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thehefnerThere's one thing I fear I hadn't made totally clear over this whole ordeal with my father. Or maybe I had, but reading over several of the comments to me from the last few days, I feel that-- for all our sakes-- I should isolate this particular issue.
Y'see, I just visited him in the hospital for the second time, whereupon I realized what's going to be the hardest thing of all; the factor that's going to make this whole ordeal be just that, an ordeal. And it's not the cancer itself. See, in the past few days, with all the crying and the fear and the "I love you, Dad, god, I love you,"s out there, there was one factor I had overlooked. It's a factor I brought up when I wrote that whole entry about him recently.
When I saw him in the hospital for the first time two days ago, he had a breathing tube taped to his face and he couldn't talk. He couldn't even smile. He rarely turned his head or made any effort to look at look at either of us, and I wondered if he was unable to do any of those things either. When he ran out of paper on his notepad, Nita and I were almost fighting over who would get him a clean blank sheet, or one of us did while the other held the basin under his mouth so he could spit up an acrid red gloop.
She and I both did our best to remain positive. One of the first things she said when we got there was, "Well, they seem to be very attentive." Still looking up at nothing in particular, Dad then fumbled around the bed for his pencil, which I found and handed to him, and he wrote:
"LIKE HELL. THEY WOKE ME UP AT EIGHT O'CLOCK THIS MORNING AND HAVEN'T GIVEN ME A MOMENT TO REST."
Mom said, "He doesn't seem to understand that he's in the ICU. That's the place where they are supposed to be checking in on your every ten minutes to make sure you're not dead." I remembered how resentful he was of the hospital morning check-ups last time he was there, when he broke his hip ten months ago. He did everything he could, including eventually incurring very nasty bills (which he also complained about for months later), to get a private room.
I visited him again two days later, Saturday afternoon. By that time, he'd undergone two emergency radiation treatments (they insisted on calling it "urgent" rather than "emergency") and had the tracheotomy. He was still unable to talk, rarely looked directly at me, and even when I made him laugh (which caused gurgling), his mouth kept tight, never raising into a smile but instead just some thin-lipped, closed-mouth grimace.
"IT'S LIKE SOME MEDIEVAL TORTURE DEVICE," he wrote.
"But at least it's better than the alternative," I offered. To which he said nothing.
Problem is, I'm not sure I'd have anything to say to that either.
I told Mom about it; she was there in the hospital the first day, and still wonders if he wasn't furious that I brought her along. I told her how painful it was to see that Dad couldn't even smile, and she said, "That's bullshit. He could if he wanted to. The cancer hasn't paralyzed his mouth, you saw that yourself. He can open his mouth, he can spit, he can stick his tongue out, and he absolutely could smile. But he's too busy sulking and being hateful. Did you notice how you and Nita and the nurses, all of you were doing everything for him, and he didn't react at all? He may not be able to say 'Thank you,' but he could write, or nod, or gesture, or do something, anything, to show his appreciation. But no. Because his whole focus is on his misery and hatred and self-pity, just like he's always been."
And y'know, it didn't occur to me. I just though, hell, the guy has cancer, maybe he's allowed to be a bit impolite. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Mom had a point. More than that, I realized what we were going to have ahead of us in the coming months.
Remember how I said Mom taught me to laugh at life's misfortunes? I mean, I'm a walking open wound anyway, but at least the wound's always fresh. If it weren't for Mom, my open-wound nature would be festering, constantly and forever. It's because of her that I'm as healthy, sane, and mentally strong as I am.
Dad never had someone like Mom growing up. You can easily see how the years of living under a manipulative alcoholic affected him. He has a great sense of humor, no question about that, but the man has absolutely zero appreciation for irony. In the face of misfortune (his or even my own), all he knows is stewing and entitlement and resentment.
Furthermore, we're talking about a man who's driven everyone away from his life, save for an ex-girlfriend who gives him way more than he ever deserves... and me. Mostly it's because he's a deeply paranoid, distrustful man who would rather live in abject squalor than let strangers (Hispanic strangers, no less! Egads!) into his house to clean up. A man who chased away his few surviving friends for no other possible reason than he doesn't want them to see what he's become.
At the same time, this is also a man who stopped showering more than once a week, not even when we got a shower chair installed. A man who could easily, EASILY have a better, more-comfortable-yet-more-fulfilling life if he'd move to a one-story house, use a wheelchair, stop drinking, or even use a fucking walker (he's too vain; he uses crutches instead), just as a start. A man who stopped seeing doctors and taking medication for the gout and bleeding infected sores on his feet, claiming they "didn't work." Maybe so, or maybe he just didn't like hearing how alcohol makes gout much, much worse.
