Just got off the phone with my youngest brother (the calm one) who is very agitated about this whole trip to the beach. He talked to my mom this morning and found out my dad had a really bad day yesterday (fever, extremely low blood pressure at dialysis, shaking, wheezing). Then he talked to my other brother (who picked up my dad from dialysis last night) who thinks Dad might have pneumonia. The two of them want to meet with me tonight, decide a plan of action, and then go over to our parents' house as a united front. Somehow I don't think I'm going to be leaving for the beach tomorrow.
Update: Apparently my dad's cardiologist got wind of the trip and called to tell them he thought traveling now would be a very bad thing. He's trying to get my dad in to see the cardiac surgeon at Hopkins ASAP. So we're bagging the trip (well, Dan told me to wait to cancel my kayak/beach wheelchair rentals until this evening after they've heard whether or not they'll be meeting with the surgeon sometime soon).
Another Update: My brother Dan just called--he and my mom are taking my dad over to the ER. Apparently Dad has become very, very weak. Just cancelled the rentals, the hotel reservations, and the petsitter. Keep us in your thoughts.
So, just today, we've finally received some conclusive word on why my father is filling with fluid: the replacement bovine mitral valve that was put in five years ago is not working properly (I'm going to try to focus on being grateful that we finally have an answer and suppress the overwhelming rage I'm feeling right now that it has taken months to check on what seems like an obvious suspect).
Still, it's good news after what has been a few very rough past weeks. Well, kinda good news. It means major heart surgery, which my father is eager to do. Not that I blame him. I stayed over last weekend (I've spent most of my weekends down at their house, trying to help out though I end up feeling a bit helpless that all I can do is empty the dishwasher, get the paper, and help him get in and out of the car and chair) and he's so filled with fluid that he looks a bit like Martin Short's Jiminy Glick character. But I have my reservations.
I also have reservations about our upcoming trip to the Outer Banks. We (my mom, dad, and I) are leaving Friday and driving down to Newport News, staying the night, and continuing on to Nags Head. My mom is the only one who can drive, which makes me nervous (and yes, people, I've put in motion efforts to get my license but that's going to take a little while) but she assures me she feels up to it. And she rejected my suggestion that we fly to Norfolk, rent a car, and drive (a 2-hour drive as opposed to a 4-hour drive to NN, and then a 3-hour drive to Nags Head the next day).
However, if we can pull this off, it'll really raise his spirits. My brother Dan and his family are coming down for the first week and then Colin and Karen are coming for the second. So the whole family will be around, which will be a big help and a comfort to him and to my mom (who is exhausted and emotionally wrung out. Well, they both are). I've rented a beach wheelchair for him and a kayak for myself so he'll be able to sit on the beach and laugh at me when I inevitably wipe out while trying to surf the waves (and I suspect I'll be roped into getting into the kayak and carrying his lure beyond the surf break so he can fish).
I'm crossing my fingers this all works out without any trips to the OBX ER.
So for the past two days (Wednesday and Thursday), I had the privilege (?) of serving on a Baltimore jury. Thankfully, it was a civil rather than a criminal trial (despite my interest in all things morbid, I did NOT want to serve as a juror in a murder trial).
And guess who wound up being the jury foreperson? Yeah, that's right...me. (One woman didn't show up at all on the second day and the original foreman showed up 15 minutes late. By then the judge had already installed the two alternates as jurors and made me the foreperson so he had to be an alternate.)
Basically the case was about two properties that the city had condemned. They were side-by-side rowhouses (click to see the actual properties I'm talking about) that were essentially just shells (no roof, all the windows and doors had been bricked up, the bricks of one was beginning to buckle). The first day they put us on a bus and took us over to the neighborhood to see the properties. We obviously couldn't go inside but we got a sense of their condition and the state of the neighborhood (Poppleton).
The property owner had owned these properties for 25 years and just never did anything with them--he just let them rot. The city had assessed the value of each at $17,520 for a total of a little over $35,000. The property owner's appraiser had assessed each one at $112,000 for a total of $224,000. Why? Because the University of Maryland is building a biotech park within 2 blocks of the property and they reasoned that the scientists would need housing. What was across the street from the properties? The Terraces housing project. Yeah, I'm sure all those biotech scientists will be flocking to buy your crappy dilapidated houses. For taxation purposes, the city had assessed the properties as each being worth $9,000 so offering him more than $17,000 was extremely generous, I thought.
