At my house, we are getting used to a new paradigm. On Monday morning, my Dad had a stroke. I heard him up and messing around in his room, then I heard what sounded like him dropping his shoe. It was 4:30 am. I went upstairs to get him back into bed (he had started wandering a couple of weeks ago) and found him half dressed and lying in the middle of his floor. He was conscious and unhurt, but unable to get himself up. It took a bit, but I got him up sitting on the edge of his bed. I had had to do this with my Mom, too, but Mom had more strength, at least on one side. Dad was like a noodle on the floor.
We noticed later in the day that he was having a lot of trouble speaking and he was even more weak and frail than he had been even the day before. It was obvious he had had a stroke. There was never any plan to take him to the ER - he is 88, this isn't his first stroke and I knew what they would do in the hospital with an old person having a stroke. They would watch him. They would poke him. They would scare him. So he will not be going to the hospital. His doctor and my doctor sister agree with this.
By Tuesday afternoon, he had rebounded fairly well mentally. Not physically, though. He has a messed up spine and cannot sleep in his bed. I think this is why he kept wandering - the pain in his back would wake him up. Monday night, we watched him all night, listening for him turning on his bedside light so that we could get there before he tried to stand up. This happened pretty much every hour. During the day, he would sleep for hours in his recliner. So after a few ups and down on Tuesday night, he was put into his recliner to sleep and he slept the whole night. Best sleep he had had in weeks.
My son lives with us and is Dad's secondary caretaker. He has simply been here to cover my days off but with the understanding that when it was needed, he would take nights and I would take days. Well, that time has come. My son has him from 9 pm until 7 am. I take over at 7 until bedtime at 9 pm. We keep a log of what has happened during our shift, what we have done and what meds we have given. We are looking for a hospital bed for him so that he can sleep and sit in a different place. Otherwise if feels like he is sitting in his chair 24/7 - and he pretty much is.
I also have seen what they can and can't do for a patient in a nursing home. We had to put Mom in one because Dad was still at home and was freaked out by the condition she was in. He had trouble going there to see her because the nursing home freaked him out. The hospital freaks him out. But Mom is gone now and anything they can do for him in a nursing home can be done here. Whatever physical challenges we have to overcome, we will do. But we will not be putting him into a nursing home. He will stay here in his own home, with his own people, his own things and his own dog until the end. And we will do whatever needs to be done to accomplish this goal.
So what does this mean for my eating routine and weight loss journey? Well, I will do what I can without obsessing over it. I have been sugar free for some time now and don't even want it any more. I have not binged in weeks. Dad is not going to live much longer - my life until then is about him not about me. I will make sure that I get good sleep (thus the paradigm of having my son take nights and me take days - we can't both be asleep at the same time), I will make sure I eat well (I buy the groceries - there is nothing here worth binging on), get my exercise in (the dog has a heart condition too and needs the walks), and work on simply accepting that this is how things are now. The Dad that I knew, that was the powerhouse, that was everybody's hero, that could fix anything just can't anymore. And that's OK. He took good care of me when I needed it. Now we have the honor of doing the same for him.
