April

The ridiculous, nit-picky, trivial bits in life are sometimes just what we need. A facepalm, a doubled-over laugh. It’s what makes life survivable and fantastic. It saves me on a daily basis, always has. It really helps these days. It helps lift what feels like a boulder sitting on my chest. It has been a tough month so far after a few in a row. Last week, I was driving on my daily trek to see my dad at his sub-acute facility in Baltimore. The RAV-4 in front of me had two juxtaposed stickers on the back: “I LOVE MY GRANDDOGS!” and a crab-shaped sticker with the pattern of a Confederate flag. My first thought was, “How can you have so much love and ignorance and hate in one place?!” My second thought was preceded by a sigh, then, “Oh, Maryland…”

Today, I was at the Maryland headquarters for vital records. The Maryland headquarters for vital records is inside a small, crappy, not-really-a-mall. It’s right next to a Payless Shoe Source! Vital records AND cheap sequined flip-flops, all in the same 100 square feet. (No disrespect to Payless — I’ve bought many a pair of non-sequined flip-flops there.) Across from the vital records “office” is a mall kiosk that sells really shitty jewelry. Next to that kiosk is an unmanned kiosk where you can fill out a form for whatever records you need. The forms were scattered there haphazardly. There were no pens at this completely unofficial kiosk, so a new line formed at the shitty jewelry kiosk to borrow the visibly angry vendor’s single pen. It turned out that the pens attached by a metal chain, inside the “office,” had all been stolen. Laughable.

I was there to obtain a death certificate for my mother, to prove to Medicare that my father (who is applying for Medicare through me) is in fact a widower, after recently losing my cousin Katie. I was thinking, sitting in the clammy little waiting room, this is kinda weird. Most people in the “office” were rocking new babies, waiting excitedly for birth certificates. It made the wait a little shorter looking at such optimism and cuteness.

My father is going to a nursing home this week. He is sort of trapped in his own body right now, but very cognizant of his situation. His occupational and physical therapy has essentially ceased, as they said that he has hit a plateau in terms of mobility. I complained — if he is destined to be confined to bed/a wheelchair, teach the man how to use the goddamn wheelchair. I told the therapists, “I have been showing him how to steer using his feet, while using his good hand to unlock the brake and roll the wheel.” The therapists said, “Oh, great idea!” (Why is this news/my idea? FACEPALM — been down this road before with health care.) I’m afraid of when I’m not there — do they even bother putting him in the chair, given that it takes two people to do it? Unfortunately, traumatic brain injury therapy not only takes a lot of time and energy, but is subject to the limitations of health insurance — as are all injuries. Because of the setbacks from his pneumonia cycle, he has been in make-up mode trying to gain back the ground he lost on therapy. How is that “they” have given up before he has? I want better for him, as does he. I am so very, very proud of my father. He puts full effort into every therapy session and deserves better. My time spent watching his therapy sessions will help me help him in the days ahead, I hope.

Yesterday, his hair had been slicked over to one side and he was puffing on his breathing treatment. I told him, “You look just like George Burns, puffing on a big cigar!” He got a hearty laugh out of that. I am struggling to get things in line so he can move this week to his new home and continue his healing without financial burden. Good thing I can still make him laugh.

April

Two people in this photo have been lost to breast cancer. My mother, and now my dear cousin, Katie. We lost Katie this past Tuesday, after a hospice stay at home surrounded by those who loved her best. I feel fortunate that I was able to spend time with her before she was gone. I am saving the words I have written for her, about her, for a brief remembrance at her Celebration of Life service. It is an immense loss and I will leave it at that.

It so happens that Katie’s service will be held on the same day that my father is scheduled to be discharged to a nursing home. I worked on my words for Katie as I drove around, taking tours of potential new long-care facilities for my father. I kept thinking how ridiculous it all was, the sequence of events of this week. Where is there room for anything else? How much grief can a family take in such a short span? Fortunately, I am surrounded by a very small, yet very durable group of relatives. We can laugh together at the absurdities and small blips of positivity that we experience. Everything is a learning experience. Everyone who has suffered a loss in life knows that. For those who haven’t, know that to be true.

April

I have always loved waterfowl, from when I was very young. When I was first hired at the zoo, I worked at the bird house. It accelerated my love for waterfowl and educated me beyond words. We have four very recent additions to the farm: two French Toulouse and two Brown Chinese goslings, all hatched one week ago today. Although 2016 has brought more challenges than I thought I could take, our new charges add a little joy to spring. When you can’t fix things, you just take care of things.

Those are lines from a song by FC Kahuna. They are simple and obvious. I have been listening to Visioneers radio on Pandora (yes, I still use Pandora). Instrumental hip hop with a loungey, jazzy, sometimes bossa nova feel. We all have “that thing” that makes us just feel really, really good — it’s what we listen to when we’re doing something we feel so great doing that it takes us to a higher state of existence, for a little bit. It’s what we listen to when we’re doing “that thing.” It could be snowboarding, sitting around a campfire, giving a presentation, making the perfect frittatta, having sex. It is what I listen to when I skate. Everything is congruent. Your brain and body are present and here.

