breathe

I feel like I'm taking a lot of deep breaths lately. I got back from visiting my Dad Sunday afternoon and was completely wiped out from the weekend. I took Toby's new car (he just got a Chevy Malibu the day before, the union gives him a car allowance but he needed to get an American car that's, for the most part, manufactured in America - no easy task) and drove out by myself Saturday morning. We decided it would be easier for me to go by myself since the kids wouldn't have much to do in a hospital and it's not like a functional family where there's a house they could stay at. The ride out was fine and I stopped at my Aunt's apartment, where my Dad has been living with her for 5 1/2 years, in order to get my Dad's laundry to drop off at a cleaners.

I can't tell you how sad and small and dirty that one bedroom apartment was, the private room my Dad's been staying in at the hospital was larger than the apartment. I guess it's neurotic of me but when I see an unkempt place like that apartment it makes me want to clean the crap out of it, how can anyone feel good about themselves living in such filth? I'm not a chicken soup for the soul type of cook, I'm not nearly confident enough about my culinary skills, but when it comes to emotional stuff I go with what I know I do good, I can clean the shit out of a place. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to work my cleaning magic on the apartment because I wanted to spend the time with my Dad but the squalor of that apartment will pick at my head, torturing me over a missed decades worth of spring cleaning. My Dad looks very thin and sick, his skin hangs off of him and his hard living his caught up with his face in a very cruel way. He was happy to see me and delighted with the travel Scrabble and official Scrabble players dictionary I brought for him. He liked the books I brought him too but Scrabble was the big hit. We played throughout the afternoon and I left around seven when he started dozing off. He's feeling better from the antibiotics they're giving him, intravenously 4 times a day, but he's still easily fatigued and very weak. Today he went in for his lung biopsy and they should have the results in a couple days.

I feel so overwhelmed and ill prepared with how to help my Dad. He's gone from making six figure salaries during the 80s and 90s, when he bought bespoke clothing and didn't want for anything, to essentially being penniless, they've set him up with medicaid in order to put him in a nursing home for the next 3 weeks that he needs to take the iv antibiotics. What happens to him after that? I've left a message with the social worker at the hospital who set him up with a medicaid number and got him into the nursing home, I'm hoping she might be able to help answer some of my questions. I'd like to get him set up in an apartment down here where I can keep an eye on him but I can't pay his way yet he can't financially take care off himself. Even if he gets set up with disability through his social security I'd think it would be best if I was a power of attorney on his finances because due to some most likely deep-rooted psychiatric issue he can't take care of himself. But I'm not sure how feasible this all is since he lives in a different state right now so I don't know if I'll encounter roadblocks moving him to Pittsburgh. And if he does have lung cancer what do I do if he needs hospice, it's all up in the air until I learn more on Thursday. It's hard being an only child through this.