Beautiful Day
By DelMio Editor
May 8th, 2008 | Leave a comment
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It started out a beautiful day. A Tuesday, I believe. It was March 2005, and an unusually bright and warm day. Dad was getting sprung from the Arbors in Columbus (it might be Upper Arlington – whatever), some two months after his surgery. He was feeling better, a little stronger, and getting accustomed to the ostomy. A doctor had visited him the day before, I believe, and cleared him for discharge.
The U2 song “Beautiful Day” kept rattling through my head as I pulled my car up doorside. I had e-mailed my extended family circle to tell them that today was “Free Willie” day. “Willie” was dad’s nickname from waaaaay back.
We got home, then faced the chore of climbing the stairs from the (caving-in) garage to the first floor. Dad was still pretty weak and told me to grab his belt to help lift him up the stair. (Remember he had a bad leg before all this, which made matters worse.) I went out and bought a few groceries. Some bread, milk, OJ, stuff like that. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t need much. At 72, and with all that stuff going on, he didn’t have much appetite. He weighed about 130 pounds, down from 180.
He felt chilly, which I thought was just the house being a little cool. We’d kept the heat at a minimum while dad was convalescing. He was thrilled to be out of the nursing facility, but I had an uneasy feeling about leaving him alone as weak as he was. But I had my job to do (one that no longer exists) the next day. I made sure a nurse was stopping by in the morning to check on him, so that helped a little.
The next morning the nurse called. He had been up all night, struggling with a ruptured colostomy bag (probably from the belt) and he was going to the hospital with pneumonia.
I felt awful.
