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my dad
It’s no secret that my dad’s an asshole, but I’m torn.
He’s having trouble with his atrial fibrillation again. He’s had it a lot throughout his life, and up until 1-1/2 years ago, he messed around with the medications given to him by heart docs and took them “as needed” even though NONE of them were supposed to be and he was overmedicating with 2 of them, having my uncle pick up more of the medications in Mexico so he could take more because the doc wouldn’t give him that much.
These aren’t narcotics. These are just straight up heart medications.
He also stays in bed as soon as he doesn’t feel good, which brings on water retention.
He got himself to the point 1-1/2 years ago that he put himself in congestive heart failure. He did it to himself. Like how does a person even do that, but he did it.
I can hear it happening again -- he sounds congested, he’s having chest pain, and the atrial fib (made worse by CHF/congestive heart failure) is getting worse.
cut for length
But the thing is this is a man who is a complete asshole. He does what he wants to do with the info and meds given him, then looks whack jobs up on the internet and follows their advice instead. He treats heartburn with a spoonful of baking soda -- that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. He’s also a hypochondriac.
Anyway, 1-1/2 years ago I saw him going downhill. He got to the point where he was coughing up blood because he wouldn’t stop trying to cough the CHF, which you can’t do anyway.
At the time I was super stressed from a lot of things and on a Saturday night after I had done a Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th at the shop (the craziest days at the shop) he starts crying at me as I’m walking into the house arms full of groceries about come look at this blood I’m coughing up.
This is going to make me sound heartless, but you’ve gotta understand how ridiculous this man is. He has anxiety attacks that he refuses to admit are anxiety attacks and is certain they’re more atrial fib and takes heart medication to treat them. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to take him to the hospital in the middle of the night over the years only to find out he self-medicated an anxiety attack with heart medication.
And that’s not counting the nights he makes us sit with him in his room while he takes his blood pressure every 10 minutes.
We actually took the blood pressure cuff away from him after he went through a set of batteries in ONE WEEK.
But when I went off on him about the coughing up blood that Saturday the 14th, it freaked him out and he called my aunt to take him to the hospital where they saved his life because he was 1-2 days away from dying.
This type of thing has happened many times with me and multiple family members where I recognize symptoms of something serious, I make sure they get to a hospital, and they will have been within hours or days of death.
But sometimes I regret it. Like in my grandma’s case. She was in her mid 80s, blind, and her mind was almost gone. I recognized the symptoms of sepsis and got her to a hospital. She would’ve died within 2 hours of me getting her there, but instead it saved her life only for her to SLOWLY die a painful death over the next year due to kidney failure.
So I told my mom last year I was going to stop doing that with family members who didn’t have a good quality of life to begin with. She agreed it was a good idea. She even gave me permission to do it with her, and it’s like okay thanks but you’re not even close to bad quality of life.
That’s what I’m dealing with now with my dad. But there’s an extra thing here that’s making it all worse -- Covid-19.
He’s going to call his heart doc today, and I already know the next step the doc will mention -- a pacemaker. We’ve discussed this when I went with him 1-1/2 years ago -- if the heart ablation failed, pacemaker was the next step.
The doc is going to want to see my dad in office and the solution to his problem will be surgery.
Now my mom and dad’s friends are dropping like flies due to Covid. They’re in that age group -- dad more so than mom because he’s 10 years older than her.
My dad, with his anxiety, won’t let the a-fib thing drop. He freaks out over it and makes it worse. People can live with a-fib, but they just have to be careful and take blood thinners, which my dad refuses.
So instead of just living with it, he’s going to be freaking out all the time and want us to take him to the hospital.
But we’ve been completely quarantined for the last year. We haven’t even seen family members. We’re more quarantined than anybody I know because I have no doubt this would kill my mom and dad. I might die from it too, but it’s less likely.
So if he wants the surgery, that means him being taken to appointments and the hospital and then rehab. None of which I want to be involved in and I also don’t know what to do with him when he’s ready to come home. He won’t go stay in my uncle’s cabin by himself for 14 days, so what am I supposed to do with him?!
I could convince him to do some things at home and not go, especially if both my mom and I work on him, but he the a-fib is GOING to get worse and we’re going to be dealing with him being ridiculous all day and all night all the time.
I also could tell him AGAIN the cause of his current symptoms and rally behind him AGAIN to get moving and stop rolling around in bed all day creating the situation, but I’ve done this so many times and I take care of him all the time anyway. And if I didn’t take care of him, my mom would, and then I’d be taking care of her more than I do now.
So I’m stumped.
I wish he would just die and get it over with, but that won’t happen. Good people die easily or young or quickly.
