11-17-2006, 04:09 PM
When my dad had his stroke, I had a ticket to go to Las Vegas for a Thanksgiving gathering of Shaolin monks, being hosted by a martial brother. That martial brother has such a thick NYC accent that mandarin totally evades him. He tried to teach our master to speak English and had me work with him a bit on his 'homework'. It was weird. Your sifu is like your other father. Being put in the position of teaching English to my other father when my blood father had just had a stroke was downright surreal.
Anyways, my Dad continues to make baby steps towards improvement. At Tara's B-day dinner earlier this week, he was very happy and even laughing a bit. I think his quality of life is pretty good, actually. He seems to enjoy things and his expression is a little brighter than before. He still has some rather hard moments. When his medications fluctuate, we've had issues with explosive diarrhea, which was happening about once a month for a while. Let me tell you, you've never embraced filial piety until you've cleaned something like that up. It made things like longer trips, like to the city with the senior center or some close friends, challenging for my mom, but it's so sporadic. We haven't had an incident in a spell, so we might be due. His blood thinner med is a dicey one and has that as a potential side.
My mom continues to accrue more widow/widower friends. Her list of people that she looks after continues to grow. It's the extent of her social circle, beyond my immediate family.
I'm exhausted from the weekly trips to Sunnyvale, but my kid and my parents love them so. This week, with Thanksgiving next week, and grandparent's day at my kid's school, my mom said I might skip it to handle stuff at home. But I might go anyway - out of habit, I suppose. Give more, take less. It's the only philosophy that seems to apply.
Anyways, my Dad continues to make baby steps towards improvement. At Tara's B-day dinner earlier this week, he was very happy and even laughing a bit. I think his quality of life is pretty good, actually. He seems to enjoy things and his expression is a little brighter than before. He still has some rather hard moments. When his medications fluctuate, we've had issues with explosive diarrhea, which was happening about once a month for a while. Let me tell you, you've never embraced filial piety until you've cleaned something like that up. It made things like longer trips, like to the city with the senior center or some close friends, challenging for my mom, but it's so sporadic. We haven't had an incident in a spell, so we might be due. His blood thinner med is a dicey one and has that as a potential side.
My mom continues to accrue more widow/widower friends. Her list of people that she looks after continues to grow. It's the extent of her social circle, beyond my immediate family.
I'm exhausted from the weekly trips to Sunnyvale, but my kid and my parents love them so. This week, with Thanksgiving next week, and grandparent's day at my kid's school, my mom said I might skip it to handle stuff at home. But I might go anyway - out of habit, I suppose. Give more, take less. It's the only philosophy that seems to apply.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse