Good grief, Charlie Brown! Where have you been?

Sorry I haven't been keeping uptodate on my blogger. Seemed like we had the family reunion in June and from then on, it was something to do constantly. Things never did settle down...and here we are in the end of January, and there's more and more to do still! Guess a busy life is better. You don't have time to think about stuff that can upset you, or you can get into. ha ha
Dad started going downhill after the reunion. We first noticed that he was just sitting and sleeping more. Then he didn't want to talk much. He's never been a magpie but for those of us who are used to being around him, noticed that he was unusually quiet. Then we noticed that he was getting weaker in his walking. He'd have difficulty picking up his feet. I was beginning to think he was wearing lead shoes. Mom was diligent in taking him to the doctor to have checkups and would mention problems. The doctor never really got serious about his problems until October and November. By December he had taken 3 falls in their house and Mom had had enough. When she was clipping his toe nails she noticed that he had a black toe. Immediately we all thought it was due to bad circulation. He has neuropathy, so we just figured it was getting worse. Well, lo and behold, he had a broken toe from one of the falls. Then he started complaining about his back hurting. So...the doctor said, "we're putting you in the hospital for a week and we're going to run tests on you and see if we can find out why you're falling so much and what is causing your weakness." He ended up staying in the hospital for over 2 weeks. The family was beginning to get anxious about not knowing what was going on. We couldn't get in touch with the doctor. If we wanted to see him on his rounds, we had to be to the hospital by 5 a.m. What??? No intelligent humanoid is up at that hour!? Where is this guy from? Mars?
Mom finally got a few calls from him, but she wasn't paying close attention and she was getting things a bit mixed up...and she asked me to call him. Well, my efforts ended up futile. Never got a call from him, EXCEPT when he thought he was talking to me but had called Mom's number instead. And she never told him any different. Oh MY!!!! After talking with Dad's hospital case worker I was able to find out that their insurance would not pay for him to go to rehab because he was not working with the therapists in the hospital and they would not pay for him to go just lay in the bed. So I suggested that we just take him home. We learned, however, that their insurance would pay for home health care. So we started the wheels spinning on taking him home. Mom was apprehensive about taking him home. We weren't seeing any remarkable changes in him at the hospital and we were pretty sure we were going to be doing a lot of lifting, etc. for him. BUT, alas, the doctor told him that if he'd start making some efforts to work with the therapists, that he would send him home. Well he got busy and we started seeing some big time changes. He got home, and there was a hospital bed there for him, David got a bedside potty for him. Then the therapists and nurses started visiting him. He's improved a good bit. Of course, he's got a long way to go, but he's moving. That's more than we had seen him do in months. He had given up before.
We took him to the doctor for his post-hospital visit. The doctor was impressed with the changes. The findings for all the CT scans and MRIs were age-related. 90 year old brain, and degenerative disc disease. He did have a UTI (urinary tract infection) and developed a bacteria in his urine, so that required some IV antibiotics. But, all-in-all, we are seeing results.
He still has his memory-loss moments. But everybody has those moments...and we don't have to be 90. He has to be reminded to pick up his feet when he's walking. We have to make sure he's standing close to the walker and not pushing it like a plow. And we have to stand close to him while holding onto him while he's walking. Sometimes he gets in a hurry and his feet get tangled up; then he loses his footing and falls.
Now to focus on some much-needed doctor follow-ups for myself. And make sure that Mom gets some time away from the house. We don't need her going stir-crazy. Her life has changed much too but she's hanging in there. Dad has his cantankerous moments and says things that hurt her feelings. Hang...he hurts everyone's feelings! She handles it as well as she can. She knows that following him up would only make things worse, so she just walks away and let's things go. God love her. I find myself wanting to argue. But I know there's no winning or changing, so I, too, walk away.
The weather has gotten better this weekend, and I'm hoping that Mom has been able to get him to at least step out onto the front porch to soak up some "rays". Maybe the sunshine will brighten him up. ha ha
Anyway...I will do my best to keep uptodate now. I won't promise...but I'll try.
Take care. Everyone have a Happy Valentine's Day. It's not too far ahead.