He had taken to wearing a plastic Safeway bag on his foot--not even tying it on, just dragging it loosely--to keep the blood off his carpets. Think about that for a moment.
My point is that I am forced to wonder... what are we doing all this for?
He could have a life, if he wanted to. Even with the cancer, he could still have a wonderful quality of life. But he won't, because he never wanted it in the first place. He wants to resign himself to his misery and self-pity, to passive-aggressively wait for death, but then to scramble and hide when it comes a-knockin'.
So why? Why are we going to have to go through possibly years and years of his bitterness and anger, struggling on a long road of recovery, for what? What kind of life are we trying to save, here? It could be a life, a real life, but he never wanted that! So why? What's going to be the point of all this pain and suffering and struggle and money and time and effort?
And that's when one possible answer comes to me. To spend more time with him. To savor a few more of what we've had these past two years, which have been the best our relationship has ever been.
Maybe. Maybe that's what's it's all for. But remember, we had those good times because I only saw him for a couple hours, once a week. When he had finally decided to make the most of the time I gave by being pleasant, rather than playing his games. But now, all I see is that ugliness, and which is far worse than his glazed eyes, emaciated frame (both of which he had long before the cancer), swollen throat, shaggy unshaven face, and the sucking, gooey tracheotomy.
Y'know, if I were in that situation? Or Mom or Edd or Gordon? We'd all be laughing. We'd be crying too, crying together and leaning on each other for love and support, but we would absolutely be laughing. We laughed our way through Grandpa's Alzheimer's (which he did too), and we'd laugh our way through whatever happened to us. No matter what. I bet the same could be said for many--perhaps most--of you reading this.
We could handle cancer. It's handling Donald Hefner that's going to be the hard part. He's the only man I know who could make "rage, rage against the dying of the light," seem ugly and ignoble.
So I don't quite know what I want, exactly. It's just... I don't want him to get better... any more than I want him to get worse. I think the one thing I know I want is that... I want this to be over. One way or another.
Mom and I will be making cookies and stuff for the nurses and doctors in the ICU. She says they're gonna need all the love and thanks they can get, since he's going to be a hell of a patient.
"Like Hell."
Y'see, I just visited him in the hospital for the second time, whereupon I realized what's going to be the hardest thing of all; the factor that's going to make this whole ordeal be just that, an ordeal. And it's not the cancer itself. See, in the past few days, with all the crying and the fear and the "I love you, Dad, god, I love you,"s out there, there was one factor I had overlooked. It's a factor I brought up when I wrote that whole entry about him recently.
When I saw him in the hospital for the first time two days ago, he had a breathing tube taped to his face and he couldn't talk. He couldn't even smile. He rarely turned his head or made any effort to look at look at either of us, and I wondered if he was unable to do any of those things either. When he ran out of paper on his notepad, Nita and I were almost fighting over who would get him a clean blank sheet, or one of us did while the other held the basin under his mouth so he could spit up an acrid red gloop.
She and I both did our best to remain positive. One of the first things she said when we got there was, "Well, they seem to be very attentive." Still looking up at nothing in particular, Dad then fumbled around the bed for his pencil, which I found and handed to him, and he wrote:
"LIKE HELL. THEY WOKE ME UP AT EIGHT O'CLOCK THIS MORNING AND HAVEN'T GIVEN ME A MOMENT TO REST."
Mom said, "He doesn't seem to understand that he's in the ICU. That's the place where they are supposed to be checking in on your every ten minutes to make sure you're not dead." I remembered how resentful he was of the hospital morning check-ups last time he was there, when he broke his hip ten months ago. He did everything he could, including eventually incurring very nasty bills (which he also complained about for months later), to get a private room.
I visited him again two days later, Saturday afternoon. By that time, he'd undergone two emergency radiation treatments (they insisted on calling it "urgent" rather than "emergency") and had the tracheotomy. He was still unable to talk, rarely looked directly at me, and even when I made him laugh (which caused gurgling), his mouth kept tight, never raising into a smile but instead just some thin-lipped, closed-mouth grimace.
"IT'S LIKE SOME MEDIEVAL TORTURE DEVICE," he wrote.
"But at least it's better than the alternative," I offered. To which he said nothing.
Problem is, I'm not sure I'd have anything to say to that either.
