Toast

Whether you want to think of me as toast after the difficult day I had yesterday or a pot boiling over, I was certainly stretched to my limit. Despite the schedule, I was forced to pick up my dad at the hospital yesterday after my comp class ended, at 1. Luckily, virtually no one wanted to discuss papers or placement in the class with me. That's mainly because the people I recommended for ESL (and that the ESL instructor also recommended) refused to drop the class. Unfortunately, they had passed Wr. 201 and 1 at the college, but I have no idea how.
So I went on home, where I ran into Jeremy, who told me to go pick up my dad. I had asked him to do it, but he refused, fearing the responsibility. It is quite a difficult task, and at his age, I'm not sure he was up to it psychologically. I'm not even sure I was.
You would think that since the hospital had been calling since 11 telling me to pick him up, they'd be ready to see him on his way, but it took till 3:30 for them to take out tubes, bring me papers to sign, round up doctors, etc.
Dad wasn't much better than the previous day. He kept falling asleep, and was clearly still hallucinating, particularly since he claimed that he had not been fed for two days when the charts clearly showed that he had picked up the phone and ordered his own meals and eaten them with gusto.
I am not sure whether this is a sign that he does have vascular dementia (it seems so) or that he is again on the wrong balance of medications (that has happened in the past).
So loaded up with follow up appointments and prescriptions to fill, I set on my way, with no food at all in my stomach all day, and a class to teach at 7. There was of course rush hour traffic also.
At 4:30 I stopped at Target to fill his antibiotic prescription. Luckily, they rushed it, and I was able to get home by 6. That gave me about 10 minutes to shove something small in my mouth and out the door. Once I was on campus, parking was virtually unavailable.
But the class went quite well I thought, despite my being rattled for a while. The room was full of people shopping around, and I gave APC codes to at least 4 of them, possibly more. Not everyone on the roster showed up, or at least I didn't get them when I called roll. There was quite a bit of lateness, so I'm not sure I caught everyone.
It is a very interesting group, of varied backgrounds and ages. They seem to have something to say. I look forward to the rest of the semester!