Lisa called in the morning and said Dad was Bad. He wasn’t responding well to treatment and he wasn’t cooperatiing. She said I should come down.
I didn’t want to go to Florida, the Land of Do Nothing. Pop was in a hospital (JFK!) with doctors who could help him. What could I do? I might just die of boredom.
My wife shadowed me around the kitchen an angel.
“Go,” Angela said. “See him. You might not see him again.” I headed for the living room.
“Help him. Maybe he needs a different voice. You’re The Son.“
I ran upstairs to the bedroom.
“ He might listen to you.” She pointed at my suitcase. No, she wasn’t going to pack for me.
“Do I have a choice?” I said.
“No,” she said.
Buying a one-way ticket on the next plane to South Florida is pretty wild. The fares are competitive because you have a choice of four direct flights on different airlines. One-way, same-days costs about the same as round-trip with planning.
In Florida, the community rule is Chiro has to pick you up at the airport. It’s what he does. He drove a New York City bus for 30 years. Now he’s the ferryman in Greenacres, Florida.
“Let’s go straight to the hopsital,” Chiro said.
“Nah. Let’s go to the condos. I want to drop my bag and reset.”
“Want me to drive you over?”
“Nope, I’ll walk.” Chiro looked sad.
The walk is 2 miles of sunshine and time to think. How can I help the old man? What were his choices? What decisions would we have to make for him?
When could I go home? I had no idea.
When I visit a hospital, I stop at Dunkin Donuts first. Buy a Box of Joe w/ 10 cups and a mix of the fattest dozen donuts. There are no calories in donuts if you didn’t pay for them. They’re a helluva icebreaker.
When you reach the nurse’s desk on Dad’s floor, you put the coffee and donuts on the counter.
“Hey,” said the nurse. “ Who are these donuts for?”
“You,” I say. I pour myself the first cup of Joe. No milk, no sugar.
“And the coffee?” she says.
“For all of you.” I go to Dad’s room with my coffee. I don’t know when this day will end.
Pop is a mess: Rumpled gray hair, weak, bleary. He’s thin, topless, and at 83, has lost his muscles. He was happy to see me. I brought the New York papers. A moment later, he’s happy to ignore me and stops talking.
There’s a frenetic crackle of nervous energy in the room. It’s my sister, Lisa.
Together, Lisa and Dad are a terminal codependency, downward spiraling. Lisa is a nurse in New York and she’s taken Dad as her side hustle. She’s stopped working to take care of him. He pays her rent and her bills. He ignores her, too.
In the room, she’s controlling, confused, and contradicts the nurses and doctors. She writes notes on the back of Walgreen receipts, then loses them.
Dad has had four-six cancers, depending on how you count. He needs competent help and he has Lisa. She muddies facts with her own opinions. Local nurses avoid her.
A nurse peeks in the room, holding a cup of Dunkin. She locks eyes with me.
“Can I talk to you outside?” she said.
We conspire in the hallway. ”He’s not cooperating,” she says. “Your father won’t go to rehab. He has to be in rehab two times a day so he can get well enough to leave.”
“If he doesn’t go to rehab, we will release him. Like, in the morning. Roll his wheelchair to the sidewalk.”
We drink our coffee. “There are people in The Chairs. They want to talk to you and your sister about next steps.”
“OK. Give me a minute.” I step back in Dad’s room.
“Dad. Why aren’t you going to rehab,” I say.
“I don’t want to. I’m too tired. I’m tired all the time,” he says. “And it’s stupid. It’s pullups in a wheelchair. Lisa doesn’t think it helps anyway.”
“Sounds like an easy 20 minutes and you’re back in this room,” I say. “Newspapers and baseball games.”
“I don’t want to and I’m not going.”
I look at Lisa. “Ready to talk with the people in the Chairs?”
“What’s the point,” she says. “ He’s not going to do what they want anyway. I think it’s stupid.”
The Chairs are the most private place people meet in a hospital hallway. They are bowling alley chairs bolted to the wall. Two women are sitting in The Chairs. I’m by myself and say, Hi.
The first woman is from an assisted living place two towns away. She was a nurse for 25 years then moved over to sales at the the nursing home. I wonder how nursing homes get tipped off by hospital staff.
“They can take Dad this afternoon,” she says. “He can do rehab there, or not.”
“He’ll be very happy there,” she said, “For the rest of his life.” Then she runs throught he costs.
The second woman is from a hospice. She was a nurse, too, but got tired of the physical work. It’s a rough job..
“It’s not the end of his life, just for the rest of his life,” she says. They don’t offer rehab. “This should make him happy,” she says. She smiles and say they can take him this afternoon. Then she runs through the costs.
I tell them both:” He wants to go back to New York.” They both nod and say, No. He’s not going anywhere.
You don’t have to decide now, they say, and they each give me their business cards, smiling like sharks. I stand, rub my neck, and take a long walk down the hall. The walls are brilliant white with arrows, each painted in a different color, pointing to different destinations,
There’s a woman standing in an office doorway, waiting for me to catch her gaze. She’s wearing a blazer, not nursing scrubs. She’s holding a cup of Dunkin. “Come on in, Tom.”
We sit in the office, close the door, and drink our coffee together. How does everyone here know my name?
“I’m your father’s case worker. My name is Angela,” she says. Huh. I have a wife named Angela. “Your sister doesn’t listen to the staff. So it’s you. We’ve been waiting for you to arrive. You have a hard decision to make and you need to make it today.”
“If you don’t make a decision, your father will be released in the morning. He still needs help.”
I smiled and said, “I don’t really like the choices. My sister thinks she can take Dad back to the Florida condo and hole up with him until he gets better.”