Which is what I said when we began to deliberate. There was a little bit of dissension in the beginning. Two people started wondering what the city wanted the properties for and began sort of ascribing an evil intent to the city. Luckily another guy stopped them and pointed out we had no way of knowing what, if anything, the city wanted to do with the property and we weren't there to decide that. Some people were thinking we should give him $20-25,000 for each property. But then the kid (he was probably in his twenties--but he looked like a kid with his pants hanging off his ass and his angled baseball hat) mentioned that he was from Poppleton and that people like this property owner were one of the reasons his neighborhood looked like it did.
And then people started getting mad. I know there are houses in my neighborhood that look like these two do and they certainly wouldn't be worth anywhere CLOSE to 100,000. And I would argue that my neighborhood (Ridgely's Delight) with its close proximity to Camden Yards and the University of Maryland would give shells more value than the UMB biotech park and the housing project.
The property owner's lawyer didn't do him any favors either. He was definitely going for the charming old man thing (nice seersucker suit--what is this To Kill a Mockingbird?) but it didn't quite work. Their appraiser originally came up with a combined total value of $200,000 but that apparently wasn't enough. The LAWYER went out and found these two other "comparable" house sales for the appraiser to look at and on the same day as the first report came up with another one for $224,000.
And one of these "comparable" house sales was actually a group of about 5 rowhomes that had been sold as one property for over a million dollars (and was bought by the biotech park development group).* The appraiser took the sales price and divided it by the square footage of these houses and came up with a price for each square foot. He then applied that to the property owner's houses. Did he think we were retarded?
*There was one weird and shady thing about that though. Earlier, ON THE SAME DAY, there was another deed in the public records showing a sale between the same buyer and seller for the same group of 5 houses but for $250,000. WTF?
Anyway, we rather quickly decided to side with the city (there was even some discussion of not giving him anything) and I think we all felt good about our decision.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dad update.
Well, I cancelled my diving trip last weekend and instead organized a crab feast (we have an annual crab feast to celebrate my brother Colin's birthday and my sister-in-law Gloria's birthday. My mom was definitely not up to doing it so I said if we could use their house, we would take care of everything--she wouldn't have to do anything). I sprung for the crabs [$135 for three dozen extra larges...and they were totally worth it] and the beer and my brothers and sister-in-laws brought everything else. It ended up being a lot of fun and it definitely seemed to lift my father's spirits--he actually laughed!
Anyway, I spoke to them yesterday after they got back from the cardiologists. The latest thing is they think that he might have hardening of the pericardium (the membrane that encases the heart). They're going to run some tests next week. If that is what it is then it means another major heart surgery (they'll remove the pericardium). Dad sounds really hopeful about this but after spending a lot of time with him over the past few weeks, I really don't think he'll survive the procedure (I'm basing this on my vast medical knowledge, of course). Hopefully, I'm wrong.
So for the past two days (Wednesday and Thursday), I had the privilege (?) of serving on a Baltimore jury. Thankfully, it was a civil rather than a criminal trial (despite my interest in all things morbid, I did NOT want to serve as a juror in a murder trial).
And guess who wound up being the jury foreperson? Yeah, that's right...me. (One woman didn't show up at all on the second day and the original foreman showed up 15 minutes late. By then the judge had already installed the two alternates as jurors and made me the foreperson so he had to be an alternate.)
Basically the case was about two properties that the city had condemned. They were side-by-side rowhouses (click and scroll left in the street view to see the actual properties I'm talking about--they're the two two-story red houses) that were essentially just shells (no roof, all the windows and doors had been bricked up, the bricks of one was beginning to buckle). The first day they put us on a bus and took us over to the neighborhood to see the properties. We obviously couldn't go inside but we got a sense of their condition and the state of the neighborhood (Poppleton).
The property owner had owned these properties for 25 years and just never did anything with them--he just let them rot. The city had assessed the value of each at $17,520 for a total of a little over $35,000. The property owner's appraiser had assessed each one at $112,000 for a total of $224,000. Why? Because the University of Maryland is building a biotech park within 2 blocks of the property and they reasoned that the scientists would need housing. What was across the street from the properties? The Terraces housing project. Yeah, I'm sure all those biotech scientists will be flocking to buy your crappy dilapidated houses. For taxation purposes, the city had assessed the properties as each being worth $9,000 so offering him more than $17,000 was extremely generous, I thought.
