Drop Down Dead Dad — Chapter 3
29th August 2017
Arrived at my dad’s house today just after midday. The front door was unlocked as usual (always a little disappointing as that means he’s managed to get himself out of bed and has been able to unlock the door), and when I opened the door into the sitting room, he said, “Hello,” and his voice came from low down and not from the corner of the room where he usually sits — he was lying in the middle of the rug, head towards the kitchen, feet towards the sitting room window. I said, “Oh, there you are!” as if I’d been looking for him, which was strange; I have no idea why I said that.
I went into the room and stood beside him, and asked him how long he had been there. He said not long and told me the carers were on their way. I told him I couldn’t lift him, and he said he knew that. I asked if he would like a cushion under his head, and he said yes, he would, so I took one from the two-seater settee and eased it under his head.
He was lying on his side with his back to the fireplace, staring at the three-seater settee. I sat down on the three-seater so he could see me, and I glanced around the room. I asked him how long it usually took for the help to arrive, and he said it varies. He told me this was the second time his fall detector had alerted them today — the first time was 5 o’clock this morning; he had fallen in a similar place while heading to bed (he would literally have been up all night watching TV).
I wondered if he would like a drink, but I couldn’t imagine how that would work, so instead, I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said no, so I asked if he wanted a cigarette. He thought about it for a couple of seconds and said,
“Oh, Yes, please”.
I found the packet on the end of the settee next to me and took out a cigarette. I picked up the lighter and leaned forward as if to push the cigarette into his mouth, but he took it from me with his right hand and held out his left hand for the lighter. He tried to light the cigarette and then grunted and dropped the lighter and said he had burned his finger, so I held the lighter to the end of the cigarette for him, and he puffed away at it and got it lit that way.
I picked up the ashtray from the 3-tier plant stand where he keeps his coffee cup and TV remote and put it down on the floor in front of him and then wondered why I had offered him a cigarette. I suppose I thought it would bring him some comfort as he lay there in the middle of the sitting room floor in his pyjama shorts with his catheter bag full of dark liquid strapped to his right leg just above his knee, his lower legs bandaged so thickly they looked as though they were both in casts all the way from just below the knee to halfway along his foot, just his yellowy-brown toes peeping out at the end with their horribly long, dirty nails.
I was wondering how long we would have to wait in this awkward situation and how we would pass the time when he said, “I’ve had enough of this”. I said, “Yeah, I’m not surprised”, and followed it with, “But I just don’t know what anyone can do”, and then I realised how lame that sounded. This is my dad lying on his sitting room floor at midday in his pyjamas and bandages, smoking a cigarette, waiting for someone from Care Connect to come and pick him up and put him back in his chair.
This is a situation of unspeakable and harrowing misery, but there is no panic, very little conversation, not much suggestion of concern or care or even love. So, I decided that while he was in this very vulnerable situation, I would seize the opportunity to talk to him about going into care.
I must have thought that he ought to be able to think more rationally while he was in such a sorry situation — that he would realise that things can’t continue like this. So I said, “I really think you need to think about moving somewhere where you can be cared for properly”, to which he replied, “No”.
So I waited a couple of seconds to see if he would say anything else, and he did… he said something about “Mum” that I couldn’t quite understand. I said, “OK… try and explain that to me,” and he said, “I lived here with Mum.” his voice had changed to the higher-pitched and warbly one he uses when he’s feeling really emotional, and he said, “I lived here with her, and I don’t want to be anywhere else”.
I really didn’t know how to respond, and the best I could come up with quickly was, “Well, what about if you move somewhere else and take all the things that remind you of her?” and he said, “No.”
A few seconds passed, and then he said, “Where would I go?” and I wondered if he was softening to the idea. I said, “I don’t know, somewhere where you can be cared for properly” and he said, “AND PAY!” and then he followed that with another “No.”
I said, “You would have your own room, you know and your own TV” because I was frantically trying to think about what sort of objections were currently going through his mind. I should really have been better prepared for this, as I have no idea what his real objections or fears are. He clearly feels that staying in the house he lived in with my mum for 35 years is bringing him some comfort in her absence. Perhaps he feels close to her there. I imagine he does.
