Thinking Of Dad

It's been a while since I wrote about my Dad in this blog.  Partly because I became aware that a few people that know both me and him are reading it.

Well, Dad had a knee replacement in early December and has been in various hospitals and rehabilitation centres ever since.  He had hoped that a new knee would effectively "cure" his increasing immobility, but this always seemed like a long shot and the actual outcome has been fairly predictable - the new knee was successfully fitted, but the long period of recovery has meant that his mobility is worse not better and he has had problems with the various infections one tends to pick up in hospital.

So Dad is now in that grey area in which so many older people find themselves - on the cusp of being able to survive at home and being cared for in an institution, at the boundary between the NHS and local government social services, unclear whether he is sick enough to be looked after for free or is suffering from the ordinary vicissitudes of old age necessitating him to pay for his own care.  To be fair the individuals dealing with him have mostly been great - open, honest and trying to do their best.  But even when individuals have the best of intentions, the bureaucracies for which they work tend to behave like lumbering, stupid, sociopathic juggernauts, dealing with the individual as a collection of attributes rather than as a whole person.  So, often people just come apart in their hands, try as they might not to break them.

The NHS are now desperate to get him off their books and the latest plan is to discharge him home next week with a "package" of care and adaptations to his little bungalow.  If so, that will finally end the "episode" of care which began with the knee operation.  This will allow the bureaucracies to treat any future mishaps that befall him as new "episodes" without looking too hard at the many "episodes" that came before.

And what does Dad want?  He wants to be at home for sure, but he wants to stay in hospital being "treated" until he can walk there, because, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he still believes, or at least refuses to disbelieve, that there is a cure for old age and that it is the NHS's job to find it for him.

Do I feel guilty that I am not playing the loving son at the bedside?  A bit.  But I also know that there may be many "episodes" to come and that my instincts will tell me when it's time to step on a plane.  Until then Dad and I will continue to shout at each other through the ether, struggling to hear over the background noise on the line and the clattering of hospital cups and saucers.  "So how are you today?"  "What?" "HOW ARE YOU!?"  (Pause.)  "Oh, you know, creaking."