Chapter 27
Discover more from Transforming Trauma
Every week I would cook extra, then make and freeze meals to take to the beach for Dad. I would also stop and buy him some groceries on the way out. He liked a specific brand of packaged coleslaw and potato salad, and he couldn’t buy those out at the beach. His appetite wasn’t what it used to be, so it was easy to have enough food made to last the week. Dad could pick up small items like milk, eggs, and bread at the local grocery store when he went downtown to the post office to check for mail.
Every week, when I got to the house, the first thing I did was clean the bathroom. Dad didn’t like his ostomy bag and didn’t manage the process of putting it on and taking it off well. The bathroom was so dirty that I wouldn’t even pee without cleaning it first. Then I would tackle the kitchen. I checked everything in the fridge to ensure it hadn’t gone rotten, then made sure the dishes were washed properly. Dad had this horrible habit of using the Styrofoam plates from the meat and cheese from the grocery store as plates. By now, considering where his health was at, it didn’t make sense to try to convince him that these were likely contaminated with all kinds of nasty bacteria, and to be honest, I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.
When winter hit, I made two weeks of meals for the weeks when snowstorms prevented me from driving out there. Saskatchewan is flat prairie, and it’s windy! Snowstorms can often cause whiteout conditions making travel dangerous.
One weekend, wet snow started falling. It didn’t look bad at the house, but by the time I got to the highway, the wind was so powerful and the snow slushy that I was constantly being blown across the road. I didn’t even make it to the main highway before turning around and going back. I arrived back at the house to my dad’s surprise.
“Gee, I was expecting you to be phoning by now. I thought you’d be home,” he said.
“Are you kidding!?” I replied. “I didn’t even make it to Ehmann’s farm! I was getting blown across the road, so I came back.”
A little while later, Dad’s neighbors called the house to make sure I stayed there overnight. They had been in Regina for the day and had driven back to the beach. The forty-minute drive took them two and a half hours. Apparently, the RCMP had closed the highway because of so many accidents.
After Mom died, Christmas was always at my house. The rationale was that it was easier for Dad to drive into Regina rather than have everyone drive out to the beach. No one brought food or even offered to, for that matter, but this year, because Dad was so sick, we all agreed to go to his place.
Christmas was the only time everyone set aside their true feelings for one another and pretended to get along. Leanne had long ago chosen to leave the family. She couldn’t take the constant criticism from Dad, and Mom had pretty much disowned her because of her promiscuity. My mom believed in monogamy and didn’t hide her disdain for Leanne’s behavior. As it turned out, there were other incidents with children being molested by one of Leanne’s boyfriends, and that was the last straw for my mom.
Leanne’s kids never called or visited Dad. Leanne had painted a picture of who he was to her kids, and because people tend to see what they expect to see in others, they never formed a relationship with him as adults. Dad resented Leanne and her kids for never calling or visiting, and they resented him, not for anything he did to them, but for his insistence that Leanne be responsible for her behavior – which she never did.
This year, being sick, Dad was exceptionally ornery. In typical fashion, Dad’s way of doing things was the only way, so when he lost his temper over how the turkey was cooked and cut, Leanne’s eldest daughter ended up in tears. As usual, I had to intervene and smooth things out. The rest of the dinner went ok, but everyone was walking on eggshells, waiting for another outburst.
Shortly after dinner, Leanne and her brood left, and Dusty and I stayed with Dad. It was the many Christmases like this one that stole my Christmas cheer. For me, Christmas was far more stressful than enjoyable.
In the spring, I decided to have my yard relandscaped. The company I hired figured it could easily be done in a couple of weeks, but three days after the landscaping company scooped up the mostly dying lawn, it started raining and rained for thirty days straight. My yard was a mudhole!
Back then, I had a Border Collie named Shelby. She was the most intelligent and lovable dog I ever had the pleasure of spending time with, and she was a pretty girl! So much so that she hated getting wet and, worse yet – she hated getting muddy.
