HAFA ADAI:
JTG is a pan-dimensional sentient life-form composed of pure quantum energy. In order to more easily observe and fully interact with the mostly harmless resident beings of this space-time continuum, JTG acquired a corporeal humanoid form via a materialization process from a Monterey Bay fog bank into a lettuce field in the Salinas Valley of Central California. As incredible as it seems, JTG's life is based on a true story. Via this virtual interface, JTG issues interesting and important random reverberations about Life, the Universe, and Everything. And now you know more than you ever thought possible. So long and thanks for all the fish! Lather. Rinse. Repeat. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Astrology reading.
AD ASTRA!!!
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0 50 100 | % | Openness
| 93% | Conscientiousness
| 51% | Extraversion
| 56% | Agreeableness
| 49% | Neuroticism
| 65% |
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Posted Monday, March 22, 2010; 3:44 pm
Dad’s been weak the past couple of days. After the Fall a few days ago, he started getting quite week. It seems like cause and effect, but there doesn’t seem to be anything connecting the two things. He doesn’t seem to have injured himself in any way; no pain or swelling or other obvious problems.
I’m beginning to wonder if this weakness and past spells of weakness are linked to low oxygen saturation. Now that we have our own oxyimeter to measure Dad’s oxygen saturation, we can see it dropping into the 80s and even 70s when he walks about without any oxygen at times.
Dad has had weakness before, so perhaps it’s connected with low oxygen saturation that went unmeasured in the past?
Also, Dad was getting nebulizer breathing treatments while he was in Rehab and he doesn’t yet have a nebulizer at home. An organization called “Advantacare” was supposed to be bringing a nebulizer and other medical stuff to him, but so far nothing, and it’s going on a week. I’ve tried to call Advantacare, but the phone rings and rings with no answer. Odd. I’ve called Washlin at the Ridge Rehab to ask him if he knows what’s going on and if he can do anything.
So, hopefully Dad’s oxygen levels will go back up and he won’t need oxygen 24/7 in future. But if he does, then a fundamental change in both our lives has begun. He’ll require a lot more direct care, and I’ll be even more tied to him.
Time will tell.
Posted Sunday, March 21, 2010; 3:51 pm
Dad is still feeling weak today. His oxygen levels are low when he isn’t using oxygen, so this seems to be more than psychological. He took a shower awhile ago, and when he got out of the shower, his oxygen reading was down to 71%, very very dangerously low.
Now he’s using his oxygen and his Oxygen saturation level is in the 90s.
I want him to come with me to go walk in Northridge Mall, but he’s refusing, and he’s being very angry and mean to me again. He shouted “EVERYTHING AROUND HERE IS GOING TO SHIT”, and in saying so implied it’s my fault. I tried to tell him that he’s not helping himself by making life so miserable for me that I can hardly stand to be around him, especially when I’m the only person around to help him. Maybe a nursing home may be the only option if he can’t control his anger.
But I hope not.
Posted Sunday, March 21, 2010; 3:31 am
Friday night Dad had another fall.
Dad had been having a good day. We’d gotten up early to take him to a Foot doctor to look at the toenail on one of his big toes that had been smashed in his fall that got him in the hospital this last time. The toenail had been hanging on barely, but neither the Hospital nor the Ridge Rehab would do anything about it.
Now that Dad’s out, we went to have it taken care of. Afterwards, we went to Northridge Mall, had breakfast at the McDonald’s in the Mall, and we walked through the Mall. Dad did pretty well and only had to rest a couple of times, compared to about 10 times the day before.
We came home and spent the rest of the day at home. That evening we watched a couple of Smallville episodes. We had been watching the whole series from the Pilot episode as I’d recorded it on the DVR from the HD-Net channel, and Dad’s going into the hospital meant I had recorded about 20 episodes for us to watch.
That evening about 10 pm, just as I was thinking of going to bed, Dad walked through the living room and tripped and fell. Fortunately, he didn’t seriously hurt himself, but that was not clear at first.
He scraped his hand and there was a lot of blood all over the place, in part because He’s been taking a blood thiner drug called Plavix. Dad kept saying that his ankle felt “weird”. I kept asking Dad what he meant by “weird” and he only repeated “weird’. Dad is not very articulate, particularly in describing how he’s feeling.
Putting my Eagle Scout first aid into effect, I did a quick examination of his ankle while he laid on the floor. I didn’t see any obvious swelling nor discoloration nor poking of bones through his skin. Still, Dad kept saying his ankle felt “weird’, so I kept looking over his ankle and had him lie on the ground and calm down and rest. I told him to wait to try to get up because if his ankle was broken, trying to walk on it would likely make it worse, and I further told him that if he thought his life was tough now, imagine what it would be like if he lost that foot because he insisted on walking on it while broken.
