Groundhog Day

         This past week seemed like a year. Have you ever made puppy chow before? No, not the dog food. The most amazing dessert known to man kind. You might know it by a different name, or made it with Chex mix instead of Crispix, or maybe you didn’t sneak in the extra couple spoonfuls of peanut butter and the remains of the bag of chocolate chips that was hiding in the back of the cabinet. But, mmm... those little choclolatey peanut buttery powedered sugary morsels that just melt in your mouth...De-Lish. No matter how it’s made, it’s so good. But making it, well, that’s kind of another story. Before ziplock bags, we used whatever we could find to shake up the melted pieces with the confectioners sugar. We always, undoubtedly, made a freakin’ mess. Well, when I was sitting in bed the other night and processing the events of the day and the thoughts going through my head about my dad and the hell that he is going through, the feelings I’m having while caring for him and mom and watching them have to suffer through each hour of bull crap that is this new life, along with the frustrations while searching for a job and finding the right job, the image that popped into my head was puppy chow. I pictured miniature Katy slipping off the edge of the puppy chow bowl into a big bag of powdered sugar. Suddenly, someone was vigorously shaking me up and hundreds of pieces of puppy chow were slamming me in the head and the back and the stomach, chocolate and peanut butter and powdered sugar making a mess everywhere I looked. And that’s how puppy chow became a metaphor for my life. :) Call me crazy, and I very likely am, but this is what was going through my head. And what’s even crazier is, after I had this silly p-chow vision, I got a little hungry and sort of excited to make this tasty treat again.

         Dad has been home now for one week, and I’m telling you, this week seemed to go on forever and ever. Every day is something new. The first couple days seemed to go fairly smoothly besides the stress and emotions that hit us after the first dialysis session. Otherwise, dad’s pain was well controlled, his appetite was great, and he seemed to be in fairly good spirits. Granted, he was exhausted and hurting and at times pretty miserable, but overall we were faring well. The following day and the next four days after that, everything seemed to do a complete turn. His pain at times was unbearable, his appetite was gone and anything that he tried to eat he couldn’t swallow. He was completely worn out. Transitioning into a life of dialysis was and is almost unimaginable, moving was hard, eating was hard, talking was probably just annoying considering every two seconds one of us three girls was asking him if he was OK, what he was thinking, and how that was making him feel. Our days revolved around food...Food, protein, sodium, potassium, eat this, don’t eat that, try this Mrs. Dash seasoning, well maybe just a tiny bit of cheese. Then the meds. How much pain are you having dad? Did you take this yet? When did you take your percocet last? Do you know what this pill is for? You might want to space those ones out a little. I want to tell myself to shut the heck up half of the time. Poor dad. Although these things are all still so difficult and overwhelming, he continues to do amazing. We are still a little overly focused on these things, but we’re working on it, and I know that he realizes it is all said and done in love. With each day comes a new challenge, and with each new challenge, I hear very few complaints and see so much strength.

Yesterday we noticed a little bit of improvement in his appetite, but he was exhausted after coming home from a 4 1/2 hour sit through dialysis. He took several naps through the day, really only being woken for meals. When I woke him up for dinner, he stirred a bit, looked at me, looked around the dark room and asked “what time is it?” “It’s 7:00, it’s time for dinner dad.” He glanced at the clock, then back at me and said, “7 pm?! Isn’t it morning yet??” To which I tried hard not to crack up at, but answered with a laugh, “No, it’s only 7 at night”. I couldn’t tell if he was quite awake yet. Before lunch when I woke him, he was talking to me while he was dreaming, so I wasn’t sure if he was even comprehending our conversation right now. But when he answered me by stating, “Holy shit. It’s like Groundhog day! This day keeps going on and on and every time I wake up it’s still the same day!”, I knew he was really awake. If you haven’t seen the movie Groundhog Day, consider yourself lucky. Sitting in the theater watching that movie for an hour and a half made me want to stab my eyeballs out. There was no way he was dreaming up a comment like that.

Little by little we are seeing dad doing better. He’s starting to move around a little easier on his own, his cough is improving, each meal is a chore, but each one is getting a little easier. I know we still have a long way to go. Each day will be different, and we are bound to have many more challenging days, but I am so glad that Mike and I are able to be home right now to have the opportunity to be here for mom and dad and to be able to experience both the good and the bad days with them. We have all been working on trying to give the days a little more variety, whether that is a visit from a friend, a walk out to the rock at the end of the driveway, going to the bank, a trip to Rita’s or a sandwich from Isaac’s. We can’t have every day feel like Groundhog Day!  Oh man, I just love my dad.