Sunday, March 9, 2008

hard weekend

It's been a difficult few days. After having to take both mom and dad to doctors on Thursday and undergoing a colonoscopy myself on Friday (no yoga), I took my parents to the botanical garden on Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful warm afternoon, with the plants in their best flowering finery. I knew my dad would enjoy this, being a gardener, though mom really doesn't care too much about it and would prefer shopping. I was hoping maybe we could both save some money and enjoy the warm spring sunshine. But it didn't turn out that way at all.
We made our way around the small garden, especially enjoying the bizarrely shaped South African succulents, like the protea, shaped vaguely like pine cones. My mom is from South Africa, so I thought she might recognize some of them, and in fact she did, though she didn't seem all that impressed and merely complained that it was hot and hard to walk on the pebble path.
We walked up a small slope, and my dad seemed distressed, so I suggested we sit on a bench. As soon as we sat down, he felt a couple of sharp and very intense pains in his upper right arm. After a few minutes of hesitation, I called 911, and the ambulance eventually came, though it seemed like a long time. Actually, I wasn't handling it at all well; I was having a fit. I'm sure I wasn't much help to the 911 dispatcher. I'm grateful for cell phones though.
I ran out to the parking lot to guide the EMTs to the bench, but when we got back, my parents were gone! I found them a few minutes later walking around the back side of the garden toward the sloping path again, and made my dad sit on his walker's seat until the ambulance caught up with them.
After taking my mom home, I went to the hospital and stayed with dad for about 4 hours. When I left, he still hadn't been admitted, though he was waiting for hours for a room. He didn't have to sleep in the storage closet like last year though; when I saw him today, he had a room.
Tomorrow after work I must discuss the possibility of a pacemaker for my dad with his doctor. Apparently, his heart is literally skipping a beat. So see, this really does happen; it isn't just a metaphor! But it's not a desirable state of affairs.
The question is whether he is too elderly and infirm to survive even a rather routine surgery. But on the other hand, it might make it possible for him to withstand the angioplasty his doctor wanted to do last year, and decided he couldn't tolerate it.
From now on I will be sure to plug in my cell phone! What would have happened if it were out of power?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Robbi, what a scene you describe! Your parents are so fortunate that their daughter works hard to make their last years pleasant. And I'm sorry but I had to chuckle when you left them to meet the emergency crew, and they walked away!

You are trapped in that twilight between recognizing your parents as those who know and are all, and those who are now without the ability to reason. For me, it was one of the most difficult aspects of seeing to my own parents' needs.

I am going to ask you which botanical garden you visited.

Robbi N. said...

The UCI arboratum (sp?). It is beautiful, though very small, and specializes in South African succulents and flowering shrubs.

Robbi N. said...

Melanie,
I don't know where your comment went, but where is your family from in South Africa? Where did they come from before that? My mom's family is from Lithuania, and they settled in Capetown. The names involved are Rosenberg, Horvitch, and Lee-Warden.
I learned that a woman in my synagogue who is from Capetown went to school with my cousin Mignon! It's a small world for sure, and there aren't that many Jews from Capetown in the big scheme of things.

Anonymous said...

Robbi,
My dad's parents and two older siblings immigrated in the late 20's from Ludz, Poland. My dad and his other sister were born in Johannesburg. Their name was shortened from Miedzinski to Metz. Other family names on his side are Rosenblatt, Rubin, and Kruger. My mom is from Durban and her family name is Dymott - she converted to Judiasm before she met my dad - and her family lives mostly in Pretoria and Durban.
Mel

Robbi N. said...

Hi Mel. I don't think we have anyone by that name or in those cities in the family, not that I know of. But who knows? A friend of mine in grad school told me that she married a guy she met while she was in college in Michigan, and at the wedding, they learned they were 2nd cousins via their grandmothers. We might be related somehow.