I told Mom about it; she was there in the hospital the first day, and still wonders if he wasn't furious that I brought her along. I told her how painful it was to see that Dad couldn't even smile, and she said, "That's bullshit. He could if he wanted to. The cancer hasn't paralyzed his mouth, you saw that yourself. He can open his mouth, he can spit, he can stick his tongue out, and he absolutely could smile. But he's too busy sulking and being hateful. Did you notice how you and Nita and the nurses, all of you were doing everything for him, and he didn't react at all? He may not be able to say 'Thank you,' but he could write, or nod, or gesture, or do something, anything, to show his appreciation. But no. Because his whole focus is on his misery and hatred and self-pity, just like he's always been."
And y'know, it didn't occur to me. I just though, hell, the guy has cancer, maybe he's allowed to be a bit impolite. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Mom had a point. More than that, I realized what we were going to have ahead of us in the coming months.
Remember how I said Mom taught me to laugh at life's misfortunes? I mean, I'm a walking open wound anyway, but at least the wound's always fresh. If it weren't for Mom, my open-wound nature would be festering, constantly and forever. It's because of her that I'm as healthy, sane, and mentally strong as I am.
Dad never had someone like Mom growing up. You can easily see how the years of living under a manipulative alcoholic affected him. He has a great sense of humor, no question about that, but the man has absolutely zero appreciation for irony. In the face of misfortune (his or even my own), all he knows is stewing and entitlement and resentment.
Furthermore, we're talking about a man who's driven everyone away from his life, save for an ex-girlfriend who gives him way more than he ever deserves... and me. Mostly it's because he's a deeply paranoid, distrustful man who would rather live in abject squalor than let strangers (Hispanic strangers, no less! Egads!) into his house to clean up. A man who chased away his few surviving friends for no other possible reason than he doesn't want them to see what he's become.
At the same time, this is also a man who stopped showering more than once a week, not even when we got a shower chair installed. A man who could easily, EASILY have a better, more-comfortable-yet-more-fulfilling life if he'd move to a one-story house, use a wheelchair, stop drinking, or even use a fucking walker (he's too vain; he uses crutches instead), just as a start. A man who stopped seeing doctors and taking medication for the gout and bleeding infected sores on his feet, claiming they "didn't work." Maybe so, or maybe he just didn't like hearing how alcohol makes gout much, much worse.
He had taken to wearing a plastic Safeway bag on his foot--not even tying it on, just dragging it loosely--to keep the blood off his carpets. Think about that for a moment.
My point is that I am forced to wonder... what are we doing all this for?
He could have a life, if he wanted to. Even with the cancer, he could still have a wonderful quality of life. But he won't, because he never wanted it in the first place. He wants to resign himself to his misery and self-pity, to passive-aggressively wait for death, but then to scramble and hide when it comes a-knockin'.
So why? Why are we going to have to go through possibly years and years of his bitterness and anger, struggling on a long road of recovery, for what? What kind of life are we trying to save, here? It could be a life, a real life, but he never wanted that! So why? What's going to be the point of all this pain and suffering and struggle and money and time and effort?
And that's when one possible answer comes to me. To spend more time with him. To savor a few more of what we've had these past two years, which have been the best our relationship has ever been.
Maybe. Maybe that's what's it's all for. But remember, we had those good times because I only saw him for a couple hours, once a week. When he had finally decided to make the most of the time I gave by being pleasant, rather than playing his games. But now, all I see is that ugliness, and which is far worse than his glazed eyes, emaciated frame (both of which he had long before the cancer), swollen throat, shaggy unshaven face, and the sucking, gooey tracheotomy.
Y'know, if I were in that situation? Or Mom or Edd or Gordon? We'd all be laughing. We'd be crying too, crying together and leaning on each other for love and support, but we would absolutely be laughing. We laughed our way through Grandpa's Alzheimer's (which he did too), and we'd laugh our way through whatever happened to us. No matter what. I bet the same could be said for many--perhaps most--of you reading this.
We could handle cancer. It's handling Donald Hefner that's going to be the hard part. He's the only man I know who could make "rage, rage against the dying of the light," seem ugly and ignoble.
So I don't quite know what I want, exactly. It's just... I don't want him to get better... any more than I want him to get worse. I think the one thing I know I want is that... I want this to be over. One way or another.
Mom and I will be making cookies and stuff for the nurses and doctors in the ICU. She says they're gonna need all the love and thanks they can get, since he's going to be a hell of a patient.
"Like Hell."
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 07:02 pm (UTC)Well one reason you're doing all you're doing is so you can look back on this and not see anything you have to feel bad about. He's behaving in a way designed to take you down to his level because every moment you spend not at his level is a threat to him.
