Given the Chair

Dearest Rachel –

For dad, progress continues apace. Yesterday morning, for whatever reason, he was uncomfortable with just lying in his bed, and was begging Mom to summon the nurses to help him to sit up, if just for a few minutes.

Naturally, we considered this to be wonderful news, although his insistent request seemed a bit out of character for him. He was practically demanding that someone lower the rail on his bed, swing his legs over the edge, and help prop him up into a sitting position right there and then. But in his frail state (not to mention the numerous instruments, monitors and medications he was hooked up to that we would have to negotiate), neither of us wanted to take the risk of moving him around like that. Couldn’t it wait until one (or more) of the professionals could get to his room, and get him set up?

I honestly couldn’t guess as to why he was suddenly in such a hurry to change positions, but he was. I certainly understand the discomfort of remaining in place for too long, even though I’ve never personally suffered from bedsores – as far as I can recall. He’d also been picking at his catheter; if there had been any leaks, that would certainly give someone impetus to get up and anyway from the resultant mess as quickly as possible.

But it all seems so out of character for him. Dad has always been a patient man, always trusting in “the Lord’s timing” on this thing or that. Sure, when it came to being someplace or doing something, he was of the opinion that if you weren’t fifteen minutes early, you were late, but that was a stricture he imposed on himself rather than others (although he did his level best to instill this same sense of punctuality in Jenn and myself, with reasonable success). 

Still, maybe it’s starting to bleed into his expectations for others… especially since he’s more conscious than ever of how little time he may have left. When he recovered from his bout with sepsis all those years ago, I asked him if he recalled anything from that time. You know, any of the near-death experience tropes of drifting toward the light, and a voice telling him to go back because it wasn’t his time yet (or, alternatively, offering him the option to go back if he so chose). He admitted he didn’t recall a thing; those terrible days (for us around him) were at most a blur to him. If he did experience any of that, it was forgotten in the course of recovery. But as this time, he’s more frail than before, while at the same time more aware of what’s going on around him and how he feels, so it might be that, while he’s still not experienced (to his knowledge) any NDE-type events, he’s quite literally painfully aware of the approaching end.

Not that it’s imminent, necessarily – at least, not like it was on Monday, when his oxygen levels dipped into the seventy percent range for too long for Lars’ comfort – but it’s a case of age and infirmity, after all. Time just is shorter for an eighty-five year old like him than, say, a fifty-five year old like me, and his hospitalization – and the attendant discomfort, if not outright pain – just brings that home all the more. So as a result, he wants to be moved immediately, in order to ameliorate that as soon as possible, and I can’t say as I blame him.

For what it’s worth, the hospital staff were (and are) more than willing to accommodate him on this. Indeed, in order for him to qualify for discharge – which, to be fair, isn’t likely to happen for at least another week or so, because he still has to recover from both Covid and pneumonia, but still, this is a word that had absolutely been ruled out as even a possibility as of Monday morning – he would need to be able to at least sit up on his own, and it would be even better if he could walk a few steps as well. So, after a few minutes (which must have seemed interminable to Dad), there were a couple of nurses and an aide swarming the room.

But they weren’t about to just prop him up on the side of the bed for a minute or two, like Dad seemed to want. Oh, no. This was meant to be an exercise, and as with so many exercises (believe me, I’m well aware of this), it requires special equipment. They were going to give Dad… the Chair.

For the sake of ‘exercising,’ Dad was propped up in the chair, and told that the same team that had lifted him over from the bed to the chair in the first place would be back in an hour; in the meantime, he was to accustom himself to this upright position. Considering how he had been begging to be let us in the first place (and they did clean him up as a part of the process of moving him, so there was that particular discomfort take care of), and that Mom had brought him his iPad to check email and play solitaire like he would often do at home, this would be an easy task for him.

But barely twenty minutes in, he was begging once again to be returned to his bed, even reaching for the call button rather than asking either of us to do so (perhaps because he thought – rightfully, at least in my case – that we might refuse him) to summon the nurses to get him out of the chair and back into bed. I think he convinced them before spending even half an hour sitting upright.

I realize I haven’t any right to criticize him for this; there is no way I can understand the pain and discomfort (not to mention just outright exhaustion) that he might be going through. And while he’s able to speak, I think he’s still having difficulty conveying exactly why it was he needed to get up, and thereafter, why he was in such a hurry to get back down again. I don’t think it’s just a human-nature matter of never being satisfied with where you are and what you have; I think there was real need and want behind both requests.

I just can’t – because I’m not in his hospital gown (I can’t say ‘his shoes,’ as he’s not wearing any) – personally understand what those reasons were; I have no idea what he was feeling when he made either of those requests. Part of me wishes I knew; another part is glad I don’t have to. Still, it’s another step forward; here’s hoping he gets a little more chair time today, and likes it a little better.

For now, honey, keep an eye on all of us, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.