Open the pod bay doors please, HAL ....

a re-posting

It's taken me a few days to sort out my thoughts and get over a cold I seem to have caught out of the blue .... I wonder why ...

Dec.21 10.30 am
I arrived at the Care center my father has been relegated to for the past year.

He was diagnosed a year and a half ago with Lewy Body Dementia, a rather insidious form of Alzheimer's that also includes Parkinson's Decease.
He has lost control of most of his bodily functions and has bouts of dementia that usually take him back to his first love; his work on the Southern Pacific Railroad.
His hearing has gone, but his humor has never failed him.
When he's lucid, he's Dad. Laughing and smiling. He knows who we are, without fault.
When having a moment of dementia, he's working, or kindly mumbling with a child.
Sometimes he intently watches a bug crawl across the wall.
Of course, it's not there, but it's nothing horrible.
I like to believe he's talking with myself or my younger brother when we were young.

When I walked into the lobby of the Home, I found my father slumped in a wheelchair, ostensibly pointed at an artificial Christmas tree, but not really pointed in any particular direction. He was nearly comatose.
His shirt front was covered in vomit.
A towel had been folded into the polo shirt collar.
Vomit drooled from his mouth.
There were traces of vomit on his eyelids.

An older resident looked at me with compassionate pity and, as the Head Nurse came by, threw quite a disdainful look her way. She motioned her arm as if to say
that the Nurse who got the disdainful look had something to do with my father's current condition.

I was stunned to see Dad like this; the last time I visited, he knew who I was instantly and smiled broadly. Sitting in the wheelchair drooling vomit did not seem right.
I whispered in his ear that I was there.
He did not move, the erratic nerve impulses (Parkinson's) in his hands the only thing I could feel. He was pale and very cold.
I whispered again: "Dad, it's Dave. I'm here. What's going on?"
His eyes were closed. His breathing was very shallow.
Still slumped over, he could barely make the words:
"Get me outta here."

I was shell shocked.
For at least three or four minutes I sat there with him, trying to keep my rational mind. I thought to myself that his condition could not have worsened in such a short time.
I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk.
"yeah" he croaked.
At least I knew he was in there, and he knew I was with him.

I wheeled the chair around the hospital corridors for about five minutes, massaging his shoulders and letting him know I was there with him.
Arriving at the nurse's station, across the corridor from his room, I asked the Head Nurse what sort of medication my father was currently being given.
"That's none of your business", she stated flatly, without looking up.
I told her my dad was covered in vomit.
Again, without looking up she told me that someone would be along
"... when they have time..."

I waited a few minutes and decided to take Dad outside into some fresh air.
In the year he's been there I've never seen him outside.
I asked one of the employees there if there was a place I could take him.
I was told:
"I'm not sure .... um, maybe the parking lot?"

I wheeled him around the beginning of lunch service in the hallway and
back into the lobby, then out the front door into a small courtyard to the side of the front entrance.
The cold air roused him enough to open one eye, and I was heartsick at what I saw.
His pupil was pinned.

I'm not proud or boastful about it, but being in this
Biz called Show,
I've known and do know people who indulge in heroin.
The vomit, the cold clammy hands, the near comatose state, the pinned pupils.

WTF?

Shivering,he complained of the cold and I wrapped my Patagonia fleece around him as best I could.
I took him back inside, into the hallway next to his room.
We waited about ten more minutes, and two of the staff wheeled him inside and closed the door. They cleaned him up and put him into bed.
I took that time to call my Mom and let her know what I had seen.
She told me that a few nights previous, Dad had been a little more vocal than usual, yelling something about trains and waking a few folks.
The house psychiatrist prescribed "a mild sedative" to help him sleep.
"The lowest dose possible." she was assured.
They told my mother about side affects and such and somehow convinced her to agree to this new drug:
Duragesic (it's a Patch)

aka: Fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a drug given to cancer patients who are in a great deal of pain.
It is not given for minor aches and pains, and not for elderly patients with dementia.
In fact, Fentalyn is 80 times stronger than morphine.

At this point, I had no computer with me to look up the name of the drug.
I only knew what I saw, and that seemed totally wrong.
Seeing my father in that state was too much for me to bear.
I needed someone to commiserate with.
I called my younger brother, who is married to an RN, and he told me not get so emotional.
This is how "the System" works.
I went to see him at a new business he recently opened.
We talked and reminiced an hour or so, agreeing to have dinner with my sisiter-in-law and nieces, but I still needed to understand, so I drove to Mom's.