People like him drag it out and take everybody down with them.
He’s having trouble with his atrial fibrillation again. He’s had it a lot throughout his life, and up until 1-1/2 years ago, he messed around with the medications given to him by heart docs and took them “as needed” even though NONE of them were supposed to be and he was overmedicating with 2 of them, having my uncle pick up more of the medications in Mexico so he could take more because the doc wouldn’t give him that much.
These aren’t narcotics. These are just straight up heart medications.
He also stays in bed as soon as he doesn’t feel good, which brings on water retention.
He got himself to the point 1-1/2 years ago that he put himself in congestive heart failure. He did it to himself. Like how does a person even do that, but he did it.
I can hear it happening again -- he sounds congested, he’s having chest pain, and the atrial fib (made worse by CHF/congestive heart failure) is getting worse.
cut for length
But the thing is this is a man who is a complete asshole. He does what he wants to do with the info and meds given him, then looks whack jobs up on the internet and follows their advice instead. He treats heartburn with a spoonful of baking soda -- that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. He’s also a hypochondriac.
Anyway, 1-1/2 years ago I saw him going downhill. He got to the point where he was coughing up blood because he wouldn’t stop trying to cough the CHF, which you can’t do anyway.
At the time I was super stressed from a lot of things and on a Saturday night after I had done a Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th at the shop (the craziest days at the shop) he starts crying at me as I’m walking into the house arms full of groceries about come look at this blood I’m coughing up.
This is going to make me sound heartless, but you’ve gotta understand how ridiculous this man is. He has anxiety attacks that he refuses to admit are anxiety attacks and is certain they’re more atrial fib and takes heart medication to treat them. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to take him to the hospital in the middle of the night over the years only to find out he self-medicated an anxiety attack with heart medication.
And that’s not counting the nights he makes us sit with him in his room while he takes his blood pressure every 10 minutes.
We actually took the blood pressure cuff away from him after he went through a set of batteries in ONE WEEK.
But when I went off on him about the coughing up blood that Saturday the 14th, it freaked him out and he called my aunt to take him to the hospital where they saved his life because he was 1-2 days away from dying.
This type of thing has happened many times with me and multiple family members where I recognize symptoms of something serious, I make sure they get to a hospital, and they will have been within hours or days of death.
But sometimes I regret it. Like in my grandma’s case. She was in her mid 80s, blind, and her mind was almost gone. I recognized the symptoms of sepsis and got her to a hospital. She would’ve died within 2 hours of me getting her there, but instead it saved her life only for her to SLOWLY die a painful death over the next year due to kidney failure.
So I told my mom last year I was going to stop doing that with family members who didn’t have a good quality of life to begin with. She agreed it was a good idea. She even gave me permission to do it with her, and it’s like okay thanks but you’re not even close to bad quality of life.
That’s what I’m dealing with now with my dad. But there’s an extra thing here that’s making it all worse -- Covid-19.
He’s going to call his heart doc today, and I already know the next step the doc will mention -- a pacemaker. We’ve discussed this when I went with him 1-1/2 years ago -- if the heart ablation failed, pacemaker was the next step.
The doc is going to want to see my dad in office and the solution to his problem will be surgery.
Now my mom and dad’s friends are dropping like flies due to Covid. They’re in that age group -- dad more so than mom because he’s 10 years older than her.
My dad, with his anxiety, won’t let the a-fib thing drop. He freaks out over it and makes it worse. People can live with a-fib, but they just have to be careful and take blood thinners, which my dad refuses.
So instead of just living with it, he’s going to be freaking out all the time and want us to take him to the hospital.
But we’ve been completely quarantined for the last year. We haven’t even seen family members. We’re more quarantined than anybody I know because I have no doubt this would kill my mom and dad. I might die from it too, but it’s less likely.
So if he wants the surgery, that means him being taken to appointments and the hospital and then rehab. None of which I want to be involved in and I also don’t know what to do with him when he’s ready to come home. He won’t go stay in my uncle’s cabin by himself for 14 days, so what am I supposed to do with him?!
I could convince him to do some things at home and not go, especially if both my mom and I work on him, but he the a-fib is GOING to get worse and we’re going to be dealing with him being ridiculous all day and all night all the time.
I also could tell him AGAIN the cause of his current symptoms and rally behind him AGAIN to get moving and stop rolling around in bed all day creating the situation, but I’ve done this so many times and I take care of him all the time anyway. And if I didn’t take care of him, my mom would, and then I’d be taking care of her more than I do now.
So I’m stumped.
I wish he would just die and get it over with, but that won’t happen. Good people die easily or young or quickly.
People like him drag it out and take everybody down with them.