{"id":15305,"date":"2014-01-21T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/hameblog\/2014\/01\/21\/normal-found-and-lost\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T07:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:50:12","slug":"normal-found-and-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/2014\/01\/21\/normal-found-and-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Normal \u2013 found and lost"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I was going<\/em> to say was something like this:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Dad is back! The last few days, he’s been completely himself again, and I’ve really been enjoying his company — his great stories of his days in social work, his acerbic take on world events, and his deadpan sense of humour.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He’s back on his feet, too: I can’t believe how much mobility he’s got back. He can’t go far or for too long on foot, and he needs the walker, but he’s taking steps instead of shuffling, and he’s transferring himself to and from bed and in the bathroom on his own.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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I’ve been going to church with Mom. The people there are very friendly, and intellectually awake and inquiring folks. I can see why she relies on this community, and I’ve found comfort in it, too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It’s not a crutch, as our materialistic age would sneeringly accuse. Neither Mom nor I are Christians„¢©®, but we want to think about this aspect of life, and science, commerce, and the other quotidian processes of our society have no vocabulary for that (save a dismissive one).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

[Mom talks a lot. Yes, that can be frustrating, but as I was drawing these yesterday, it occurred to me that her talking is exactly the same world-ordering that I do by journalling, blogging, writing, doodling…]<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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I got to talk to my darling via the magic picture frame that is FaceTime. I really miss him, and it’s time to go home. I don’t feel bad about that, because things here have reached a new state of normal.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But then…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Last night, Dad fell when trying to manoeuvre around his bed. The ambulance was diverted — Queen Elizabeth Hospital is full — so we’ve been in the Summerside hospital overnight. But Dad’s femur is broken above the knee, and they can’t operate here. So we wait for an opening, then an ambulance to take us back to Charlottetown.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I sat up front for last night’s ride. At first I couldn’t make conversation, but then I slipped into a mode I’ve learned from my work in the last few years: the interview<\/em>. I learned a lot about paramedicine, and the journey went quickly — for me, at least. [Edit: On the ride up, I talked to a paramedic just starting his career; the journey back was with two seasoned vets who have seen it all and are happy now to just to “transfers”, like Dad’s journey.]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dad’s been incredibly strong, even been joking with the people working around him. Pain medication interacts badly with his Parkinson’s drugs, but thankfully he hasn’t hallucinated much.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So what now? Does he lose his nursing home room, the one we just decorated yesterday? Can I return to Scotland this weekend, or should I stay? I’ve been away two months; when do I see my husband again? Do I need to move here?j<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I’ve no idea.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I was going to say was something like this: Dad is back! The last few days, he’s been completely himself again, and I’ve really been enjoying his company — his great stories of his days in social work, his acerbic take on world events, and his deadpan sense of humour. He’s back on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}