But I can’t say things like this to him, and I don’t feel I can ask him anything as the times I’ve tried since my mum died have ended with one-word answers — he very clearly can’t be bothered to talk; he’s too tired or spaced out from his meds.
I must try and remember to do some research as I expect there are some common objections and some tried-and-tested ways to tackle them and overcome them. Anyway, I wasn’t at all ready and telling him he would have his own room, and his own TV was pretty pathetic, and he knocked it down immediately with “No Flemming”. I know when he uses my name, it means, “I am getting angry, and you need to drop this right now”.
A ‘responder’ from Care Connect arrived with an inflatable cushion. I had to help by pulling the uninflated cushion underneath my dad because he couldn’t move himself onto it. He stank like I imagined a rotting corpse would smell (is he decaying under those bandages?)
I held his hand to steady him as the cushion was inflated, and I looked at his nicotine-stained fingers and stifled a grimace; they are so bad — the skin and nails are dark brown. I looked at his cardigan, covered in cigarette burns. And his t-shirt with food and cigarette burns all over.
The smell coming from him as the cushion inflated was horrible. I looked at the woman from Care Connect, expecting her to be pulling a face, but she wasn’t.
We helped him back to his chair, one of us on either side of him. He was so slow it was almost unbearable; I felt like saying, “Oh for fuck’s sake, come on, this is ridiculous!”. He wasn’t walking; he wasn’t even shuffling… he was making micro-movements with his feet. It took a full four or five minutes to get him back to his chair — a distance of less than 2 metres.
He sat on a peculiar angle on his chair, and I asked him if he was comfortable. He said he was. Liar! The woman from Care Connect left with a cheery, “Take care, love!” which seemed a little ironic as she’s the one who takes care.
I made my dad a cup of coffee, and while I was in the kitchen, I wondered what I ought to say or do next. I really wanted to confront him full-on about this terrible, disgraceful, pitiful situation. But I couldn’t. Instead, I offered to write his shopping list. And so I sat on the settee with a pen and paper and suggested things he might like from the supermarket as if everything was fine and today’s events were all part of a normal day. Funnily enough, that wasn’t too far from true.
He was smoking yet another cigarette, and I couldn’t wait to get out of his house. The smells, the smoke and the feelings of depression, doom and despair were too much. I can’t even attempt to have a normal conversation in these circumstances with this man, my dad, that stinking tramp in the corner.
He had asked me what the financial advisor had said, and I repeated what I had told him on the phone — the advisor had spoken with colleagues, and they agreed there shouldn’t be a problem regarding the fact that he is currently receiving care; he had previously asked me to find out what measures could be taken to ensure that his house wouldn’t be forcibly sold to raise funds towards the cost of his future care. He was convinced that he could sell me his house for one pound, and that would mean my inheritance would be secured. Ever since I can remember, he had talked about my inheritance — it was apparently very important to him that I inherit this pigsty.
I did the shopping — not as much as usual:
- 100 Sterling blue superking cigarettes
- TV guide
- 8 pints of semi-skimmed milk (he enjoys drinking milk)
- 4 small tins of tomato soup
- 2 tubes of Primula cheese spread
- 1 small basic cheese and tomato pizza (I think these are kids' ones)
- 1 packet of McVities ginger snaps
- 1 loaf of 50/50 bread
- 8 cans of Jamaican ginger beer
- Kitchen rolls
- Washing tabs (Aerial) — because the box of powder under the sink is “no good” (I didn’t even bother asking him what he meant by “no good”)
Got back and unpacked the shopping. Asked if there was anything else that needed doing. Offered to change his bedding, but he said no (thankfully) and then said that he had things in piles in the bedroom as if I ought to understand what that meant and why it was a reason for not changing his bedding.
I wondered what else I should say or do. I made him another cup of coffee.
I see him every weekend and never know what to say. We go through the same limited topics every time. To spice things up a little, I decided to try and tackle the care issue again. I told him that if he was absolutely not going to go into care at any point, then there was no point in continuing to make plans with the financial advisor.
He didn’t seem to understand why, and he said something that made me think he really didn’t have a proper grip on the financial planning stuff we have been talking about the past couple of weeks… he said, “I thought if it was all in one account she (the financial advisor) could move it from there”.
