lost⚓anchor

The longer I go without GH, the worse I get at making decisions. The more I just sit here, unmotivated, waiting for something to change. Helping take care of my father as needed, but otherwise just sitting here. I don't know what to do. 

My routines aren't a luxury, any more than a wheelchair is a luxury. GH alone isn't the issue. My success has not been about self-sufficiency but resourcefulness - and resources. 

My flight here feels like something from another universe, a distant memory, maybe a dream. Every day we sit outside my sister's tiny apartment, overlooking the Honolulu skyline. Like I'm in some sort of paradise while the world is burning.

A year ago, I was fretting about the college classes I'd been taking. I had a knee injury that I didn't yet realize the severity of. I hadn't talked to my father in quite a while, but meant to visit one of these days. I was busy cheering Bernie on. I was still walking my cousin's dog four days a week. I was nowhere near Hawaii.

take care

I was supposed to go home three days ago. Still not sure when I should go home now. My father has been doing much better. My sister doesn't want to give me the credit, but that isn't the point in itself. If I've been helping, that changes what it means to leave. From my perspective, I seem to be making a substantial difference. I'm afraid to leave.

Some of it is cyclical; he may be doing better this week and worse next. Getting him to eat and drink isn't easy. He doesn't know what he wants. We have to be pushy about it, while offering something he might be able to eat. It can't be the same thing too often. It's a challenge. My sister doesn't have the time for it all day long the way I've been doing. Frankly, I might have more of a knack for it, too.

Since I got here, he went from refusing to eat anything, to eating small amounts five or six times a day. He was drinking a lot of grapfruit juice too, but now he won't drink much of anything. So it's an ongoing challenge, but I think his health has improved largely because he started eating again. I've been able to help him get around, so he doesn't fall. I'm terrified of him injuring himself, without me here. It's no small thing that my presence seems to help psychologically, too.

For now, I'm taking it one day at a time. Every moment feels so precious, better spent sitting here with my father than doing anything else. When I'm home, the days bleed together, weeks and months go by so easily. I let almost six months go by, before I could even get here. Now, six months is a lifetime and then some. I'm afraid to miss a single day. I don't understand how I'm supposed to just leave.

stranded

"It's heavy," my father said, looking at me as he lifted the doughnut from the clear plastic the half dozen had been sold in. I knew what he was getting at. A proper dougnut shouldn't be so heavy. These weren't really doughnuts, but your typical cake ring likeness. Not terrible, but not a real doughnut.

I used to care about that sort of thing, back when I used to eat donuts. Donuts and coffee were a favorite breakfast of mine, once upon a time. I was discriminating about the sort of donuts they were, and my father knew that. For the moment, he remembered it. I appreciated the glimmer of who he was, the reminder of who he is, still in there somewhere.

His behaviour makes sense now. Last I saw him was before the pandemic locked everything down. I had some idea, but I had no idea. My sister didn't articulate it to me. Aside from aging about forty years, he's also not the same person he was six months ago. It's difficult to discern why. Maybe Parkinson's disease or neurological damage from the chemo. The sodium deficiency really brought it to a head.

He can't carry on any sort of conversation. Questions have to be very simple and direct. He gets confused when his own sentences are longer than a few words, but he's sometimes cognizent enough to realize he isn't making sense. He knows he's having trouble thinking. No fucking wonder he didn't call me.

My entire life has been devoted to taking care of him since I got here. My sister works from home, and and aside from that, so has her's. My father's also having serious balance and spatial awareness issues. On his good days, he can barely walk. When his abdominal pain gets bad, he doesn't understand why the doctors can't cure a stomach ache. He talks about seeing more of the island when he's feeling better. I don't tell him that he's only going to feel worse, but I'm afraid my tears give it away.

He seemed better equipped to deal with this months ago, but now he's in denial. Naive, almost child like. We can't have any deep conversations about life and death. I just do my best to comfort him.

I had to cancel my flight back home. My sister is trying to get some assistence from what they call "integrative care" here in Hawaii. My father's beyond regular care, but it's been a challenge to get him to agree to the transition. We've struggled to even explain to him why we need to do this. We're also working on giving my sister authority to make such decisions for him. Which scares the hell out of me, but there isn't another option. I can't do it from Vermont, and I can't move here. 

I can't leave either, until I see that they're getting more help, because there's no way my sister can do this alone. Due to the pandemic, trying to get my departure date changed was more expensive than getting a refund and buying a new one-way ticket. So now I'm here on this island in the middle of the pacific, without a ticket home.

Oh, and down to $200 in the bank. My sister has been paying for everything. On the one hand, I'm thinking I should head home as early as Monday. On the other, I'm thinking how the hell am I going to leave at all.

impending doom

I'm waiting to hear from my sister, as to whether my father has been discharged from the hospital. She is waiting to hear from his doctor. My father tried to call her, but she couldn't understand him, because he's been delirious from sodium deficiency. 

I'm supposed to leave for Hawaii in a few hours. The airline was nice enough to send me a notice that the flight is fairly crowded, so if I care about my health or anything like that, I might want to take another plane. Hopefully my father will be out of the hospital when I get there, because if he's not, I won't even be allowed to see him.

I try to come to terms with never seeing him again, but what really gets me bawling is thinking about him wanting to see me once more. 

the calculus of mental health

I've learned to be very conscientious about mental health. It's counter intuitive. The brain hasn't evolved to be aware of itself. It is only natural to see this as abstract - while behaving recklessly with the mental health of ourselves and others, proclaiming our invincibility as we get ourselves killed.

It's not an easy thing to make sense of. What's best for us can involve doing unpleasant, difficult, or even harmful things to get there. So we need to asses whether it's worth doing. How much risk we're taking on, and how rewarding it will be. Sometimes these variables can be quite serious and not at all abstract.

What an unimpeachable characteristic, to say to hell with all that; I'm going to do what's right, I'm going to care about others and do whatever I can. This is beautifully naive, but naive just the same. Consequences can be complicated and indirect. Roads to hell are paved with good intentions,while a better understanding of consequences can be all about doing the most good overall.

there's something about coffee

After decades of gathering anecdotal evidence, I've come to suspect that there is something substantial to coffee aside from caffeine. Occasionally I find vague references to "compounds" that stimulate adenosine, or have other health benefits, but it's difficult to even search for, because the vast majority of material out there treats the benefits of coffee and caffeine as synonymous.

Now that I'm quitting it again, I've realizing even half a cup of decaf feels more potent than multiple cups of tea. I know decaf has some caffeine still, but it should be much less than a cup or two of tea. Maybe my physiology is different, and I'm more sensitive to something in coffee other than caffeine. Or maybe other people just don't pay much attention. I don't know.

I've had to give up decaf too, as it ended up feeling like being addicted to coffee all over again. When I'm feeling especially desperate for a fix, I try drinking some green tea instead, but the caffeine in it doesn't seem to do anything. I remember noting in the past that without caffeine, I tend to blog less, post to social media less, attempt to socialize in general less. Temporarily, I guess, but so far, I keep going back to caffeine, so who knows.