Keep smiling. Keep threatening him with the knowledge his attitude is a choice, not a condition. He probably won't ever accept it, but you'll be able to look back on this time and not feel guilty about anything you've said or done (or not said, or not done). It may not sound like much, but not many people - even in much easier circumstances - can say the same. (Not that it was anywhere near this kind of circumstance, but my ex-fiance can't say the same about our relationship. I can. It's not a good feeling, but it isn't a bad one either.)
Hang tough.
(But try to avoid getting the New Kids song stuck in your head.)
(Unles, you know, you're into that sort of thing.)
(Not that there's anything wrong with that... ;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:11 pm (UTC)Mm, yes, I rather like that. That's good, and yeah, that's what I do (or want to do, having never yet faced such an experience as this before).
Ex-fiance? Sounds like there's a whooole story there too!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 07:24 pm (UTC)A man travels out to the country to pick up his good friend and take him out drinking. But when he gets to his friend's farm, his friend says he can't go out because the bull they hired for the day to impregnate his cow hasn't 'performed' yet and he just can't leave until it's done.
Rather than just leave, the man says he wouldn't mind staying around to see how you can make a bull do that, and then they can go out drinking after. The farmer shoots him a dubious look, but says okay. So he leads the man back to the pasture and, sure enough, there's a bull and a cow and they don't look like they're planning any romantic encounters any time soon. "You can't really make them do anything, right?" the guy asks.
His friend just looks at him and says 'Watch this.' With that, he takes off his watch, rolls up his sleeve, and sticks his hand way the hell up in the cow. He then walks over the the bull and wipes his hand all over the bulls face.
This gets the bull's attention, but he's still a little wary. So the farmer walks up to the cow, sticks his hand way up in the cow, takes it out, and again wipes all over the bull's face.
Now the bull's really intersted, but he's still not doing anything about it yet. So the farmer walks up to the cow one more time, reaches way up deep inside of her, walks back to the bull and wipes his hand and arm all over the bull's face.
Well, that tears it. The bull charges across the field and attacks the cow from behind. Meanwhile the city slicker friend is in shock over all he's just seen. So of course the two friends go out after and get completely rip-roaring drunk.
Later that night, more drunk than he'd ever been in his life, the guy stumbles back home and practically collapses into bed with his wife. But between the bed spins and all the things he's seen that day, he's not ready to go to sleep just yet. In his drunken state, he thinks this would be a great time to wake up the wife.
But first he has to get ready. And 'cause of all the drinking, he's in the same state that bull was when he first saw him. So he thinks 'I know how to handle this!' and, sure enough, he reaches under the covers, sticks his hand where only a husband can, and wipes his hand on his face. The scent starts having an effect on him, but he's not quite there yet. So he reaches up again, sticks in his hand, pulls it out, and wipes it all over his face.
He's almost there, almost ready, but of course by now his wife's waking up. She smells the booze and what with what he's doing it's pretty obvious he's completely out of his skull, so she starts yelling at him. "You're drunk, aren't you?! Don't you lie to me, I know you've been drinking!"
They're both awake now so she turns on the light so she can really yell at him. Then she sighs, exasperated. "And you've been fighting!"
/curtain
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:45 pm (UTC)/a bloody brawl
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 09:22 pm (UTC)i know thats a weird compliment.. but really. way to make it relevant again.
you have some great clarity about this.. and while that doesnt make things necessarily easier, it beats the hell out of hindsight.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:15 pm (UTC)I look forward to reading your post on the matter! And thankee!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 08:08 am (UTC)Certainly as I have gotten older I have realised the sense in keeping a clear head and seeing things for what they are.
Someone once told me a great quote
"It's not the years of your life that matter, it's the life in your years"
Spot on.
You are handling this amazingly well
Stay strong bud and keep smiling
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:17 pm (UTC)Aye, that quote is indeed spot on. And thankee, pally, as always.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 12:19 pm (UTC)Yeah, things are great when everything's fine and fun and on an even keel. But nobody really knows you. When I meet you in misfortune, I'm meeting you, and seeing the real man.
Some people shine in misfortune, and those are the ones I really want to know. Those are the ones who are going to be there for you when the chips are down, and the ones you're going to be proud to call your friends. When people like that need you, you're not just answering that call out of duty or a sense of honor. You're doing it because you're genuinely pleased to have had the privilege of being there for such people.
I hope your father finds something of himself in all this, but maybe this time was never about him at all. Maybe this time was about you.
You've had a chance, now, to see your mother and Gordon in adversity, and seen them laugh in the teeth of it. In truth, there's nothing more amazing, nothing like that wild strength. You have it, yourself. And once you've found that in yourself, no amount of adversity will ever truly bring you down. I hope, more than anything in the world, that your father finds his own spark. It isn't too late for that.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:08 pm (UTC)