After a few minutes, I got Dad over to a chair and he scooted up into it. I told him to rest in that chair and did another exam of his ankle, which he still insisted felt “weird”. I pressed gently in the regions where he said it hurt, but it didn’t cause him any extra pain, and there was still no swelling nor discoloration. However, Dad has very bad neuropathy, so his sensation in his legs isn’t very good, and I considered that in spite of this, he could have a broken ankle, minor as it might be at this point.
So, I got Dad to stay in the chair and talked about taking him to the Hospital. He insisted he didn’t want to go, and that he “had enough of that place”. I again pointed out the consequences of not going if he indeed had a broken ankle.
I got some hydrogen peroxide and a warm washcloth and got the blood cleaned up, and it turned out to be just a couple of small scrapes.
I went out into the garage and brought in a wheelchair we’ve had for years to wheel him out to the car. When I got it in the living room, Dad insisted we wait because he was “feeling better”. So I said we’d wait awhile and see how things developed.
We watched another episode of Smallville. It was Season 7 Episode 6 in which Kara El, aka Supergirl, breaks into a secret government lab, but is captured and injected with liquid kryptonite which acted like a truth serum.
When it was over, I again checked Dad’s leg, and he said it still hurt, but insisted it didn’t hurt, so I helped him get up, asking him questions about how he felt, did he feel any grinding of bones or pain and he didn’t
He got to bed soon after that and slept in to about Noon.
He said his ankle was sore, but not too bad. He said his back hurts, but that’s the same ache he’s had for years.
He’s said that he feels weak today. The fall may have been physically quite draining, but I think that the shock of the fall may also have been psychologically quite draining as well. We’ll see after a day or so of rest.
We didn’t go out together today and he just rested. Tomorrow we’ll go walking again and see how he feels. I think he’ll be OK soon, I hope.
Tonight Dad started talking about going into a nursing home. I was very surprised because Dad has often insisted he would never go to one. The fall really shook him up. I told him that I didn’t think going to a nursing home would be much of a solution because they wouldn’t be pushing him to walk and exercise the way I do, and just being in a nursing home didn’t mean he wouldn’t fall. Also, his experience in rehab and nursing homes in the past while recovering don’t give a lot of confidence that he’d get very good care at all. After all, his first Rehab Room mate in the Ridge had pressed the nurse call button and nobody came for about a half hour, and he was having a heart attack, and died the next day–and the Ridge is a “skilled nursing” facility. A regular “nursing home” would be even worse.
I am getting concerned about his memory. For example, he has no memory that my brother John came to visit him while he was at the Ridge Rehab. One day when Dad had been in Rehab for several weeks, a doctor asked him how long he’d been there, and Dad said “about a week”, and when I told him it had been several weeks, Dad was surprised it had been that long. He remembers his past very well, but recent events seem to fade soon. I’m concerned that he’s slowly sliding into a total loss. That may be a long time away, because he’s still quite alert and aware most of the time, but it’s still a concern.
It seems that just as Dad starts to get better, something new happens.
Posted Friday, March 19, 2010; 2:17 am
Today was Dad’s first day out of rehab.
A nurse from Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) came by to do an initial evaluation of Dad, and to fill out and sign paperwork.
After she left, I asked Dad if he would go with me to drop off the list of prescriptions at Dr. Patton’s office, and he initially said no. I got on his case about this. I pointed out that on his first day out of Rehab, I shouldn’t be begging him to get up and get out. I said that i was very tired of begging hi to do things he should do to extend his life. and he finally agreed to go.
After i dropped off the list of his prescriptions, We went for a drive out to the coast and up to Watsonville and back to 101 and back to Salinas. Not much of a drive, but it was better than the nothing he’s been staring at for weeks in Rehab.
On the way back we stopped at Northridge mall and I had him walk all the way through the Mall. He objected at first, but I pushed hin to keep going. “What else do you have to do?”, I asked him. I told him we had plenty of time and he could rest all he needed.
He eventually made it all the way from one end of Northridge to the other and back again. He had to rest every few hundred feet, but he made it, and he said he felt better.
I think he should have been walking more in rehab, but walking carries with it the risk of falling, and I think the Ridge Rehab was probably afraid of him falling. It’s also a lot more work to get someone to walk, follow alongside, and watch them to protect them from falling than to hand them a few weights and tell them to do 20 reps and wait until you come back to them.
So now it’s my turn to work out the Pa.
I told him we are going to go walking almost every day for awhile. I don’t know if he’ll keep it up or go into fits of anger and I’ll have to back off soon. We’ll see.
Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010; 8:34 am
Dad’s home from Rehab.
Yesterday we went for a drive out through Castroville and into Seaside, where we stopped at Church’s Fried Chicken and got a box of chicken. We came home and sure enough, with two minutes he was screaming at me, saying that everything I’ve done for him over the past month was “nothing”.
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010; 9:23 am
I just got a call from Washlin, the social worker at the Ridge Rehab facility. Washlin said that there had been a snag, Dr. Patton didn’t sign a medical release for Dad, and he’s out of town today and won’t be back until tomorrow, so Dad’s in for another day. I thought of asking if another doctor could sign, but I still have a lot of work to do about the house, and Dad still has another day of antibiotics to take, so I didn’t.
Washlin asked how I thought Dad would take it. I said he wouldn’t be happy, in fact he’d likely be mad, but probably wouldn’t take it out on him.
So another day to get things arranged. I might just get it done now.
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010; 7:54 am
Dad gets out of Rehab today, I suppose pretty much when I go to get him.
I’ve been up all night cleaning the house and getting ready or him, but I already know that even if the house were cleaner than when he left, he’d still be angry.
I’m glad to see him get out, but I have some anxiety. It has been somewhat of a relief to be away from his anger and rages since he went into the hospital, and I’m concerned that his homecoming will resume those rages. I hope the past month in hospital and rehab have mellowed him somewhat, but I guess I’ll be seeing soon.
jtg
Posted Sunday, March 14, 2010; 11:13 pm
Dad’s one more day towards release, two days and a wakeup as we’d say in the military.
He’s doing much better, and each day he appears alert and strong, considering he’s almost 83.
A couple of days ago at Dr. Grogan’s office, the doc asked him how long he’d been in Rehab, and Dad said “about a week”. I informed him it’s been several weeks, and Dad was surprised at how much time has passed. I’ve noticed over the years that he has lost a sense of time passing. This latest thing of not realizing how long he’s really been in rehab is an example. Another example from the past was when Lindsey had some pups, and when they were only about 3 weeks old, he was insisting they were 3 MONTHS old, and we had to “get rid of them while they were still cute”.
His Rehab Roomie BillyBob is quite a character. Last night when I took Dad a pair of pants because the facility hasn’t done his laundry lately and thus had no clean clothes, I ran into BillyBob in the hallway, and Billybob proceeded to tell me that he was trying to get Dad to agree to have a hooker he knew service him, but Dad was refusing.
Tonight while I was visiting Dad, BillyBob went outside with another Rehab resident and when he came back, he was staggering and incoherent and flopped into his bed, and asked me to call for a nurse. The nurse came in and checked his vitals, and from what I heard, they were normal. She asked him if he’d taken anything, and he denied it. About an hour later, he was back up and alert.
It reminded me of what I’ve heard about some kinds of drugs, particularly some kinds of injection drugs, in that one goes through a brief high period of 30 minutes or so, and then you’re ready for more. Billybob went through that pattern.
I think Billybob could be bad news, and I made a point of telling Dad that I didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to find out where we lived. Our phone number is unlisted, and unless Dad gives him an address, we should be OK unless he’s more persistant and has some connections to find us. I do not want to have to deal with him showing up at the front door at 3 am some night, high off his ass asking for a place to stay.
So, another reason to get Dad out.
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jtg
Posted Friday, March 12, 2010; 11:25 pm
Dad’s current room mate in Rahab is a guy named BillyBob, or Bill Williams.
He’s a former Navy guy, a Radioman second class, who was shot in Vietnam.
He’s in rehab because several years ago he broke his neck in an auto accident. The way he tells it, he left the hospital as soon as he could, before he should have. After several years, complications of his poorly healed neck bones finally forced him to have an operation to try to fix the problem. He’s in rehab now to recover, but he is an idiot about it as he keeps getting up and going outside to smoke, literally every few minutes while he’s awake. He also has been leaving the rehab facility to go out and do things around town. While the facility is not a prison, he should stick around and rest. He’s also refused all physical therapy. On top of all this, he is constantly whining about how much pain he’s in, and blames the doctors because they won’t give him lots of drugs to ease the pain, ignoring that if he’d rest in bed, and not be jumping up every few minutes, maybe he’d heal.
Today he told a story, bragging, of how he had just been thrown out of the Community Hospital of Monterey Penn, CHOMP. He told a strange disjointed story, but here’s what I got.
He knows a 28 year old woman who he described as smart and beautiful. She is in CHOMP with less than 48 hours to live because she’s a Crack addict and has abused her body. Aside, she doesn’t sound too smart nor likely “beautiful” to me. She has a couple of children Billy described as “toeheaded”, which he said means “blonde”.