Here

That is a loaded word these days. I feel the need to be “here” on a few fronts. “Here” is at the hospital with my father. “Here” means home, where I come to (not) sleep and try to reconnect briefly with my home life. And “here” means with my cousin Katie, who has bravely decided to come home to convalesce rather than go through dialysis and other countless procedures of which she is weary. Ever since Katie made the decision to come home, I have been torn cleanly in half. My dad had been relatively stable, but is now on his fourth antibiotic for pneumonia. Late last week, the head nurse told me to not stop hoping, but I needed to prepare myself for the fact that my dad might not recover from pneumonia despite all of his cognitive progress. He is 75, and his body and brain have suffered so much trauma. It is a repeating cycle — his pneumonia is keeping his speech and swallowing therapy from being successful, and the speech and swallowing therapy failings are keeping the pneumonia going. After a brief but good visit with Katie last week, I got that phone call from the head nurse. How does one decide where to be when everywhere is everything? There is no right answer.

My cousin Rachael, Katie’s sister, gave me guidance — maybe unknowingly. She said whatever you do is exactly the right thing. I don’t know if she realizes how poignant that is. I feel that there is regret no matter what the choice is. But her words gave me strength. I made the decision to stay with my dad for the time being.

Re-cognition

I went to visit Chisulo, the juvenile male lion that we sent to Fresno Chaffee Zoo in November. I saw him while out in California in early January, tagging along with my husband on his work trip. I drove 2 1/2 hours each way to see Chisulo. He didn’t show any sign of recognition whatsoever. I told his keepers that he must be so comfortable in his new home that he had forgotten all about us. That was a bandage over the disappointment I felt, since I was hoping for a slight sign of “oh yeah, I remember you a little.” I think I cracked a lame joke like, “Man, do you know how much I wrote about you? Do you know how far I drove to see you?!” It made me think darkly about how much of an impact we have on the animals in our care, and how much I had relied spiritually (or whatever) on him — or any of our animals. Is there any recognition of all of the time we spend agonizing over their well being? Their successes? Their death? It made me question for a moment all of the work that we do, trying to preserve species. My selfishness got the best of me. Zoos protect species in their own way, and inspire new generations to be passionate and actionable on conservation. I have seen it firsthand many times, and it is one of the reasons I remain committed to working with animals. For every kid whose parents let him throw rocks at the lions, there are kids who are inspired and thus inspiring. Sometimes the ratio seems 9-1 against us. It is a constant struggle between wrong and right. It is worth it to reach the few.

I have struggled with my own expectations regarding my dad’s progress, and with Katie’s. It is beyond anyone’s control but all consuming. It is mentally and physically debilitating. It is impossible to describe. Practical day-to-day execution is how you get through, either in Maryland (Care Team South, I call it) or in Pennsylvania (Care Team North). Emotions have to wait or be set aside, for now. I had to ask my dad’s nurse du jour to teach me how to turn on the suction machine to suck out his aspirations. (She should be doing that.) I manned the suction machine while he was in shock trauma, I say, but the machine was always on. My dad is able to suction his own mouth when he coughs, I tell her. I am there to coach him. He has to now, when I am not there. We just need the f-ing machine turned on.

Today, the speech therapist moved on from the usual reorienting questions to more complex questions with my dad. She said she was going to give him a category, and he had to list as many things in that category as he could. She said, “The category is animals.” He listed, in order: “Dogs, goats, cats, lions, tigers, anteaters, prairie dogs, caracals, bobcats, bears, elephants.” The therapist was surprised. I said, “That’s what happens when your daughter is a zookeeper.”

It is amazing how much one needs recognition in life sometimes. At least in my life. I have learned a lot about my father, my family, and myself in this time. I have disappointed my father greatly in my younger years, and made him very proud alternatively. I have realized that recognition has a different meaning now. Just being here, or there — present — is enough sometimes. Sometimes it is all we can manage.

Because there is no photo to accompany this post appropriately, here is a photo of better times. This was taken at Katie and Darren’s wedding. Cheers.

   
 
 
It has been one month and one day since my dad has been in shock trauma. It also happens to be his 75th birthday. Not really our choice of venue for a party, but I told all of the nurses throughout this past week that February 10th is a big day. They ask him his birthday every day as part of his cognition questionnaire.

I tried to make it a little festive, within the strict confines and definitively non-party atmosphere in shock trauma. Dad got some happy birthdays from the staff as they walked by. Yesterday, he was able to swallow a little applesauce, so I was optimistic that he could have a birthday treat. When I arrived with a large sheet cake in hand, his nurse du jour shook his head and apologized. Dad hadn’t passed the barium swallow test this morning, so no cake, not even mushed-up, softened cake. I held up a grocery bag and asked, “Ok, how about some chocolate pudding I brought as a backup birthday treat?” The answer was again an apologetic no. Dad’s birthday desserts were then donated to the nursing staff. It actually turned into a thank you gift for them, since Dad is being released to the rehab facility this evening. This is a huge milestone. This is the next stage. This is where they say incredible transformations happen. It is an excellent birthday present.

  
My dad fought his way here, even when he didn’t know he was fighting. I tell him this. Yesterday was the first day that he initiated a conversation in brief phrases, strung together fairly coherently. I have been keeping a daily record of my dad’s ups and downs. I scribbled furiously to capture all of the words he was saying. Out of the blue, he said, “I love you, Kris.” When the speech therapy pathologist came in to see him yesterday, he read the name and title off of her badge, “Vanessa, speech therapy pathologist.” He told her, “My daughter is a lion keeper.” She looked at me quizzically. I nodded. When I first learned a month ago that my dad had stroke-like symptoms and couldn’t speak, I had gone through my voicemail and retrieved as many of my dad’s old messages, regardless of how brief or goofy, as possible. Yesterday was a wonderful day.

Today, February 10th, ends with much hope as we face the challenges ahead.