And Now...(long entry) in Thirty-Six

…the rest of the story.

I haven’t been telling a story, so don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.

Things are going along. I’m getting increasingly frustrated with my brothers, but I’ll get to that in just a minute.

I haven’t written in a few weeks. We’re still carless at the moment, hopefully getting that sorted out in the next couple days.

My dad decided he was good enough to go home yesterday, so he left around 3ish. It’s getting too hot for him here, which makes it even harder for him to breathe. We’ve been in the high 90s the last few days. We have an evap cooler on the roof (well two, but we can only use one so our roof doesn’t cave in) and a refrigerated window unit in the kitchen window. The house doesn’t get all that cool in the close to 100 degree weather.

Let me backtrack. My bro came into town from PA On Friday the 23rd. I had taken my dad to NM on the 21st because he had a dr appointment. I was able to get his 2nd COVID shot scheduled for Thursday as well. So we did that. Randy got his AFO (foot/leg brace for his drop foot) on thursday also.

Friday we ended up going over to Matt’s house for dinner. Dad was tired from the trip and the vaccine. Andrew and Matt came over to my house on Friday and acted like it was disgusting and my dogs were a nuisance. Sunday Matt had a golf tournament and so Andrew went with him of course. They showed up around 8:30 or so because they “wanted to talk about what was going to happen with dad”.

Well instead of that, they spent the time telling me basically to sell all of my stuff and move to NM with dad. I tried explaining that there was a lot going on before we needed to make that decision.

:Sell your stuff and move with dad, dad needs help, you need to be there for him, you can’t be wasting time here, you need to move to NM with dad, you need to give up everything you have here.:

UGH It was just round and round.

They kept saying :it’s not that we’re stingy or anything, we just don’t have any extra:

Well good thing I’ve only ever outright asked you for help once. I DON’T WANT ANYTHING FROM YOU NOR DO I EXPECT IT.

:Move to NM with dad, he needs you, you need to be there for him you need to do this and that what are you going to do about money, dad can’t continue supporting you, are you going to get a job, we have jobs and we have problems, too, we have families, you don’t have families, you need to give up things that are “nice to have” but don’t need them:

(he suggested NOT getting the AC compressor in the car fixed to save money, fuck that in 110 degree weather).

My dad even interjected and said that the problem with us moving over there is the lack of drs to fit our needs (i have a pcp, rheumatologist, neurologist, podiatrist and endocrinologist, Randy has a pcp, a neurologist, a urologist and an ophthalmologist, we’d most likely still have to come back over here or go to Las Cruces or albuquerque to see the proper drs).

:well you need to look into other drs you can see over there because you need to move to nm with dad so you can be there for him for his needs, you need to go, you need to sell everything now, that way you can move with dad:

Finally I explained that we have tried selling stuff. COUNTLESS times and no one wants to buy used electronics. They think we bought all this stuff recently. Our tv is 8 years old, the ps4 is 8 years old, all my clothes is from high school through maybe 10 years ago. I haven’t bought new clothes in YEARS. My computer is from 2013.

They just continued the same narrative. They were also trying to get dad to figure out what he was going to do. My dad was just like we have to wait and see what the drs are going to do. We can’t do anything until they get their end of it sorted out. Dad doesn’t qualify for the Cardiac Rehab two of the drs requested because he hasn’t had an active heart attack since 2002.

They were still working on that, but he was tired of waiting.

I got this message from Andrew (he sent it to me and Matt) this morning after I told them last night that dad had gone home…

A: Hey guys, So it probably wasn’t the best Idea for dad to go home and be by himself. It is importation that we check on him everyday to make sure he is OK. Back to square one from the last time I texted you guys. We do need to figure out the life alert thing for him. I know things are tight for you steph so you wouldn’t have to pay, but me and matt could split the cost. It’s usually not too expensive, but it is a monthly fee to maintain. I just want to make sure we have all bases covered.

They’ve been talking about the Life Alert thing for about 2 years now, but still haven’t gotten it set up. They tell me every time I don’t have to worry about it, but then never actually get it set up. I told them I don’t have anything to contribute to that.