He went over to CHOMP and told the hospital staff that he was her “stepfather”, which is is not. Her real mother was there, and apparently they wouldn’t let him in to see her.
Billy has a way about him that is outright crazy, as in violent criminal crazy, at least potentially. He shouted “FUCK YOU” at one of the doctors who told him he couldn’t see his friend. WHen he was told he had to leave the hospital, he said “NO” and further said he was “going to the cafeteria to get a piece of cake before he left”. He told this part as though it was some clever act of defiance. He was finally escorted off hospital grounds by security guards.
I am not clear just what the relationship between Billy and his dying friend was. Since he claimed he was a stepfather, it doesn’t sound like it was sexual, but among Billy’s other vices he seems to be a pervert, so it’s likely his relationship with this woman isn’t merely plutonic.
He is a conservative, says Sarah Palin is a “good person”, claims he knows John McCain, and spouts Faux News talking points about “Freedom” and “Liberty” while denouncing socialism, but at the same time, he is taking advantage of a socialized medical system.
He’s also been abusive to the Rehab staff, shouting at nurses and rehab therapists, and sexually harassing the pretty ones, particularly the Philippinas, whom he seems to have a thing for.
BillyBob is getting the boot next Wednesday. Unlike Dad, I get the feeling that this isn’t totally his decision, but a result of his poor behavior.
Posted Thursday, March 11, 2010; 11:37 pm
Dad’s coming home next Wednesday.
He’s quite glad about that. He really doesn’t like being at the rehab facility and I don’t blame him.
Today he had an appointment with Dr. Grogan, his cardiologist. to talk about his heart rate doing silly things, like dropping down to the mid 40s and even high 30s while he exercised. Dr. Grogan seems to think that this is not real, but an artifact of the unusual heartbeat his pacemaker causes.
Last week Dad wore a “Holter Monitor”, which is a 24 hour EKG. It measured his heart rate for 24 hours, and it showed his heart rate was good throughout the time frame. The Holter monitor is much more accurate than the finger sensors the rehab therapists and nurses use, so the conclusion is that he has nothing to worry about.
So Dad’s coming home soon. 
jtg
Posted Thursday, February 4, 2010; 4:47 am
Yesterday, Dad wasn’t feeling well for awhile.
His blood pressure was about 90/40 and his heart rate was about 40 beats per minute. Both those readings are very low. We double checked with two different meters, so it wasn’t faulty equipment giving bad readings.
He was looking pale and was weak and confused and angry.
He has a pacemaker that’s never supposed to let his heart rate go below 60 beats per minute, so a 40 beat per minute reading means, I think, either a malfunction of the pacemaker or a malfunction of Dad’s heart.
So I told him he was going to the Emergency Room.
Now for some background.
Dad has been increasingly a couch potato. He absolutely refuses to go out to walk most of the time unless I push him hard, and he gets very grumpy and angry and verbally abusive when I try to get him to do something all his doctors have been insisting he does.
He’s been eating very poorly, letting very fatty and artery clogging foods.
Recently he’s had several periods of brief blindness, where the vision in one of his eyes will go to zero for several minutes. Coincidently, it’s never happened while I’ve been home.
He’s also had several periods of sudden dizzyness, and a few days ago, he fell in the bathroom, fortunately falling against the sink and only having a bad bruise instead of a broken hip. More fortunately, I was home and awake at 3 am to help him get up or he might have fallen the rest of the way to the floor as he couldn’t get up by himself.
Dad told his doctor about this and his doctor immediately had him schedule for an ultrasound exam of his neck. The results were forwarded to his surgeon, Dr. Calzetta, the same guy who took out a piece of his lung cancer a few years ago. Dr. Calzetta said that Dad “flunked” the exam as it showed his carodic arteries, which feed blood to his brain, were becoming blocked, and the periodic blindness events were likely a result of that.
Dad was sent out for a more accurate test, a CAT scan using a contrast dye. Unfortunately, a blood test showed that Dad’s kidneys were not good enough to deal with the dye, which is rather toxic even for a good kidney.
Tomorrow Dad and I are going back to Dr. Calzetta to see what happens next.
The blockages in Dad’s carodic arteries is a big problem. About ten years ago, he had surgery, done by Dr. Calzetta, to cut open his neck and clean out his right Carodic artery. However, Dr. Calzetta thinks Dad is too weak to handle surgery. During recovery from the Lung Cancer Surgery a couple years ago, Dad nearly died, and Dr. Calzetta said he will never perform another surgery on Dad again. So the probable treatment will probably be drugs, exercise and diet adjustment. Diet will be hard because Dad has absolutely no clue about what foods contain what. For example, I’ve tried to explain carbs to him many times, but he never remembers.