Mom and I argued almost immediately and she defended her decisions(she's going on 81 and getting more and more bewildered by all this), yet at that point she didn't realize just what was given to Dad. She has no computer to look these things up.
I went to dinner with Li'l Bro and family, had a beer(2), gave my nieces their Christmas gifts and headed to a state park about 20 miles away to spend the night.
I spent most of that evening starwatching and wondering just WTF was going on.

Dec. 22
I awoke around 7.15, rolled over and tried to re-enter sleep, but it was too cold.
I drove into the sunrise and back to town. While grabbing a quick cup of coffee, I was hoping it was all a bad dream.
No such luck.
At 8 am Dad was fighting to breathe, his body stiff and rigid.
His mouth looked dry, parched. He obviously would not be eating food.
He had an itch on the side of his face, and in his stupor, tried to scratch.
After several tries, I finally scratched where I thought he was aiming.
He let me gently scratch his face for several minutes.
I closed the curtain around his bed and whispered again into his ear.
I told him I loved him.
I told him I would try and straighten out this insanity.
I cried profusely.

I thought he was dying before my eyes.

I sat with him for 3 hours, during which at no time was he looked in on by any staff or nurse but, at one point I heard the nursing staff laughing about Mr. Jess' dementia and how he's always working ....
I was speechless, but what I heard next caught me off guard.

The Head Nurse intimated to a few of the newer staff ("You're new here ....")
that some of the inhabitants had a name for her.
Nurse Ratchett.
"Who?" asked someone I couldn't see.
She repeated the name, louder and with convicing timbre:
"RATCHETT !"
I immediately prayed for strength.

Nurse Ratchett is the malicious and sadistic head nurse in Ken Kesey's
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

I hugged Dad,told him that if he ever wanted to go home
he should go to the light and we'll all be together.
I repeated this a few times through my tears, collected myself as best I could and walked out of that place without looking at anyone. Sunglasses hid my swollen eyes.
I got to my van and broke down again, shaking and fearing for my father's well-being.
It hadn't yet dawned on me that this would be how I would remember Christmas with my Dad, possibly the last one we would see each other.
Calling my brother again, he suggested I visit him at his new business so we could talk.
I found him working alone.
Proudly showing me around his new place and trying to change the subject and my attitude, he again reminded me that Dad was "in the System" and was well taken care of.
It didn't do much for my mood.
I drove up the Big Sur and back Home.

I tried sleeping, but fitfully tosed the night away, waking with a really bad sore throat.
After tea and some Motrin I called my Mom and asked again for the proper spelling of the drug given my father.
She had already called Dad's MD and they assured her that Dad would be taken off the drug, but that it would take a week or two for the effects to diminish.
I don't believe a word they've told her.
I spoke with Mom earlier this afternoon and she said she will make sure he never gets Fentalyn again.

Dad dosen't know I was there with him.

I found this,among other frightening things online:
http://www.fda,gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01762.html

My gut hurts.

I was in Chico Ca. this past weekend playing a smokey soiree for a wacky bunch of hairstylists.
(lotsa alcohol, Lasagna and substances involved.)

Maybe it was the slightly blustery wind chill,
the humidity, or maybe even the
Middle American
down-home
small town college vibe;
but I got this overwhelming urge for BBQ from
Sam's in Austin.

I went to Sam's when I was in Texas
for the
Austin Film Festival
awhile ago.
(Best of Show:
"Randy and the Mob"
Capricorn Films)

Before going in, my host;
the good
Dr. Bombay
(see the link to your right)
told me we were walking into
the Church of BBQ.
Believe it.
The brisket is Beef Heaven,
rubbed with secret spices and
slow-roasted for 7-8 hours
over post oak.
served with
beans/potato salad
2 slices of white bread
and pickle chips
it's simply the Best
everything's made from scratch
and the sauce ... oh, man ...oh, man ...

Photos of family, friends,
and allsorts of celebrities
(look for an aging headshot of George Clinton behind the register)
line the yellowed walls.
Take your paper plate(s)
out back to the pinic table.

Papa don't take no mess
so clean up after yourselves.

Yes!
Lord, Yes !
I believe !

Doctor ... FedEx some BBQ quick

the brisket ...
must have ...
the brisket !
(and maybe some ribs while yer at it ...)

Open the pod bay doors please, HAL ....

new shows

Martin Fierro

New Shows

Fentanyl for Dementia ?

Sam's

comments about that last Shitones show ...

EastSide sunset

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