Then just he and I had a conversation....

A: How was dad when he left. He seemed like he was having a hard time moving around when I was there. Do you think he’s able to take care of himself? Clean, do laundry, cook, get groceries,etc. I don’t know how frequently home health will come by.

S: Yeah he was tired that day because of the vaccine. He was doing dishes and sweeping the last couple of days. I think he’ll be fine.

A: Ok.

S: I Sent him home with some meals I had in the freezer. He also had gotten his appetite back pretty good. I watched him and monitored him for an entire month,I wouldn’t have let him leave my house if I didn’t feel like he was capable. He was tired of waiting for anything. He didn’t qualify for the cardiac rehab because he hasn’t had a heart attack within the last year. He has an appointment with dr. skee tomorrow probably to redo the order for home health because he called to set up that appointment for this week and they said it had been too long since the original order was sent so they had to resubmit everything.

A: Got it. Thanks.

I understand completely he wants to help, but things are moving along about as fast as they can. I feel like since he works in the medical field, he only sees the part where the patient actually sees the dr. He doesn’t have to deal with the waiting that leads up to that actual appointment. And that is what is so frustrating.

They don’t see this as something that should overwhelm me. I did it with mom, why shouldn’t I be able to do it with dad. I should be the one to be there for him since I don’t have any “obligations” like kids. No, but I have my husband, my house, my animals, MY medical problems, Randy’s medical problems, ALL The other problems we deal with on a daily. Why don’t they see that??

I know that if this whole mindset of theirs continues, I’m gonna explode. I will not be treated like the child they see me as, just because I’m the one who can.

I will do absolutely everything I can do help my dad when I can because he’s my dad and I want to make sure he is taken care of. But why do I have to be the only one that is actually there with him all the time, you know what I mean. I do have a family. I can’t just go for weeks to be with my dad.

I know they are trying to figure things out and get this whole situation figured out, but there are farrrrrrr too many steps that need to be taken before any of that is actually set in stone.

I just feel like they are pushing me off a cliff with a broom, ya know. They weren’t there the entire month with my mom before she died. They weren’t there this entire month with me while dad struggled to get to this point. They don’t feel my physical pain. They don’t understand the exhaustion I deal with on a daily, piled on top with the rest of it.

I’m just gonna have my dad talk to them so they hear it from HIS mouth that he is going to be fine. He already knows that his 13 percent heart function isn’t going to get any better at this point. It’ll be 20 years since his triple bypass in August 2022. I’d have to say that he’s doing very well so far. Short of a heart transplant, there isn’t much room to improve. My dad has completely accepted that and is doing the best he can with what he’s got.

Blah. So that’s where all of that stands with my dad and my brothers.

In other news, the guy that is going to be fixing our car. He came over yesterday to take a look at the AC compressor to see if he could repair it instead of fixing it…but the thing was completely demolished so that’s a replace.

Well he was looking and feeling the shocks. He asked if we slide all over the road when driving through the monument and we were both like YEPPP. There’s a lot of curves through the park and we literally slide out of some of the turns. He asked if we had kids and Poker was sitting next to him on the ground. We were like, there’s one. haha.

He said “oh, no that’s good, I wouldn’t even drive this car with my daughter in it, it’s a huge safety hazard.”

We’re $500 short to get the shocks fixed (literally that $500 is the cost of the shocks alone, the rest is just a tick about $700).

The guy was like “Well, I would feel a lot better if I got everything done right away, because of that safety issue with the shocks, and you guys could pay me the rest of it when you are able.”

OMG THANK YOU JESUS.

So he was going to come grab the car today or tomorrow and have it done by Wednesday. Thank the gods.

We’re going to start doing Doordash again. We originally planned on doing it when we got the car back in August, but things slowly started to cascade downwards and it just wasn’t working. So that will help us get the money together to pay the dude off in June.

Fingers crossed guys. Once we do get the car fixed we’ll be able to go to NM for a few days to help out around the house. So yeah....

Anyway, that’s about all for now. I hope you all have a great Monday otherwise!

Last updated November 01, 2021