Empty a Bed for Nick!! So anyway, I�m still here in FL (for another week! Gah!!) and if you pay attention to my tweets at the bottom of this page you�ll see that in fact, I have given in to the �seething cauldron of angst� that is the way and the path of my visits here to the homeland, specifically visiting the realm of my mother. How I managed to survive as long as I did without the support of medical intervention is beyond me. Whenever I visit, I feel as if I should double up on my dose of Lexapro� a week before I arrive in order to be a little closer to a state of zen and a lot further away from matricide. Add in my recent loss of job and my father�s illness and lingering hospital stay, then you understand a little better my state of mind. I arrived on Tuesday and since then, I have been doing a lot better with handling the sight of Dad and talking to him and being in the hospital with him. He is beyond feeding himself and his hands are withered. Perhaps if he could get some occupational therapy in a rehabilitation setting, he might be able to improve. But Mom and I have been up against a wall: There are NO BEDS to be found for a MAN in need of short- or long-term care. This is, frankly, beyond me. Perhaps because I live in an area where a good percentage of the population is �waiting for God�, I can�t fathom the idea of all nursing homes (or whatever you want to call them) being full! Now, there are a couple facilities that have availability. But you know the kind I�m talking about. The kinds of places that are just this side of seedy, with very few amenities, the kind that were built back in the early 1970�s which are the kinds of places that provided care when all their residents were in fact just �waiting for God� and God was just around the corner. Or in the parking lot. With his VW bus so�s he could take a few folks with him and only make a couple of trips. Back to Dad, though, his meds are pretty well under control, and he hardly yells at all. He does get weepy from time to time, but then he bounces back to being silly fairly fast. He looks so much older than his 68 years, though. 68 years old, only! His younger brother died of what seemed to be severe Alzheimer�s, and he was only 55 or so! It is true that Uncle T may have been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, though, but . . . still!! Sometimes Dad recognizes me. My name pretty much escapes him, but that�s okay. Sometimes he thinks I�m an enlisted Navy private that he�s trying to train in survival training. That�s not too bad, but I think he expects me to jump into a pool after a brick. I saw Bubba the other night at the hospital, but he had to take SIL (of the previously leaky brain) up to Birmingham for another doctor�s appointment. She�s been having a rough time of it lately herself, what with her RA, and now she has migraines. Poor kid. Mom�s nuts. That�s all we have to say about that. So anyway, if I can get all y�all (that�s Southern for every one of you out there who reads this stuff) to send thoughts of �empty bed for Nick, empty bed for Nick�, then that would be great. I want to see him in this nice place we saw in Milton. Or the two places really close to Mom. Empty a Bed for Nick!!
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