Why does my dad's cancer seem to be so much about me? Cause I'm a whiner? Kinda. But mainly because it is going to fall on my brother and I to be the caregivers for my dad, since our parents are divorced. My parents are divorced pretty much as a result of what happened on March 16th, 1997.
This part of the story is going to seem like its all about me too, but since this is my perspective of how it happened I guess I really can't help it! I was studying for midterms at my apartment in Binghamton on the afternoon of Sunday March 16th, 1997 when my mom called. She said "Hilary its Mom" I thought that was weird cause she never actually has to say "It's Mom", I mean, I know her voice. After that what she says is a blur but basically it was that my dad was in a car accident and was at University Hospital in Syracuse and I should come right away. I felt like it was a scene from some bad movie, and I remember yelling "is he dead, is he dead? Cause I need to know!" She said no but it wasn't good, and that my uncle could come get me. I said I'd drive myself because I couldn't wait the hour and half for him to get me. This was before cell phones and both my roommates had gone home for the weekend, so I had no way to tell them. I left them a strange note, and got in my car. Don't remember the drive or much else from that day. They gave us a private family room off the ER (not a good sign) and soon we were in the ICU waiting room. My dad had suffered a severe brain injury, and a shattered hip. He was in a coma and not breathing on his own.
There are so many details to this story that I could make a whole blog about it, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to share it without it being a book. He was in a coma for 3 weeks, and in the hospital for 5 months. His recovery was slow, as he began to emerge from the deep sleep of the coma, he was kind of like a kid. He was often confused about where he was and what was going on, and suffered from short term memory loss and some personality changes. He also had to endure physical therapy for his hip and nerve damage to his foot. Finally in August, he came home, he a different person both physically and mentally than pre-accident, and my mother was now more caregiver than wife. I was removed from much of went on in the home because I was completing my senior year of college, and its not my job to air my parents dirty laundry, but lets just say things did not go well. By 1999 their marriage was over, and thus began my new relationship with my dad.
He has been able to live on his own and start a new career, as a home health aide. There have been issues along the way, various moves, complications during hip replacement surgery, and financial problems. It has been up to me (and mainly me until my brother moved back up north 2 years ago from North Carolina) to deal with all this stuff, and I've had to take on a kind of parental role with my dad. I've always been sad for the loss of my "old" dad but grateful that we are closer now than we ever were before the accident.
I've been prepared to continue to take care of my dad as he is, for however long I needed to, but I never ever saw this cancer coming. I don't feel like being the parent anymore, in fact I feel like laying on the floor kicking and screaming, crying "no, no, I can't do this" like a five year old. I imagine I might actually do this at some point very soon.
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