Dad

The other day I was driving with my mom and we were talking about TV shows or something and then about my dad and that's when it hit me - we need TV to be real. Specifically, the show House. Because Dr. House can solve anything. He can figure out what's wrong with any patient. Even if he can't cure it. I've never realized what a huge comfort it would be in knowing what is wrong with someone, even if there's no easy fix.

Today I went to pick up my mom and run down the road to the Home Depot by my parents house to pick up some paint brushes. When we got back, we found my dad laying face first on the floor, completely passed out. To say I was completely freaked out, sadly, would not be 100% true since this has happened so many times before. I guess I'm getting used to it. Or numb to it. So here's the problem, Dr. House:

There's something really, really wrong with my dad and no one can figure out what it is.

I think the hardest part is not knowing. Okay, no. The hardest part is standing next to my dad in an ER room after he was admitted for the 3rd time in two weeks after having seizure-like symptoms, holding his hand and seeing him suddenly realize who I am, and watching as tears fall down his shaking face - a face that breaks my heart over and over again whenever I think about it, because all I can see is my sweet, caring, amazingly strong dad who is at that moment completely terrified about what is happening to him. And then the nurse comes in, making me feel like I should leave and start to move away, but my dad just holds desperately on to my fingers because he's afraid and he doesn't want to be alone.

These are my wonderful parents. I just took this photo this past New Year's. 

Growing up, my dad was my hero and has been ever since. But not for all your normal hero-defining reasons, like because he could fix everything (which he probably could) or because he was super smart and strong (which he definitely was) but because he taught me, more than anything or anyone in my entire life, what it means to love. 

And he taught everyone around him the same thing. He is respected and admired by everyone who has known him. In fact, several months ago he received a letter from a co-worker of his who wrote to tell him how much he had been touched by knowing him and that he and his wife had named their newborn son Miles, after my dad. He is that type of person - so selfless, kind, charitable and loving that you would hope and pray with all your might that your child would grow up to be like him and live up to his name.

About 3 years ago, he started forgetting things. Short-term things and not super often. And he started to get really depressed. He decided to take a disability leave from work to try and figure out what was going on. Then slowly over those few years, things have gotten worse and worse. Yet everything has been so abnormal and inconsistent. A few months ago was one of the worst times. He was severely depressed, sleeping a lot, waking up confused not knowing what day it was and what had happened the day before - or the week before. Sometimes his personality would change a lot and he acted very silly and loud in public and saying things he would never say (which if you know my dad, you know he is shy and quiet around most people). He started falling a lot and cutting his ear and chin and arm on things (hence multiple ER visits to get stitched up). He woke up one day not able to see out of one eye and feeling numb and tingly over half his body. My mom took him to the ER again... and they sent him home, again.

He's been to two neurologists and both of them say they have run every test they can think of, many of them twice. 

For the past month, he has been much more alert and himself personality-wise. But he sleeps nearly all day and has to use a walker full-time because he is so shaky and has a lot of dizzy spells where he will pass out if he doesn't sit down. Sometimes we've gone over to help him when he's fallen and he literally cannot move a muscle no matter how hard he tries. If he walks around the house a bit it completely wipes him out and he has to lay down again. And he never knows what day it is. He forgets what happened if it was more than two days before.

Obviously, it's really hard on my self-proclaimed naturally impatient mom who has been so strong and supportive through everything. She just doesn't give up on him and is always encouraging him to keep trying. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to see my best friend go through so much, never knowing what they'll remember...

Anyway, I don't really know why I wrote this post. Maybe partly on the slight chance that anyone out there reading it can help lead us to the magical diagnosis that - if it doesn't fix everything - will at least help us know how to deal with it. It is getting worse and every stage seems to be something almost completely new... we just never know what will happen next. 

A few days ago, though, Chase shared something that I thought was a powerful revelation. In church on Sunday they talked about how many of the early Mormon pioneers crossing the plains in the winter were starving and had run out of food. At one point they resorted to eating leather hides because that was literally all they had left. So they prayed that God would make it so their stomachs would digest the hides. They didn't pray for a bison to walk past them or bread to suddenly appear before them. They accepted the situation they were in and asked only to be able to bear it and to make it through. I keep praying and hoping and asking that my dad's doctors will just be able to find out what's wrong, that they'll magically remember some rare test to try next. But Chase taught me that maybe what we all need to be praying for is just to be comforted and have the strength we need to get through whatever trial we are facing. 

So Dr. House, if you do feel like filling us in on what is going on, we would really appreciate it. But if you just can't figure it out, it's okay. We will be okay. My dad will be okay. Even if okay means just knowing he is loved and cared for and will never, ever be alone.