Angela touches my knee. “I was a nurse for 10 years. I moved into Administration because I can help more people here.
“I’ve seen cases like your father’s so many times. Here’s what’s going to happen:
“Your father has six more good months. Accept that. He’ll seem fine, happy to do nothing. Everything will seem OK.
“Then he’s going to have six bad months. Different organs will shut down. It’s going to be a hard way to die.
“And then he’ll die,” she said.
And then he’ll die.
“Hospice, nursing home, condo, his home in New York, his condo here. Doesn’t matter. Your dad has 12 months. Six good, six bad.
“You have to help him decide how to spend that time.”
We took a pause but held our eye contact. “So how’s the coffee?” I asked.
“Fucking great,” the angel said and hugged me and I cried all over her blazer.
“Good luck,” she said.
I stopped in the nurse’s lounge and refilled my coffee. I stood in the window, watching the Florida sunshine, the reflection of the heat waves, and the fountain spray on the sidewalk right by the hospital entrance. I thought about my kids and the dogs in Virginia and how much simpler life was just this morning. I wanted to sleep in my own bed with my wife.
I wished my mom hadn’t so long ago and that she was here. I wished Eleanor, my dad’s second wife, hadn’t died – and died so quickly. I wished they were both here to take care of Dad and he wouldn’t be reliant on Lisa.
Wishing delays action. I made the hard decision.
I found Dad’s room and sat with him. “Well, what did they want to talk about,” Pop said.
“You’re going to hospice, Pop. You’re going today,” I said.
“What? I don’t want to,” he said. “I won’t.”
“Pop, it’s out of your hands,” I said. “Tomorrow, you’ll be on the sidewalk next to the fountain. You’re too sick for us to care for you.”
“Where is the hospice?”
“Fuck if I know,” I said and dropped the business cards on his bed.
“What if I stay in the Florida condo?” he asked.
“You can’t. You need IVs, medicine, bedpans. You need help. You need to help yourself.”
The frustrated, old man glared at me. He hated me. I stared right back.
He drank my coffee, then pressed the Nurse button, and held it for minutes. Silently, he scowled at me. I crossed my arms, leaned on the wall, and scowled back. We both knew: No one leaves hospice.
A nurse arrived, holding a Dunkin cup.
“Get me a wheelchair,” Pop said. “I have to get to rehab. Right now.” I sat and read about the Yankees.
Two days later, Pop was transferred to Moses, a Jewish rehab center in West Palm. Angela (the social worker) gave me the referral. Moses had assured me that Dad need a week of extensive rehab and exercise, then he’d be well enough to travel home to New York.
Pop and I rode over to Moses in a hospital ambulance, cracking jokes with the driver and attendant. They loved that he was a retired New York fire captain.
“How much,” I said, “to point this rig north and let’s pound up 95 straight to New York? Drive straight through the night? We’ll all take turns driving.” The three of us sideyed Dad. “Except for him, of course.”
“What am I supposed to do?” said Dad. “Just sit there,” said the attendant. He gave me a business card and said to call his boss if I was serious.
Just before Moses, I asked the driver to pull into the Dunkin Donuts drive through. I shouted over the driver at the speaker: “We need a Box of Joe and 2 dozen donuts. Pick the good ones.”
Pop’s room was beautiful. A single, big enough to be a suite. He slept and I sat on the bench couch, writing on my iPad. The sun was warm on my back and neck. The place was calm.
A doctor came in, trailed by three students. They each had a cup of Dunkin. The doctor thanked me for the coffee and he ran down Dad’s condition with his students. I typed notes on my iPad.
He was done and I had one question. “How do I get him home to New York? Can he fly?“
“Ohnonono.” The doctor was serious. Each of the students frowned and sipped Joe. “In your father’s condition, he could form a blood clot in his legs just like that.” He switched his coffee from hand to hand and loudly snapped his fingers. I guess that’s his good hand.
What about Amtrak? “If he can commit to walking up and down the train the entire trip. Nineteen hours. Otherwise, no.”
Said Pop, “I can’t even walk down the hallway!”
“Think about a medical flight,” the doctor said and they all left. I guessed a medical flight would be $4,000 and didn’t even check Google.
I made notes in my iPad. I thought the ambulance, but it’s probably the same as the train: Blood clots if he Dad doesn’t walk around.
I thought about an RV. Mike Curtis and I could switch off driving and there’d be a fridge for our beer. We’d put Lisa on a flight for Newark.
I put a small notebook on the table for Dad and Lisa. They could keep all their notes in one place and keep it right there. “I bet you can fill it up quick,” I said. Lisa wrote some numbers on the back of a receipt and said, hold on to this. I threw the receipt in the trash and handed her the notebook. I wasn’t enabling anyone anymore.
#
It was time for me to fly home; I’d been there a week. This was probably the last time I’d be at Dad’s condo. On his dresser, I found gift cards for Morton’s steakhouse. Ang/I had been buying him cards for years. Pop wasn’t going to Morton’s in the next 12 months.
But Chiro and I were – on the way to the airport! Chiro bragged about his grandchildren, I stared through the tinted windows at the Florida sun. Nothing about this sand and sun made me happy and I knew this was my last trip to Florida.
About a week later, Pop and Lisa took a hillbilly ride on the Amtrak. No wheelchair, they just shuffled through the station, boarded, and rented a little cabin. Pop stretched out and slept 19 hours. He developed no blood clots.
On Facebook, Lisa posted a photo of an exhausted Pop back home in New York, propped up by six pillows on his busted recliner couch, under a New York Football Giants blanket. He looked happy to be home and very, very tired. He wasn’t going to go to rehab in New York, either.
In the picture, Lisa was crying. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was home.