The blockage of his Carodic arteries, if it’s indeed as severe as we now believe, means that Dad is much more likely to suffer a stroke. From what I know, I’m afraid that this means that for Dad the end may come suddenly and unexpectedly, and even if he doesn’t die from an initial stroke, his mental ability will likely be gone and he may be a shell before his body goes.
Yesterday morning, I saw Dad lying in bed, still, silent, with no sign of motion nor sign of breathing, and not using his oxygen nor CPAP sleep machine. I watched and could not see anything for about 60 seconds, and I reached out to shake him, and I was sure he would be cold and stiff. Fortunately, he wasn’t, but for a few seconds, I was sure I was an orphan.
So back to taking Dad to the ER Story:
When Dad told me how low his Blood Pressure and Heart Rate was, I told him to get dressed and he was going to the ER. Dad wasn’t happy, as he has never wanted to go the Emergency room, no matter how sick or injured he was. He was pale and confused and looked terrible, but he kept coming up with excuses why he wasn’t going, even getting complaining about the cost of going to the ER, which was a bogus excuse because Dad has such great insurance that he hasn’t paid a medical bill in decades, and was also a symptom of his mental confusion as he knows that.
So I left him in the living room to get ready and went back in 10 minutes expecting to find him dressed, but he was still sitting there in his underwear looking very ill.
I told him that if he didn’t get dressed in the car, I was going to call an ambulance. I did that once before several years ago when he was very sick, and he probably wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t. Dad started screaming at me, being very abusive and angry and making very little sense.
Finally I got him dressed and out to the car and we started off to the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital.
On the way there, Dad said he was feeling much better. As we approached the hospital he seemed much less confused and his color was better, so I said we’d go back to the house, check his Blood Pressure and Heart Rate, and if they weren’t significantly better, we’d get back into the car and return.
His blood pressure was almost normal, and his heart rate was up over 50, better but not where it should be, but I decided not to take him back right away. Over the next couple of hours his readings got better and the crisis was over for the moment.
jtg
Posted Thursday, February 19, 2009; 3:09 pm
Dad’s back procedure seems to have gone well. I took him to the surgery center in Ragsdale Center in Monterey. He was there a couple of hours and then we had brunch at a diner in Seaside. I had the “Filipino Breakfast”, which was rice and eggs with a couple different kinds of sausage. Dad just had the usual eggs and pancakes.
I took him home, and that evening I went to meeting of the Young Democrats at the Ol’ Factory in Sand City. It was a fun group and there were some interesting discussions going on about various current political issues, the repeal of prop 8, the anti-gay-marriage nonsense.
I met a guy there, whose name I forget right now, who grew up in Guam, and I said “Hafa Adai” to him, and he was surprised I think to see someone who knew what that means.
I am impressed with Eileen, the president of the Young Democrats. She’s got a lot of enthusiasm and I think she is bound for greatness. 
Afterwards I thought about going to Brit to sing, but I decided not to because I’d already had a long day with having taken Dad to surgery that morning, a general lack of sleep lately, and my cold not being completely gone…breaking out into a coughing fit in the middle of a song would not be very fun.
And so I came home, and baby sister Judy called to ask about Dad. I told her that he’s doing good and we talked for a long time about family stuff.
And then I went to bed. TADA! 
jtg 
Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009; 9:04 pm
So Dad and I got back into Salinas about 4:30 this morning. We made a bit better time than I thought. We never saw heavy traffic nor did we hit much hard rain until we were almost to Salinas.
Dad seemed to get better almost as soon as we started back. He was indeed sick with a cold and conjestion, but he has a way of groaning that makes it appear he’s in a lot more pain than he actually is in. Still, I think that was what made my cousin-in-law Leanne so worried about Dad that she insisted I take him home to a doctor. I don’t know it will be necessary at this point since Dad seems so much better. Perhaps the Las Vegas elevation, low as it is, was enough to make a difference?
Dad’s appointment with his back doctor was at 10:30 a.m. This was scheduled after his diagnostic procedure last week. If we had stayed in Las Vegas as we planned, I was going to reschedule this appointment. It turned out that the results were what was expected, as the numbing of his back pain did happen. Therefore tomorrow Dad will have the next surgical procedure where his doctor will burn away nerves in his back. No nerves, no pain. TADA. 
Actually, it’s not that big a deal. He’ll be in the surgery center for a couple of hours, and then home. The nerves will regrow in a year or three and he’ll need to have the procedure redone.
jtg 
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