My father is 67, just a few years into retirement. He had never been admitted to a hospital; he had never been seriously ill. My father lived alone for over 20 years, content with being a single man after the divorce, and fully capable of living his own life until October 2009.
When he called me to say he wasn’t feeling quite right, I didn’t waste time going to him. Though we spoke infrequently, he had never complained about not being well. My father can be stubbornly proud and now he was asking for help, so I knew it was serious. When I arrived at his home he explained that he had experienced several days of dizzy spells but what made him call was his sudden inability to read or write that day. I thought he was having a stroke so I took him to the hospital.
Hospitals take stroke and heart attack candidates in immediately, so within an hour a cat scan was taken. The ER doctors pulled me aside, explaining that this was more complicated than a stroke. They never openly stated the terminal nature of their cursory diagnosis but acted consoling enough to give me the hint. It’s impossible to process this in such short time. There is no point in doing so since there is nothing you can do but work alongside the system created by the medical establishment, a system designed specifically for families who don’t know what to do next.
He lay in the ER bed for several hours and then was taken up to the surgical ward to await further assessment. That was day 1; that’s how it all began.