Which is what I said when we began to deliberate. There was a little bit of dissension in the beginning. Two people started wondering what the city wanted the properties for and began sort of ascribing an evil intent to the city. Luckily another guy stopped them and pointed out we had no way of knowing what, if anything, the city wanted to do with the property and we weren't there to decide that. Some people were thinking we should give him $20-25,000 for each property. But then the kid (he was probably in his twenties--but he looked like a kid with his pants hanging off his ass and his angled baseball hat) mentioned that he was from Poppleton and that people like this property owner were one of the reasons his neighborhood looked like it did.
And then people started getting mad. I know there are houses in my neighborhood that look like these two do and they certainly wouldn't be worth anywhere CLOSE to 100,000. And I would argue that my neighborhood (Ridgely's Delight) with its close proximity to Camden Yards and the University of Maryland would give shells more value than the UMB biotech park and the housing project.
The property owner's lawyer didn't do him any favors either. He was definitely going for the charming old man thing (nice seersucker suit--what is this To Kill a Mockingbird?) but it didn't quite work. Their appraiser originally came up with a combined total value of $200,000 but that apparently wasn't enough. The LAWYER went out and found these two other "comparable" house sales for the appraiser to look at and on the same day as the first report came up with another one for $224,000.
And one of these "comparable" house sales was actually a group of about 5 rowhomes that had been sold as one property for over a million dollars (and was bought by the biotech park development group).* The appraiser took the sales price and divided it by the square footage of these houses and came up with a price for each square foot. He then applied that to the property owner's houses. Did he think we were retarded?
*There was one weird and shady thing about that though. Earlier, ON THE SAME DAY, there was another deed in the public records showing a sale between the same buyer and seller for the same group of 5 houses but for $250,000. WTF?
Anyway, we rather quickly decided to side with the city (there was even some discussion of not giving him anything) and I think we all felt good about our decision.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dad update.
Well, I cancelled my diving trip last weekend and instead organized a crab feast (we have an annual crab feast to celebrate my brother Colin's birthday and my sister-in-law Gloria's birthday. My mom was definitely not up to doing it so I said if we could use their house, we would take care of everything--she wouldn't have to do anything). I sprung for the crabs [$135 for three dozen extra larges...and they were totally worth it] and the beer and my brothers and sister-in-laws brought everything else. It ended up being a lot of fun and it definitely seemed to lift my father's spirits--he actually laughed!
Anyway, I spoke to them yesterday after they got back from the cardiologists. The latest thing is they think that he might have hardening of the pericardium (the membrane that encases the heart). They're going to run some tests next week. If that is what it is then it means another major heart surgery (they'll remove the pericardium). Dad sounds really hopeful about this but after spending a lot of time with him over the past few weeks, I really don't think he'll survive the procedure (I'm basing this on my vast medical knowledge, of course). Hopefully, I'm wrong.
Some people are emotional eaters. Turns out I'm more of an emotional consumer of goods. In the past week, I've shelled out about $2,000 on various crap, mostly scuba gear (even though I'm leaning towards postponing next week's dive trip for a few months).
The doctors have decided that my father does not have congestive heart failure after all but don't know why his abdominal cavity keeps filling with fluid that can't be dialyzed off. They did an ultrasound of his liver, expecting to find a tumor--no tumor. Great news, right? Well, not really. A diagnosis would give them some idea of a treatment. So, they released him from the hospital last week even though he still feels terrible. And he's back to not eating anything so he's getting weaker and weaker. Sunday night he fell and had to lie on the bathroom floor until my brother could drive over and help him up (my mom's not strong enough to do it by herself).
I'm just trying to hold it together though it's hard to motivate myself at work. I mean, doing the mindless stuff like coding a manuscript is actually a bit of a relief but trying to edit some poorly written article by someone whose first language is not English is agonizing.
And I'm worried about my mom as well. I call her every day now and she always sounds so exhausted and despairing. Well, when she's not angry with him--"He just sits there like Eeyore, staring at the floor and sighing and I am sick of it!" (I realize that this is coming from fear and frustration at not being able to do anything to make him feel better.)
I haven't really been talking to anyone outside the family much . . . not even my coworkers (aside from talk about work). Yeah, I know that's probably not healthy. I just remember 5 years ago, after his heart attack and surgery, one of my coworkers asked me how my dad was doing. I guess I went overboard with the details because he looked at me after I stopped talking and said "Well, I guess we all have our burdens to bear" and walked away. Yes, the guy was a known asshole but I still felt stupid. I don't know. I just feel like this walking black hole of doom and that, possibly, I'm contagious.
