Friday, January 15, 2010

Dad's Misbehavior

My dad is a sneaky guy. He enjoys working himself into a frazzle, and then suffers the consequences for it, but he doesn't seem to learn. Deep into the pain and suffering of those muscle pulls, nervous exhaustion, and back pains, he swears he'll never do it again, but he forgets really fast, and in a few days, will be up and at em again, proclaiming that he'd rather be dead than perpetually sitting in a chair.
In the recent move, my dad didn't HAVE to do anything. I was steadily packing things up and transporting them during the week leading up to the move. My husband, son, his friend, and the friend's truck ably transported things on the day of the move itself. We didn't require my father's assistance. But he was so wound up, so anxious to be out of the old place, and so sure that we bungling young ones were not going to manage it without him that he bent, lifted, sorted, and carried for the entire week, and then had to remember not to trip on the boxes he had stacked in the room for the rest of the week, the ones I couldn't lift without injuring myself.
Yesterday, he was pale and sweating when I came into his room, crying out with pain. Because he had an untreated bladder infection, everyone assumed the worst--it had gone to his kidneys, and he would probably have to be hospitalized. Now you may ask why his bladder infection hadn't been treated; the problem is that he has developed allergies to several key antibiotics, and the doctors were unsure what their options were at this point for curing this infection. They wanted to see him, and that's where I was taking him yesterday afternoon after work.
It was difficult for him to make his way down the long long driveway and into the car, to get out of the car and slowly slowly make his way to the nearest medical building at UCMedical Center, where we were already nearly half an hour late for the blood testing that was supposed to take place at 2.
I had not factored in the extra half an hour or so it took to get to the new place from school and from that place to the Medical Center. But it all eventually worked out, my father telling me off, even through the pain, because I refused to get on the freeway.
I can't think of a worse nightmare than to be on the freeway with my father. It brings back awful memories of being a teenager on the Expressway with my father hitting me and pulling my hair, the tears streaming so hard down my face that I could barely see. I was in a state of anxiety and terror so awful that it leaves its traces on me even today.
I have driven on freeways, but they are awful. Shifting lanes and going fast are not something I am comfortable with, and being surrounded by huge trucks and aggressive drivers does NOT suit me at all. I prefer to make my way at a fairly reasonable pace on surface streets, staying in one lane for the entire time, if possible.
It turned out that he did NOT have a kidney infection, but had injured and exhausted himself with the move. He claimed to have no clue how that happened, but at the same time, admitted he had hidden the pain for two weeks, since a fall in the garden of the old place. Sigh.

4 comments:

Lou said...

I suppose it's too late to ask him to just tell the truth, be open, come clean. LOL

Robbi N. said...

Yep. Too late!

marly said...

Ah. You are good to him, Robbi. It sounds as though it is better for him to be distracted somewhere else when such things as packing and unpacking go on. Let Jeremy or somebody take him for a walk...

Robbi N. said...

Yesterday I went to see him and he was still in pain, irritable and ill-tempered. It didn't help that my mom, whose glasses had fallen apart and were out getting repaired, knocked him on his butt. And they were out of Tylenol. All taken care of now.