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StrangeMay 17, 2008 My sister called Thursday morning to say that our father had been hospitalized Wednesday night. Short version is that he's got a "mass" on his brain that wasn't there when he was hospitalized for ehrlichiosis last summer, and that apparently he's been having symptoms (falling, loss of balance, etc.) for some time without telling anyone. He also doesn't want any treatment, even surgery to biopsy the mass and find out for sure what it is, never mind surgery to (attempt to) remove it or radiation or chemo to (attempt to) reduce it. The doctors find this so strange that they think it's evidence that he's not competent to make his own decisions. I don't find it strange at all, and if it's evidence he's not competent to make his own decisions, then he's never been competent to make his own decisions. Which may well be true, but no one's previously made any attempt to take his decision-making license away. "Not strange," however, means "familiar." It doesn't necessarily mean "good." My sister reminded me that last summer, our father declined to be treated for ehrlichiosis -- until he listened long enough to realize that treatment for ehrlichiosis involved heavy doses of antibiotics, rest, and some rehab. Naturally, as soon as he was strong enough he resisted the rest and the rehab, but by then the drugs had done their work. Most likely this brain mass won't resolve with ordinary drugs. What he does is up to him. No, choosing a course of action, or inaction, that the doctors don't agree with doesn't not add up to incompetence. I just hope he listens long enough to understand what the options are. Since my father knows, and always has known, everything worth knowing, this may or may not happen. Whether he does or not -- it's his call. He's 85 (86 in July). If he's ready to check out -- chooses to pursue a course that will likely make the checking out come sooner rather than later -- his readiness trumps other people's opinions. This past winter I had to make the same call for Rhodry. Several calls. First it was go off-island for a biopsy? attempt to remove the tumor? The odds against success were formidable. Add in Rhodry's age, 13, and my financial situation (strapped), and the decision pretty much made itself. If cost was no object, would I have chosen differently? I think not. Manipulate some of the variables, though -- had Rhodry been 6 instead of 13, if treatment had been likely both to succeed in the short term and buy him a few more years -- and the decision would have been harder to make. Or harder to live with afterward. When Rhodry's leg broke, even before I knew it was broken, I knew it was time. Letting him go was easy. I choked up whenever I told someone he was gone, and I missed him when he wasn't where he used to be, doing what he used to do, like happy-dancing around Allie as we set out for a ride, or lying in the barn road waiting for us to come back, or riding shotgun in the pickup. But I wasn't paralyzed, or numb, or angry at the universe. Doglessness, however, was unacceptable. I'm not dogless anymore. Here's the strange thing. After my sister called Thursday, I looked over at puppy Traveller, gnawing on his rawhide and looking at me as soon as he realized I was looking at him. And I remembered back 13 years, to the winter of 1995. Puppy Rhodry moved in at the very end of January. Early in February I headed off to Potlatch 4, a sf con held that year in Oakland, California. I'd never been to the Bay Area, or the West Coast for that matter, so I stayed another week to see the city and some of my friends. While I was gone, Rhodry went back to his birthplace, the old Red Pony Farm on the South Road, across from where Campbell & Douglas Harness & Feed is now. I came home to a phone message that my mother was in the hospital in Boston. Rhodry was two months old, and that was his first trip off-island. We spent six hours in standby because school vacation was either ending or beginning, can't remember. That was when he learned to walk on a leash. I'm using the same leash with Travvy. It's bright purple, and it's still got puppy Rhodry's teethmarks in it. I get a puppy, and a parent gets sick. Reason says there's no connection, but so far I'm two for two: two puppies, two parents. I might get another puppy, but I don't have any more parents, so there's no way to test it: connection, or coincidence? The score stands at two for two, and it's not going to change.
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