I felt frustration and despair rising up inside me and I wanted to say, “WHAT THE FUCK???” but instead, I said, “Yes, they can, but there’s no guarantee that what they’re proposing will actually work — it might not protect your money so if going into care is something that you are absolutely not going to consider, say within the next six months or year, then there’s no point continuing with the plans with the financial advisor” and he said “Well I don’t know how I might feel in 6 months time” and yet again I felt despair and utter frustration.
He was slouching at such a strange angle his face looked like it was slowly slipping off his head. He was holding a cigarette with ash at least an inch long on it, and I think he was on the brink of falling asleep. He said he would think about it (whether or not he still wanted to go ahead with the financial investments), so I said, “Yes, you have a good think about it!” and then I stood up and told him I was going home. He stubbed his cigarette out. I said, “I think it’s nap time for you”.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday early afternoon, I got a call from a warden at Care Connect just to let me know that they’d picked him up again, and that made four falls in two days. He was upstairs and had fallen between the bedroom and the bathroom. The warden wanted me to suggest a solution or an intervention or something, and I said, “I have no idea what to do”. She said, “You could ring social services”. I wanted to shout, “HAVE YOU ANY FUCKING IDEA HOW HARD THIS IS FOR ME??” but instead I told her I would give it some thought.
On Wednesday evening, I got a call to say Care Connect were back again — he had fallen upstairs again, this time while his carer was there (she was downstairs making him a drink ), and he was in a difficult position from which the carer was unable to lift him. He wanted to talk to me on the phone, but it was really difficult to understand what he was saying — his speech was badly slurred, and I wondered if perhaps he’d had a stroke.
I managed to make out that he didn’t want to go to the hospital, and I told him, “I understand, but please, will you let the warden call an ambulance and allow the paramedics to help him get back into bed?” and he said he would.
I got a call a little while later from the warden to say they’d managed to get him back to bed and were fixing him a sandwich. I asked Suzanne, “How many times does this have to happen before someone in the care system decides enough is enough?”
I didn’t sleep well on Wednesday night; I was expecting news that he was in hospital or that he had died. On Thursday morning, I rang the house, and there was no answer — which could mean one of several things: he didn’t have the phone with him, he was on the toilet, he was in hospital, or he was dead. I crossed my fingers and dared to hope…
Then I rang his carers (a private local company) and asked if they could temporarily change his care package and include a morning visit starting immediately. They said they’d get someone to him within 30 minutes. I rang his GP practice and asked for his doctor to call me and was told she would call after 3 p.m. I rang social services and asked to speak to his social worker. Back to this again: getting bounced around between agencies by people who are following protocol. One person I spoke to suggested it might help him if he got out more, you know, “to group activities”.
Social services are going to do a new assessment of him / his situation… sometime… as soon as they can. Most likely within 28 days. And the social worker suggested that his care package be increased further — to 3 or 4 visits a day. I agreed this seemed like a good idea but warned her that my dad had accused me of trying to spend his money for him in the past when I’d been trying to organize more care for him (soon after my mum died).
I feel like we were on a merry-go-round of healthcare and social ‘care’ services yet again. Nobody — me included — wants to accept responsibility for this old man’s care, wellbeing and safety. He’s well-practised at convincing people that he can manage on his own and doesn’t need anyone to help, but the evidence clearly contradicts this, and the professionals in our care system are way too easily convinced of his ability to care for himself. He’s a mess and a danger to himself. If he doesn’t break his neck and set himself on fire soon, I’ll be amazed.
I worry about him, not because I feel love for him but because he’s my dad, and as far as I know, he has always done his best for me. I feel I owe him a lot, and I can’t abandon him, but he is so bloody difficult to be with, and I wish wish wish he hadn’t outlived my mum.
If only he had died first, everything would be so much better. For everyone.
I honestly don’t know how I’m going to be able to cope with this situation, and I wish I could abdicate. I don’t want to have to deal with it any more. I wish he would hurry up and die! If he were a dog, I’d have him euthanised without hesitation. He’s only 70, and he could have many, many years of suffering left — we could have a long road ahead of us on this journey, and that really scares me.
His suffering is my suffering, to a large degree.
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