Two Absolutely Unrelated Issues

One:

Every time I hear on the news that Hurricane Bill is gaining strength and heading for the Bahamas, I wish it were true of my own personal Bill. I still don't know how much I want to blog about it (although what does it really matter? Either you know my dad and you already know about this, or you don't), but my dad is really sick. How sick exactly? I wish I knew. In the old familiar fashion, he tells everybody a different story, lies to make it seem like things aren't so back -- or is he confused? It sounds like the encephalopathy has cleared enough that it's a deliberate deception. Possibly he underestimates our ability to understand medical speech. Or maybe he just doesn't know about Google.

So he's sick, and there's no way to tell how bad it is, and we're all far away, and he gets pretty nasty when we start talking about coming out there. I honestly think that if I showed up on the porch tomorrow, he would not open the door to me. There's one person he'll talk to, who happens to be out of the country. In the meantime he's "just fine" and "has things under control" and is "too weak to stand" and "shaky"; he "just went to the store" and "hasn't been up off the couch", and eats "tuna salad" and "Furr's cafeteria" and "can't eat but through a straw" and "lives on Ensure." He's "going in to work" and "has been on disability for six weeks."

But I know how to interpret his test results, and the answers are pretty much unequivocal. He needs to be on the transplant list. He can't go on it yet. Thanks to my genetic tests, I know that I share with him one of the genes causing half the problem; the other half was absolutely, one hundred percent avoidable at several different turns. Thirty years ago, twenty. Two years ago I marked the onset of symptoms. He probably went to the doctor oh, six or eight weeks ago. Oh, by the way, he's a physician.

It's a helpless, frustrated love I'm left with.

Two:

I went to the dentist, who is of the Old School of Gentlemanly Behavior and called me "Cutie." As a feminist I am...well, unbothered. Anyway, he did a thorough exam, going so far as to inquire about the provenance of the ugly scratch on my cheekbone (baby fingernail gouge), and then sat back and looked at me.

"How do you eat?" he asked.

People keep asking me that. Obviously I manage. But he has a point; there are only two contact points in my whole mouth, and those four molars are wearing down fast. He gave me a referral to the orthodontist to whom he sends his grandchildren, and suggested that we might be able to avoid surgery through the judicious use of serious orthodonture -- the dental equivalent of removing the side chairs to make room for the outsize sofa. Or something. Anyway it sounds gruesome and expensive but markedly less so than the Giant Skull Nutcracker surgery.

I used to daydream about getting a do-over of sixth grade, except Knowing Then What I Know Now. This is kind of the same thing, no?

Comments

[CharmingBitch]

I am so, so sorry about your dad.

[Lilian]

oh no! I hope he seeks help and somehow listens to or communicates with family/ friends.

And I also hope the orthodontic treatment works and you don't need surgery.

[gretchenosis]

isn't it hard to write about dad? i can't do it. i even have a hard time talking about him. i think this whole illness is just bringing to a head our 'frustrated love'. don't know about you, but i think i'm gonna need to go to some therapy about it.

[Melissa]

JO, I know that whole parent thing is right around the bend for me. Thanks for sharing. I guess I am getting a little practice with my mentally ill daughter, but in a different sort of way. She turns 18 next week, and I could also find myself worrying from a distance. It's very tough. Stay peaceful.

You are such a cutie so that is a funny thought about the dentist. If braces will fix your issues then go for them! They've gotten very hip, you know. You can get different colors and stuff. When I had braces we had to eat mustard just to stain our gray power chains a funky chartreuse. Now the kids have phones in the pockets and hot pink waterproof casts. Sigh.

Hugs.

[ksmaybe]

I'm so sorry that your Dad is ill.

If I remember correctly, you mentioned that an open bite is what you have. I had mine corrected in high school with orthodontics. It sucked, but really wasn't all that bad...would certainly suck less without adding in the teenage angst :) Yours sounds more open than mine, but not by that much. Good luck with the treatment...the headgear is smashing and be sure to take advantage of the full range of colored rubber bands to express your personality!

[Karen]

I totally feel you about the ill parent frustration. My mom has been dealing with a chronic sinusitis for ... 10 months? She coughs incessantly and occasionally gets feverish and sometimes can't breathe all that well. She's been to her PCP, a pulmonologist and an ENT, but only once for each. Now she lets my dad, A RETIRED PEDIATRICIAN, determine what the best treatment plan is.

uuuuuuuggggh.

Last night I told her, as she wheezed and coughed into the phone, that I would not discuss this with her at all, not ever, until she was ready to actually DO something about it. She said "but I'm not sick!"

She is 71 years old. She has survived two bouts of cancer. This stupid sinusitis could be the thing that beats her. Unbelievable!

[Mary]

Both of my sisters have had braces twice. (Me? Never. I got the straight teeth genes. It doesn't make up for the fact that I got the H-cups and they didn't, dammit.)

My older sister had braces for SIX YEARS, had 4 permanent teeth removed (besides the wisdom teeth), plus in the middle of that 6 years, had surgery where they broke her jawbones to reset them so her top and bottom teeth touched in the front. (And still had braces again as an adult.)

If nothing else, having your mouth wired shut for 6 weeks is a pretty good weight loss program.

[emjaybee]

My mother refused to do the physical therapy that (might) have at least extended her life; if she hadn't been living in a house on my brother's property, I doubt we would have known as much as we did about her health problems. Maybe it's just generational, this group of people who don't believe you should struggle past a certain point, or are fatalists or pessimists or (in my mother's case) bogged with undiagnosed depression they won't get any help for.

You can't force them, and it breaks your heart. All I do now that she's gone is swear to myself that I won't do that to my son. That if I decide my time has come, I will tell him so, not lie or push him away. That I will try my best not to go too soon, to get help.

This probably isn't cheering you up, I know. But I just wanted to say, that I know what it's like when your parent breaks your heart.

[Melissa]

It must be hard to grow older and begin to feel weak and dependent on others. I know I don't want to feel that way.

[Jo]

Emjaybee, that's just it -- undiagnosed depression. And the swearing not to perpetuate the whole mess over another generation.

Melissa, I see your point -- and I think that's what's going on with, say, my grandparents. Sigh.

And Mary, i know, right? I can't remember whose comment it was on a previous post, but yeah, it's an open bite I've got. Yum.

[Jody]

Oh, Jo, I'm so sorry about your dad. That is just very, very hard.

[amy]

Very, very sorry to hear about your father. It sounds heartbreaking.