Ephemera and Rants

At a party yesterday, I spoke with someone who's at the beginning end of a good bout of parental health care issues. This person's family health issue will involve open heart surgery. I've been there w/ a much younger (40-something)  patient, so I can speak to some matters (6 weeks is a long time to be the one lifting anything over 5 pounds, and doing all the driving-- which is needful while a crack-the-sternum open heart surgery patient allows the broken bones to heal). Plus, of course, there are other family issues, too.

This person will need to vent and rant over the course of the parent's healing from surgery.

I got an idea: We need to have a support group (in the form of happy hour) for those of us who're dealing with this. Get together to rant. And do so in the style of peace pipe (or other item): Whoever holds the item has the floor for the duration of the rant... and then pass on the item to the next person.

It's a strange term, that. Congestive heart failure. There are all sorts of articles about it, but it comes down to this: The heart doesn't work as well as it used to. It doesn't have oomph, and leaky valves on bloodflow's heartbound leg and narrower valves on the outgoing leg mean that fluid accumulates in the legs and the lungs, and the body is starved of oxygen.

I'm one of several adult children. My brother, who's been the point person on Dad's medical situation, needs to go outta town for a couple of weeks, and so I'm now the point person. We had our transition handoff visit on Friday when Dad, Bro and I went to the cardiologist to get briefed on the results of Dad's echocardiogram. Three bad valves, swelling in legs, and fluid in the chest cavity, weak "pump" output... that's the state of my Dad's heart. When I wrote up the results in an email to my siblings, and reflected on it more, I was struck by the picture. Inbound from the rest of the body... leaky valve. That explains the accumulation of fluid in his legs. Inbound oxygenated blood from the lungs, there's a leaky mitral valve.. which explains the high blood pressure in the veins in the lungs. And (possibly) the liquid. And the valve on the outbound from the heart to the rest of the body is too narrow.... The doc said that Dad is not a good candidate for surgery. So he'll be treated by diuretics to keep the extra fluids down.

I don't know why the swollen legs -- on their own -- don't speak as eloquently to me as the swollen legs plus knowledge of the leaky valves, but it was this meditation on the systemic cause that tickled a kind of despair inside me. Because legs can be raised, but the valve will continue to leak and backwash. There's no real fix.

I see the writing on the wall. No one knows the day or the hour, but the trend is clear.

While doing some research this evening -- at Thanksgiving, Dad showed some signs of mental deterioration -- I looked up Alzheimer's and dementia. Then checked out related dementias, and found this little gem called Wernicke-Korsakoff (not a character from a Saturday morning cartoon). It's a dementia found in those who have a history of heavy alcohol use.

I'm stuck in something extremely arcane. It's painful and arcane, and am taking hours to figure out what is the best way to fill out some form in the obscure backwaters of the United States Tax Code. The amount?

Five  dollars.

I kid you not. Five freakin' dollars.

But it's been reported to the IRS, so I jolly well better jump through these hoops. Except that I try to do the reading comprehension test in TurboTax, and the software tells me I'm doing it wrong, and I need to fill out a separate workseet. Oh, and the forms given me and their options in TurboTax do not match, either.

All for sums that are so small as to not make a difference in my bottom line.

But it must be done, it must be done.

And while I work on this, I am not working for money. I am not contributing to the Gross National Product. See a problem here?

The month-long December gig that fell through after a week and a half is back on again. I'm working at the office of a design studio in town; "The Client" is actually his client. I worked a few hours this afternoon; what changes has The Client made and what alterations do we need to do to the December files? I dug in and got to work. Toward the end of my time there, Design Studio Guy and I talk about the schedule. I can come in on Wedesday, Thursday afternoon. Friday, no (and it's not because it's Good Friday; it's because I'm presenting an event Saturday)

DSG: What about the weekend? Can you come in Saturday afternoon?
Pencil: No, I'll be doing that event all day, and I'll be toast afterwards.
DSG: --Any other time over the weekend?
Pencil: No, Sunday is Easter.
pause.
Oh (just remembering) and I have family in town this week! (er, that's visiting family w/in an hour's drive, not staying with me)
DSG:  (thinks a moment). How about next week?
Pencil: Next week's much better. This week... well, I think passover starts tonight, at sunset. And Friday's Good Friday. This really is holy week.
pause.
You know, the Client's timing is uncanny. When they bailed on the job, it didn't ruin our Christmas this year, like it did the year before.  It just figures that they'd pick up the ball again right in time for Easter.

I followed a link to visit the advent calendar on day 1. Saw that stories were needed. Tried to think of some. Did and didn't. Thought of writing to ask if more were needed, but didn't do that, either.

Now, 7 days into the calendar, and 12, or 13 days into the month, I learn that Leslie Harpold has died. Read many blogs of reactions of those who knoew her. Good friends, net friends, met just a couple of time friends.

My story is less than that. It's the story of one who glanced and thought of contacting and is stung, a little over a week later, that the person I thought of is no more.

And yet in reading the reactions, I feel diminished by her passing.