You Can Come Home Again
A Hospice Update
Thomas Wolfe’s novel “Look Homeward, Angel” contains the famous quote, “You can’t go home again.” I understand the underlying meaning of those words, but I believe that home is where you make it.
All this to say, I’m back home. Again.
If you have been following my story, you know that I’m home after spending a month caring for my father in Tennessee. My husband drove me and the dogs down for what I expected to be a week-long stay. It quickly became apparent that I would be needed for a much longer period of time. I sent my husband home with Bruce, our male Jack Russell mix, while I stayed at my father’s house with my little old girl, Gidget McFidget.
Things went fairly well. I kept everyone alive. I made sure my father took his pills twice a day while also giving Gidget her morning and evening medicine. Being a heart transplant recipient, I took more pills that both of them put together. I’m glad I had the foresight to bring a month’s supply of drugs in a carryon bag. Yes, I filled the bag with meds, blood glucose monitor, BP cuff, and my laptop.
It was a grueling month. I lost five pounds during my stay. I’m not sure if it was the increased physical activity, not eating my food because I was too focused on making sure he ate, or simply the nervous energy burning calories like kindling.
I didn’t realize until I got home and relaxed, but I had been walking on eggshells for an entire month. This wasn’t the sort of eggshells I tread upon when I was with my ex-husband and afraid to set him off with the wrong word, or look, or exhalation. This was hypervigilance focused on keeping him happy and healthy.
My biggest fear during my visit was that he would hop on his scooter and zip through the house and run over Gidget. His vision is poor, and she is likewise nearly blind. A little black dog on a dark colored floor in a dimly lit room is hard enough to see even with good eyesight. He wouldn’t see her, and she wouldn’t see him coming at her.
Every time I heard the click and whirr of his scooter in motion, I frantically spun to find Gidget. She was usually near me, but sometimes she went off to roam the house. Gidget likes to wander aimlessly, kind of like a Roomba that’s mapping new territory. She knows where everything is in our home, but she had to learn the layout of this new place before she could easily navigate between rooms. By the end of our month, she knew where to find the outside door and the water dish, although she never stopped looking for me if I wasn’t right by her side.
Once I got home and had the opportunity to relax, my body up and quit on me. The constant adrenaline of that month kept me going, but once it wasn’t a matter of life or death, the adrenaline stopped pumping, and I crashed. I fell into a full-body flare that pinned me to the couch for several days.
I dragged myself through the marathon of appointments I had scheduled upon my return – doctor, vet, dog groomer, oil change, hair salon, etc. – everything I pushed off my schedule from the prior month crammed into one week. After each trip, I came home and flopped on the couch or even the bed. I’m slowly churning through administrative work and catching up on some writing related tasks. I haven’t written a word on my manuscript in months.
My biggest priority for the next two weeks is to get into physical therapy for the plantar fasciitis in my left foot. It has progressively gotten worse, and I am now walking in a peculiar limp/hop gait that has successfully transferred my foot pain to my left hip. After a few minutes of movement, my foot cramps ease up and I can walk with minimal pain, but then my hip pain gets worse with continued use. I feel like a lame horse who is at risk of being taken out back of the barn.
This business of living in a body is a full-time job.
When my husband brought me home at the end of June, Dad was stable and in good spirits. I fed him three meals a day plus snacks most days, offering him multiple choices to fit his rotating tastes. He settled into a love of hard-boiled eggs and egg-salad sandwiches. Luckily, farm fresh eggs are easy to find. Everyone seems to have a coop down there. He is all set up with his local egg dealer to keep him supplied in my absence.
He sounds good during our daily phone calls. I am comfortable with his current support network. His wife is at home with him, hospice workers come Monday through Friday, my stepbrother lives nearby, and other family members come for short visits. He is never alone.
I will return to Tennessee at the end of the month to care for him while his wife has minor surgery, and for a few days while she recovers. Then I will be off to Nashville for my annual heart transplant testing. I can hardly believe I’m coming up on the 7th anniversary of my second heart transplant. Shortly after that, I will celebrate twenty years of life since my first heart transplant. That’s twenty years of living the transplant life. I’m beyond grateful.
The daily grind of life can seem hectic, especially when we lose sight of why we’re doing it. Get up, do your thing, eat, rinse, repeat. But if you can remember the why to your what, you will always figure out how. Where? Here. When? Now.
Don’t wait for tomorrow to be happy. Tomorrow never comes.
Celebrate today. Every sunrise is a miracle.
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Dawn, you are an amazing human and an amazing writer. I love your metaphors. But you need to make yourself a priority. A week of "down time" doesn't sound like it's enough for you. More will be better for you and everyone else too! There's a lot written and said about Type A types; I don't see so much about Types B and C or whatever, but it's okay to downshift. Shared with love.
Love this. I needed to read this today. My husband had a recent stroke and his kidneys are not doing great. My 86 years old father is having a heart procedure on Aug 5th and two weeks earlier, my 85 years old mom is having a knee replacement. I may have to leave my husband at home to go take care of them for a short while.