I just don’t seem to want to write about this. Or about anything.
but…

So, Dad is in the hospital. He won’t be coming home as it was undoubtedly evident that he simply is not capable of living on his own anymore. According to the nurses, this is the best way to get into a nursing-care facility as old folks coming from hospitals have a shorter wait than those coming from home. I have no idea how this will all work out and my mind is reeling with all the peripheral stuff of what to do with his car, how to get out of the lease on his apartment (which I had to co-sign and am now financially responsible for), disposing of his junk, furniture, etc., and how to safeguard a small portion of his meager money so that I don’t go broke.

I can’t even think about the tangled mess that is his mind. Watching him busily working the wires and tubes, folding and refolding the edges of his blanket, pulling on the seams of his hospital gown…asking me to help him get up so that he can go to his room…yelling at me for always taking “their” side over his. He’s in pain from his back, but is also hyper-sensitive to touch, sound and light. He has diverticulitis, an aortic aneurism, is experiencing frequent mini-strokes to the frontal lobe, alzheimer’s (or some sort of dementia) and is just so very weak from not eating.

Which should I call for — a long and unremarkable convalescence or the quick mercy of his aortic aneurysm?

Update: It appears that the assurances that they won’t send my father home are not a sure thing at all. The social worker was less than confident that we would find a placement for him and there is the caveat that if Dad says no, they can’t do a thing for him. So, it is now entirely possible that they will send this old, demented man home alone whether or not he’s capable of taking care of himself. They may offer limited visiting nursing care, but of course, there’s no guarantee that even that will come about. Unfuckin’ believable.

So, plan B (if I ever had a plan A) is to clear out the trash and garbage from his place, locate and secure anything of value, throw out his old, too big and filthy clothes, bedding and drapes and then hire a professional service to clean and fumigate his apartment. We’ll buy him new clothes and if he ends up going home, bedding and new drapes.

We live in a horrible society.