Congestive heart failure. Ventricular stretching. Phosphatase levels out of whack, indicating a problem with either his liver or his bones. Low blood pressure, which prevents the doctors from taking off too much fluid because that could cause cardiac arrest.
I had a conversation with my sister-in-law last night (the nurse) and she said "It could be two weeks, it could be two days...who knows? Colin and I have been looking at it from the angle that we've had 5 good years (since his heart attack) that we might not have had."
And, to be honest, I've been looking at it in a similar way. I suppose that's a small comfort. It still doesn't stop me from feeling like a 5-year-old who wants to scream for her father not to go. I hate feeling this helpless.
I also spoke with my brother Dan last night. He had just visited Dad and said he seemed to be in good spirits. But then Dan, the one of us who inherited our father's calm, upbeat temperament said, "Though, you know, Deirdre, this might be it."
Fucking hell.
Or, at least, July is turning out to be my cruelest month.
My father is back in the ER as of this morning after spending most of the night throwing up. He's being prepped for a cat scan so hopefully, hopefully they can figure out what's wrong.
I managed to make it through the first level of this thing (the log Alex is walking over was actually pretty easy to negotiate, unlike the wire, which, for me at least, was a complete bitch).
This log, on one of the higher levels, was wobbly, however.
Ummmmmm, no.
When I saw Andy going over this thing, I'd had enough. As soon as I got to the platform with the guides on it, I said "I'm done." So they hooked me up to another line and told me to jump (that in and of itself was hard to do). Thankfully two other people had also given up ahead of me so I wasn't alone. We decided to go ziplining instead. And then after that was my favorite: the giant swing!
They strap you in, pull you up 40 feet, and let go! So much fun in a somewhat terrifying sort of way. I think my brother Colin is going to take his two nephews to this place when they're up next week.
A sympathy card from my niece after the death of my cat Max two weeks ago. Being the world's worst aunt, I managed to spill Sprite on it, which is why it's a bit blurry.
So, yeah, Max is gone. He was over 15 years old and had always been a bit on the sickly side. And, though I complained endlessly about how annoyingly clingy he was ("If I wanted a damn dog, I would've gotten one"), he was a complete sweetheart of a cat and is much missed by both myself and Zilla (my other cat).
That's one reason for my silence. The other is my father who seems to be fading quickly. His doctor wanted him hospitalized on Friday but the admitting doctor refused, sold him some incredibly expensive pills ($120 for 7 pills), and sent him home. I saw him on Sunday at a family get-together (his sister from Rhode Island was down visiting) and he looked gray and drained but at least we got him to eat a bit (he's malnourished--according to my mom, the nurse-practicioner they saw last week wrote "anorexic" on his chart).
I'm trying not to hover too much. I call every other day for an update. I'm keeping busy on the weekends--volunteered at Artscape on Saturday (Cake [the band] played!), last weekend was the very fun if somewhat terrifying trip to Terrapin Adventures for ziplining and other mayhem (more on that later).
A few weeks ago I volunteered at an accessible sail at the Downtown Sailing Center (DSC). The thing I really dig about DSC is their total commitment to get everyone who is interested in sailing in a boat, regardless of financial or physical ability. Accessible sails are for people who self-identify as disabled (even though I first started volunteering for them two years ago, I only just put together that my father qualifies as such and could come out and sail. When I mentioned it to him, he immediately asked if he could go out by himself and was excited when I said sure. Hopefully he'll recover enough to get out on the water later this summer).
When I've volunteered in the past, I've been put to work rigging/derigging boats and helping people get in and out of the boats. This time the coordinator decided that I should man the DSC booth at the farmers' market that was taking place in the DSC parking lot. Weird but I agreed to it.
I was kept company for a bit by this little guy (far preferable than the freaky goat cheese guy in the booth next to me. I do not need to hear about the niceties [or not so niceties] of keeping goats, thank you).
And the next day I was back at the DSC for their open house. I'd suggested it as an activity for a group I belong to and suddenly found myself the point person for said group. Whatever. It was a nice day for a sail.
There is apparently a new pirate cruise out of Fells Point.
These are new homes that have been built on piers jutting into the Inner Harbor. Is it just me or is this a bad idea? Enjoy that storm surge!
