Sunday, April 17, 2005

Emotional Day

Today was a very emotional day. Talked to my Dad, like I do every Sunday. He had a big trip to the VA hospital to check the progress of his Parkinson's. And, well apparently its not good.

He talked to them about going into a VA facility, i.e. a nursing home, somewhere down in North Florida. He seemed okay with this, he's made peace with it. He asked me if I would come down and help him get settled in there, I said of course, thank you for asking for my help, I love to be able to be there for you. We hung up.

And I started thinking. If its to the point where he has to be in a home, why does it have to be in a home down in Florida, 3200 miles away? When he originally retired there, before he got sick, it made sense - he golfed, he liked to be out in the sun, he bought a house for a reasonable price. If he sells his house and is in a home, why there? There's nothing there.

Maybe he would want to come HERE. So I get online and I research the VA Hospital in Portland. And wouldn't you know they have a HUGE Parkinson's clinic/program here. 15 minutes from my apartment. And so I called my Daddy back, and I asked him if it was important for him to be in Florida, because if he still wanted to be there I understood. But if it wasn't important to him, why should be be down there, alone, when he could be up here, with me? His only child? Who would love to be able to visit with him whenever we wanted, who would love to be able to take him to his doctors appointments, who would love to get to know her Daddy better before he goes.

He told me to get more information from the VA here, to call them and see what it would take for me to go and get him and bring him here. This makes me so very happy on so many levels... on the soul level. I could be here for my Daddy. Just like he was here for me. I love this.

I just need to find how to make it happen, and get him here, where I can make the last months or years of his life good, where he won't have to go and die alone. I'm very emotional over this. I know he will die, and it will be within the next two years more than likely. And this is hard, but I won't be sad when he goes, because he's suffered through this B.S. disease for years, and for someone as proud and as strong as he was Parkinsons IS several slices of hell. And he's stuck it out.

So tomorrow I'm going to make some phone calls. And hopefully I can go get my Daddy.

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