I haven't been very active in the last year, and I apologize. It hasn't been because I've lost heart or energy for political issues, but merely that real life got int he way.
As some of you know, In January, 2008,. my Dad came to live with us. He suffered from Parkinson's and, we learned by accident, Alzheimer's, as well as COPD. Taking care of an 88-year-old man with those illnesses is difficult even if they have the temperament of a saint--and Dad was never a saint. He always had a quick temper and he was always sharp-tongued with me and seemed to take great pleasure in regaling complete strangers with any story in which I came off badly. He also missed Mom terribly (she had died 3 years earlier)and seemed to resent my being alive when she was gone.
Dad's health worsened that October. He had a TMI. Then, in November, he had a bout of pneumonia. At this point, I believe his Alzheimer's worsened. He became difficult to deal with. He accused us of physically hurting him. By January of 1009, he had pneumonia again, and we had to force him to go to the hospital--he only went because the EMTs told him he really needed to. There he complained to the ER staff that we weren't nice to him, and he was dressed in my husband's ill-fitting and ancient sweats because we wouldn't dress him properly. Fortunately, the staff knew he had dementia. FYI, the only reason he was in my husband's sweats was because he refused to let us buy him any, and it was very cold that day--and, frankly, sweats are easier to get on and off a belligerent and incontinent dementia sufferer when they need to pee instantly (you don't know how hard it is to unbutton and unzip pants on a squirming old man who is demanding he must go NOW, until you've tried it).
Dad was too ill for us to care for after that hospital stay, so we let him go into a nursing home for rehab. He never got to the point of walkign again,and his mental state deteriorated. After three days, I understood why he was confined to a wheelchair (to prevent him from trying to walk and falling and breaking his hip or killing himself) and why they had administered a lot of meds that left him drooling. Dad was abusive and difficult, refusing to comply with anything we asked him to do, whether it was to call for help getting to the toilet or allowing us to order pull-on pants that were easier for all of us to get on and off. We had reached the decision that we were going to have to find a nursing home for him. Before that happened, Dad died in May. I think he was ready to go join Mom, and all I felt immediately afterward was relief. Yes, I cried, but the husk of a man we cremated hadn't been the Dad I loved so dearly as a childfor a long time.
That opened up the new phase of Dad Mess. He had a living trust, but the paperwork was scattered all over the place (Dad wouldn't put it all together, nor would he discuss it with us, back in '08 when he was still capable of it). The lawyer who drew up the trust refused to talk with us because we were in a different state. We've spent months straightening things out and attempting to sell his house in Florida and still have to finish GA probate. The house sold for only $10 K over what Dad paid for it, but what we made from it will pay the mortgage here while my husband, who dropped out of nursing school to care for Dad, finishes his degree. Frankly, the whole situation left me emotionally exhausted and unable to write. It is hard to remember that your purpose was to drain the swamp when you're up to your ears in alligators, after all.
We've also had some computer issues, and intend to get this one running right after we buy a new CPU. Once that happens, I promise I'll be back--because a lot of crap, from the attempt to write in further restrictions on abortion under the guise of health care reform to media refusal to point out the teabaggers' lies, haven seriously annoyed me.
So here's where I stand: once my Dad's estate is straightened out, irishwitch will return with as big a shanty-Irish mouth as ever.