irrigation in my parents’ vegetable garden, Stan suggested that we get them a 
May 30. Today was the observed holiday for Memorial Day, so I had the day off from work. Instead of sleeping in, I was rudely awakened at 3:00 A.M. by a thunderstorm. With the memory of last year’s 
Because Stan planned to take off from work next Friday and spend a long weekend with Dad while Mom and I attended a family reunion, he had stayed home this weekend. In addition to some chores that he had to attend to around our house, Peanut, our female cat, was experiencing some health problems that seemed serious, and she needed some attention.
Although the ground was a little soupy, the conditions were perfect for pulling out weeds, and I was prepared with my knee-high rain boots. Mom and I weeded the vegetable garden for about an hour and were pleased with our results. The sky had remained overcast, so we weren’t sweltering from heat.
The doctor recommended that Dad take medication to strengthen his bones. Because of his renal failure, the only drug that he could take was Prolia, which is administered as an injection every six months. I told the doctor that I had known some women who sounded like they were dying after taking similar drugs. She told me that today was just a consultation and that we should go home, research the drug, and then make a decision. She said that if we had any questions, we could call her.
When I called my parents’ home from my home in Houston today, my mother told me that she had been informed that Dad’s second round of home care would be ending soon. Once again, I felt like I was losing a lifeline. Although I rarely needed them, just knowing that I could phone a nurse for assistance was comforting.
After Mom and I returned home from church, the four of us enjoyed chocolate-dipped strawberries with our lunch.
For dinner, Dad and I fixed some of Mom’s favorites: baked potatoes and rib-eye steak. Dad also had me prepare one of his favorites: sautéed mushrooms. Everything was great—even the 
I drove home and called Stan when I approached the neighborhood. We met at the house, unloaded my car (with the engine running), and he followed me to the Honda dealership. Through the miracle of smartphones, I was able to attend a meeting during my drive to the dealership. The service department representative said that they could fix my car within an hour, which allowed Stan and me to grab dinner while we waited.
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 the house was being prepped for its beauty treatment, Mom drove Dad to his appointment with 
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tale of Two Parents 