And the roller coaster ride continues...

I've been thinking about the Steve Martin movie, Parenthood, a lot lately. Just quoted the line about needing a license to fish, but any (insert explicative) can be a parent earlier today... and now I think back to the scene with Grandma talking about going to the fair and not understanding those who loved the carousel. She loved the roller coaster - you go up, you go down, you get thrown from side to side, and you never see it coming. How exciting the roller coaster is!!!

Well, I am guessing that in reality, I am more of a carousel person myself. If I have to ride the roller coaster, make mine a Disney version - none of the Magic Mountain maddnes!! I just get motion sick too darn easily!

We've been riding the roller coaster lately around here... and its not been my Disney version! We've had some great highs lately - getting Schooner, Parker's birthday, loosing teeth, doing so great in swimming... and we've been thrown some major curves and lows as well...

On Thursday, I was over and Mom and Dad's visiting. Dad was in his wheel chair, and we were chatting away in his office about this and that - nothing earth-shattering, nothing monumental, but probably 40 minutes worth of chatter.

Yesterday, he no longer has the strength to keep himself sitting up in his wheelchair and is very incoherent. His voice is nearly inaudible, and what is coming out is not making a lot of sense. Mom called and asked that Steve go spend the night, because Dad can no longer help when being transfered from his chair to the bed. He's paralyzed.

The Hospice nurse came out at about 11pm and finally left sometime around 1am. He determined that Dad was suffering from a rather major UTI and wondered if we wanted antiboitics given. What?? Its a choice?? Well, evidently when some folks are this near to the end of life, family members will let the infection take over and allow them to go peacefully. But no one in this family, including Dad, think we are quite there yet. He's on some major drugs to combat the infection, and that's good.

What's not good is that he will probably never regain enough strength to sit up in his wheel chair. He's now bedridden. His alertness came back somewhat after the antibiotics had a chance to kick in, but he's still rather out of it. We had to tell the boys tonight how sick Baba is. Parker asked if he was going to die. I had to say yes... we dont know when, but yes - he will die.

I never really understood my own mother's desire to shelter me from the ugliness of life. I get it now. I would do anything to spare them the pain of loosing their belived grandfather. And while it breaks my heart to be loosing my daddy, it pains me more to think of them hurting. I want to allow them a Disney-ride life for as long as possible. Life just does get very messy sometimes.