I arrive early Thursday morning and sleep only a few hours. I don’t want to go to the hospital and see my father in this state. I don’t want to see him withering away and failing. I want to remember the wonderful man and the happy memories. I know I have to face reality and the first step is going to see him and comfort him. He cared for me for years and now it’s time for me to care for him.

When I walked into his hospital room he was sitting up in a chair. He was white as a ghost and very frail looking. He looked horrible and could barely talk. His blood pressure was on the high side the day before but today it dropped to 80 over 50. He didn’t look like he was going to make it.

The nurse came in at 9 AM with some papers and said he was being discharged at 11 AM. Mary and I looked at each other in disbelief because we knew nothing about being discharged and he looked like crap. We asked if they would still discharge him if his blood pressure was still low and where were they sending him. They said the doctor would make the call and the social worker would be in to tell us where he was being moved to.

We were in complete shock. Here is Dad barely functioning and they’re discharging him to who knows where?  Our first reaction was to move him home where he wanted to be so we told the social worker to make arrangements to transport him there. We would have to arrange 24 care, get a hospital bed and prepare the house. We needed a few days to get this arranged and we only had 2 hours.

After calming down and thinking through our options, bringing him home wasn’t going to work. He would try to get out of bed and clean, cook and run the house again. He couldn’t walk any more so this option wouldn’t work. We opted for option B which was moving him to the rehab center that the social worker recommended. We really didn’t have a choice at this point.

Well at least we didn’t think we had a choice. According to law, the hospital is required to give us 3 options before discharging him If we didn’t like the options we could keep hi in the hospital until they gave us an option we accepted. Another Medicare scam! The hospital would no longer receive Medicare money since they stabilized my father, if you can call blood pressure of 80 over 50 stable. They railroaded us out of their facility without giving us 3 options and explaining the law. They would have to eat the cost of his care if he stayed in the hospital so they called around until they found an empty bed for him. The Broomall Rehab Center was the only available bed in the area so they dumped him there.

When we arrived at the Rehab Center is was after 5 PM so the admissions staff was gone for the day. We walked into a chaotic facility with people sitting in the hallways and equipment everywhere.

As we were leaving for the night we told the nurses to watch Dad because he was trying to stand up and walk out. The only problem was that when he stood up his legs weren’t strong enough to hold him up so he would fall. The nurse in charge of Dad was on the phone slamming it down and yelling at someone in frustration. She’s an angry person that hated her job. One nurse listened to us when we warned them about Dad trying to leave but his nurse just looked at us with dagger eyes and didn’t say anything. She really hated her job. She wouldn’t even take my cell phone number. She only wanted our local number.

Of course Dad tried to stand up and fell down. They called us at home and left a message while we were on our way home. We decided someone should spend the night with him so Mary, Charlie and I went back to the facility to check on him. Charlie volunteered to watch Dad overnight but Dad kept calling out to me so I had to stay.

It was the worst night of my life. Dad didn’t sleep at all. His mind was racing out of control with unfinished tasks. He was hallucinating and thought he was standing on the edge of a pit that was pulling him in. Down in the pit were various possessions of his that fell in including a gold watch that his mother gave him.

Dad was hanging onto the sheets like he was holding onto a railing. He kept moving his feet to the footboard of the bed to regain his balance. Throughout the night he kept yelling to me to help him get things out of the pit. First he wanted a bowl of macaroni. I told him we were in the hospital and the kitchen was closed. He insisted that he could see it in the pit and he grabbed it with his feet and dragged it up to his hands. Then he wanted a spoon. Then butter pecan ice cream. I called the nurse for help and she brought a cup of ice cream but he said he wanted butter pecan. He didn’t even taste it but he refused it.

Throughout the night various people came to visit and different emergencies arose. Dad said he had to change all of the light bulbs in the facility from 40 watt to 60 watts because it was dark in his room. He made vegetable soup. He worried about the heat wave and told the nurse to make chicken salad, sliced tomatoes and hard boiled eggs for everyone so she wouldn’t have to use the oven and heat up the building. He was so busy making sure everything was taken care of. Typical Dad helping everyone out and doing everything for them. It was sad to see him work so hard all night long.

Finally at 4 AM his cousin Junior came to visit. Junior passed away a few years ago. Dad wanted Junior to go down the street to a restaurant with him for dinner. He kept calling for Junior and said “let’s go”. Eventually I turned into Junior in Dad’s eyes and he started yelling at me to take him home. He kept yelling “Come on Junior, you have to take me home because people are waiting for us.” For two hours I was Junior and Dad kept working his ass off to make others comfortable. At around 6 AM Mary came back to relieve me because Dad was so upset with me and agitated. Once Mary came, Dad calmed down. The worst night of my life for sure.

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My flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia was delayed by bad weather so I didn’t arrive until well after midnight. Today I’m going to see Dad at the hospital. He’s being moved from the hospital to a rehab facility today so he can strengthen his legs enough to walk again. The doctor told my sister yesterday that he probably won’t ever walk on his own again since his cancer is stage 4 and spreading rapidly. Today we have to decide whether to move him into assisted living or to bring him home with 24 hour care. He desperately wants to come home so we’ll do what it takes to comfort him.

My wife Ellen called last night and said her mother was admitted to the hospital yesterday with kidney failure. She’s in critical condition and there are no children near to help out with her father who needs constant attention. Both Ellen’s parents and my parents live far from their children and it’s time to get them closer.

I’m off to the hospital now to see Dad and hopefully get him home as soon as possible.

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Today I’m flying back to Philadelphia to see my father who was diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer. The cancer has spread rapidly and it’s too late to do anything…we think. The problem is that we’re not getting any information from the doctor. Very vague, quick passing comments but no frank discussion about my father’s condition. It’s frustrating to see my father suffering and we don’t have the facts to know if we can help him.

Today is going to be the worst day of my life when I see my father at the hospital. My father wants to go home so badly that they’ve had to strap him into a chair. He’s frustrated and weak. We know he’s very sick but the doctor isn’t giving us enough information. Should we line up hospice now? Does he have a week, a month or a year left? We need to know what’s going on.

I know millions of people are going through these same frustrations every day because of our broken health care system. Very vague communication and no details. I’m going to use this blog to document the rest of my father’s life and share our process so maybe we can get our politicians to fix our broken health care system.

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