A long, hard story to write

It's easy to get behind on a blog. I would like to think it's because I am too busy living our life than recording it down. That's probably part of it, but not all. There are some moments that seem too big to jot down at the end of a long day. Grandma Margaret passing pushed me back 5 months in my blogging because I wasn't ready to finalize and document her being gone. Silly, I know - but true. I started to slowly catch up but never really got on track. Then our Hawaii trip set me back as well. It was so fun and full of amazing pictures and activities that it too felt too large to just get on the blog in few minutes. Now that I have gone back and filled in many of the things that happened (almost 6 months ago again), I am faced with the next story/life event in our family's timeline. Mother's Day weekend - when I was faced with the horrible realization that my dad, the man that I, like every little girl in the world, felt was indestructable became fearfully sick.

Now, many many months later, the story still feels too big and too impacting to write down completely. I will try to just get it out and, knowing me, it will still be long because I have never gained the skill of keeping to the point or making a story short. I have started using the phrase : a long story long. That's how I seem to tell things, but I will try to make this incredibly long story not quite as long. We'll see. It's important for me to write this down, because as I have said before, this blog is for my kids to have in books as they get older. It's a quick glimpse into our family, their lives growing up, and pretty much their baby books since I admittedly let those slide within 6 months of both their births. But I envision them with these books as a way to remember (or just know) what they grew up doing, experiencing, and loving as a kid. It's almost all about them, but as I am with them day in and out, what affects me affects them as well. And - let's face it - their Papa means the world to them. We almost lost him, and it would have crushed them just as much as the rest of us. Thankfully now, Papa is pretty much himself again and we will forever be grateful for that fact.

My dad has always been super active. Last spring he was on a roll - walking at times 12+ miles a day in preperation for a LONG LONG hike over the summer. He had laser eye surgery during the week, and on a Friday woke up with double vision. Figuring it was part of the side effects, no one was too worried. On Saturday he found he was slurring his speech. After a trip to the hospital (with a funny/scary story of him driving with one eye closed and hoping he could pick which of the two parking spots in front of him was the correct one) he was released later that day because they didn't know what was wrong. Thankfully mom was able to join him there and they ruled out a stroke. When I found out about everything that night, I immediately called my sister. Together we freaked out and decided to do everything we could to get him back under doctor's care to figure out what was going on. First thing Sunday morning, which happened to be Mother's Day, I drove down to Olympia to meet up with my mom and dad who was finally admitted to the hospital in the middle of the night. After a lot of confusion with doctors/tests/symptoms they were all stumped. Kelly came down for a bit and headed back up to MI to see if she could make more calls and get more heads together on what could be happening to dad. Without other ideas, the doctors in Oly started treating dad for a nerve disorder with meds that were supposed to make things better within 24 hours. So I headed back to Bellevue to have dinner with the kids for Mother's Day, but just felt off. I felt like, even though we were told he was getting treatment, I needed to be there for him. At dinner, I decided to go back. I didn't even go home to grab stuff - I just drove back. That night I spent next to my dad, watching him get weaker and sicker. It was horrible. By midnight, we were asking his night nurse about getting him checked for botulism after my sister had gotten information from a doctor up here that he had all the symptoms for that and it was crucial to rule that out. Mom had asked the nurse about this before she left that evening for the night to finally get some sleep, but the nurse said it wasn't what was happening. The problem is no one had asked my dad. He overheard them talking about it and when I got there that night we discussed it and that's when we found out that he had canned his own meat. This made botulism VERY likely. Talking more with dad and the nurse (who happened to be a hunter as well and familiar with canning meat) it seemed like we had figured out on our own what was happening. I can say there is nothing more frustrating than knowing this could be REALLY REALLY bad, watching dad get progressivly worse as the night went on (no longer able to walk much, needing to rest upright with trouble breathing, not able to open his eyelids, etc) and having no one come to help. I found every chance I would to get the nurse in there. Kept asking for a doctor - stayed awake all night in hopes that if the doctor finally showed up I wouldn't miss them. By the next morning, dad was a lot worse. I was tired, frustrated and grumpy...and above all, scared. It wasn't until mom got back (a little bit rested and surprised to see me there) and there was a shift change that we finally got people to take us seriously and get on the botulism concern. I could go on and on about all of this and that day and my frustrations, but to get to the point he was finally treated for botulism. He had made his venison (which he was adament was delicioius) and in the canning process didn't have the jars sealed correctly, thus allowing the botulism to grow. A few days later, after a lot of issues with hospital politics and a wonderfully persistent Kelly getting things taken care of to get dad up here, and a patient mom keeping dad calm at the hospital, we got dad up here in Seattle for rehab. He had lost the ability to swallow (hello nose tube and eventually stomach tube), for a while could not hold his neck up, was unable to make saliva, struggled to walk and open his eyes. He saw double and had trouble speaking. It was the scariest thing ever - our dad who has always been so charismatic, so calm, so strong and such a source of comfort for us was struggling to breathe and we could see in his eyes that he was scared. Very scared.

My mom was back in her role of hospital helper - a role she had with grandma and didn't expect to have to do again with dad (at least for many many years from now). She made sure dad had what he needed, organized visitors, and kept the Starbucks in the hospital in Seattle in business. In the end, we were lucky. REALLY lucky. Dad didn't have to be on any breathing machines (incredibly common in botulism poisoning) and got the anti toxin in time to not have too many lasting effects. It was a long road - months of slow recovery - but he finally got his feeding tube out, got to eat normal food again, was able to use a cane to start walking again, and was able to speak clearly again. Now, he is pretty much back to normal. He can enjoy wine, be back full time at work, and even start to work out again. True to dad/Papa style, he has worked so hard and gotten healthy and strong much quicker than they said he would. We are thankful he is on the path to being 100% again, but I think it would be silly for me to say he will be the same. He wont be. None of us will be the same after this, because we all were faced with the horrible glimpse of what could have been. It was too serious, too scary for us all to deny that we almost lost him. I have said before that I do not deal with death well. I just don't. Even the thought of it now makes me cry. But after this ordeal, it has really reminded me that I can't think about the possible loss but the amazing gain. Gain of time, perspective, and future memories as a family.

*Edit: This was written in 2013. As I have just now come back to my blog in 2018, I found this in my drafts and hit "publish".