The yard was a mess! Nearly every day, I had to carry her straight from the door to the bathtub and wash all the mud off. She cried and whined every time, but when she was clean, she would race around the house with a big smile on her face!
Shelby in the yard once the landscaping was complete!
Dad did okay for the first year after his bladder surgery, but when his health took a turn, it rapidly declined. By spring, he was having a lot of pain, so rather than wait for who knew how long to get a prescription from his surgeon, I drove out to the beach to pick him up, then drove back into Regina and straight to the ER. The ride into the city was tense. Dad could barely sit and felt every bump on the road. With every groan, my foot went down a little more on the gas pedal. We were in the city in twenty-five minutes and at the hospital fifteen minutes later. It was still forty minutes, but we were where we needed to be rather than just getting into town.
They ran a series of tests and determined that the cancer had spread throughout his body, and as an added bonus, they discovered a descending aortic aneurysm. The specialist on call was far easier to get along with than his surgeon and answered all my questions without hesitation. They didn’t bother to keep him in the hospital because there was nothing they could do for him. I got a prescription for morphine, got Dad into the car, and headed to my place. I knew that his days were numbered and that he wouldn’t be able to stay alone for much longer. His neighbor was great at keeping an eye on him and alerting me if she thought something was wrong, but her health wasn’t great either, so if he didn’t return home in a reasonable amount of time when he went walking, she couldn’t go looking for him. Instead, she would phone me at work to tell me he hadn’t returned from his walk.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep working. The stress of worrying about the duties of my job and how he was doing was becoming too much. I started getting migraines so bad that I couldn’t even see straight and would often have to leave work. I developed painful sebaceous cysts throughout my groin area. My doctor had given me prescriptions for the migraines and antibiotics to help with the cysts. I didn’t have time to deal with cysts or headaches. No one did my job while I was away from work, mainly because no one knew how to and secondly because no one was interested in learning how. I was being pulled in two opposite directions. I felt like I was Frodo facing a journey that would take me into my own kind of mount doom. I knew looking after my dad wasn’t going to be easy. He was stubborn and miserable, to begin with, but the pain from his cancer made his temperament that much worse.
My job had always been very important to me, but I also knew that my dad could not manage on his own. I knew looking after him wouldn’t be easy because he was a crank.
I still resented him for all the times he treated me with zero compassion when I had surgery, but I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Like I always say, I have to sleep with myself, so for my conscience to be clear, I had to do the right thing and make the commitment to look after him.
I arranged to take compassionate leave through government employment insurance. I didn’t have any holidays left that I could take, and there wasn’t any other way to get at least some income while I looked after him. After all, I still had mortgage payments and bills to pay. I knew that neither Dusty nor Leanne would help financially or with looking after him, so I was on my own – as usual.
Dusty was still barely talking to me for being part of what he saw as controlling and abusive when Dad had his bladder removal surgery. He resented me for helping the nurses tie him to the bed, questioning the doctors, and, most of all, for not allowing Dad to go home when he was released. In short, Dusty resented me for absolutely everything that had to do with Dad.
My spare room was in the basement. Dad couldn’t go up and down the stairs anymore, so I went to the furniture store, purchased a single bed, and with a friend’s help, set it up the spare room upstairs. I bought two sets of sheets so that washing sheets was easier. When the room was set up and ready, I gave Dad the bad news.
“How’s it going today?”
“The pain is getting worse. I can barely sit in the chair.”
“Oh boy. Well, here’s the thing. I’m driving out today and bringing you back to my place. You can’t stay out there by yourself anymore. I bought you a bed and have already set up the spare room for you. Plus, we need to be closer to a hospital, so that’s that!”
“Aw, Penny! What are you going to do about work?”
“Yeah, I’ve arranged that too, so don’t worry about anything. Just get yourself packed for whatever you want to bring here. I’ll be there in an hour.”