Ed's Blog

My Mom and Dad: Dad, Part 1

With Father's Day and a visit back home coming up this weekend, I thought I'd write a little about my Dad, ... but, I can't write too much about Dad without also writing about Mom.

My Dad is the best guy I know. What can I say? He has all of the good qualities that are truly important in a person - honest, hard working, friendly, fun-loving, warm, sincere, ... likes to joke around and laugh, and ... he always tries to do the right thing. Of course one can't reduce a person to a long list of adjectives and qualities, people are so much more. How can I describe Dad to give you a sense of his personality, character, and life?

Some background information: Dad, like Mom, was born and raised in Syracuse. He was very athletic, played all kinds of sports as a kid - Dad mentions that he was especially good at street hockey, but he also played a little football and baseball. Never really played basketball at all and he didn't take up golf until his 30's, as a salesman because it was the thing to do, and after he had given up tennis. Once Dad quit playing tennis competitively, that was it. He was very good at tennis. As a kid, he won the city of Syracuse junior title at 18, then starred as the captain of the Syracuse University team. He had a great forehand, a so-so backhand, and an admitted lousy server. But, he more than made up for it with the ground strokes, speed, and by chasing down every shot. (Later, Dad won the Syracuse city Doubles title in Table Tennis with my Uncle).

World War II came along, and Dad like everyone else joined the army. Since Dad was born on April 14th, 1923, he was very young when he entered the service - 18 years old. Fortunately, Dad passed an exam, was placed in the signal corp, and did a lot of training. The closest he came to action was when he was in the south Pacific and a Japanese submarine passed by their ship. Both ships let the other one go by, there was no confrontation, perhaps the Japanese sub was on a more important mission, whatever, .... Dad came out of WW II unscratched .... Thank God! ... and then finished Syracuse University with a degree in (back then it was called - Advertising).

Dad was a salesman. He was pretty good, sold insurance, worked for a number of companies over the years, but for the most part, when I was a kid and teenager he sold for Employers Insurance of Wasau. Selling anything is difficult, and as competition intensifies, there's always pressure on salesmen. I recall Dad's frustration trying to make sales, talking to Mom and the dinner table, the famous line was - "I have to make the quota." I don't know if Dad's job and stress contributed to his stomach problems but, he had very serious digestive problems. As a teenager I recall Dad having dinner and then going to the bathroom at night and losing it - vomiting some of the food as he had a very bad case of acid reflux. Night after night.

Eventually Dad had major surgery. He was diagnosed with a spastic Esophagus, hiatel hernia, ... etc, and he went in for the major surgery. He still has the scar from where they cut ... from the middle of his stomach area to around his back near and above the kidney. A gigantic scar! In order to do the surgery they actually sawed through a rib, ... it was major. Nowadays they proabably take about a 2 inch scar to do the same procedure. Anyway, that helped quite a bit, no more reguritation, but Dad did continue to have more stomach problems.

In fact, for years Dad complained about stomach problems and when one day he went in to have the "pain in his side" checked out, it was discovered that he had cancer. It was renal carcinoma, or kidney cancer. This is many years later, and I was at my first full-time teaching position as Assistant Professor at UNC - Greensboro. I flew back right away for Dad's surgery. He came out fine, they removed the kidney and he recovered fairly fast.

A quick medical summary of the next decade for Dad: Well, Dad had been through a lot. And of course if you know Mom and Dad, you know my Mom is a worrier. But, Dad gave her more things to worry about. After all of this, one of Dad's medical check-ups at the VA Hospital revealed melanoma - the most deadly skin cancer. It was an odd shaped and colored mole on my Dad's abdomen. The surgery was simple and Dad recovered very fast. But, melanoma's really have to be watched, if un-diagnosed they spread extremely quickly and are very deadly.

After this, the next big problem I believe was prostate cancer. This was diagnosed quickly as Dad goes in for lots of medical check-ups, and at this age at the time, ... 73-75? maybe, he had a few options. They, Mom and Dad, opted for surgery. However, during the surgery it was discovered that Dad had too much scar tissue in this area .... I had left out that Dad had previous prostate surgery (the benign, prostatic hyperplasia?, or enlarged prostate), so they had to close him back up and go to plan B. Plan B was radiation on the specific area. However, the doctors aren't perfect, and in my Dad's case it ended up that the radiation penetrated my Dad's colon. He was left with radiation coloitos (that's a good candidate for spell checker), ... but what that means is he had small holes and damage in his colon, which led to a case of permanent bleeding and problems going to the bathroom.

A few years back, after the radiation problems, Mary and I and my sister Diane were in town for Thanksgiving. In the middle of the night, we'll never forget my Mom yelling - "Ed!" I went running into their bedroom and Dad was - twitching and almost convulsing, was it a heart attack!? His eyes were sort of rolled back in his head, he was twitching or moving and shaking, but I checked his heart and it was beating rapidly. Diane called 911 and within 15 minutes or so the paramedics arrived. In just a matter of moments there was suddenly about 6 or 7 people, strangers, paramedics and firemen in my parents bedroom. They shouted at Dad to wake up, ... and when he "came out of it" he started screaming. It was a wild scene!

Anyway, at the hosptial an hour or so later, perhaps at 4am, who knows, the doctors determined that it wasn't a heart attack, but they didn't know what happened. The best the doctors could say is - he didn't have a heart attack, but we think he had a brain seizure. (The brain sort of gets overloaded, and afterwords the person doesn't really know what happened to them).

Dad was later released from the hospital, and we finished our Thanksgiving visit, and we were all very, very thankful that Dad was ok.

Despite all of these problems, Mom and Dad still are the friendliest, warmest, nicest people. Dad never says - "why me?" Dad always has a good outlook on life.

Dad's medical Part 2: I remember walking to class at Lyons Hall. There's a tv set in the hallway, and what made this day different was, 10 minutes before class, all of the students are gathered in the hallway watching tv and talking. I was a little perturbed, and perplexed, ... "I'm thinking what's going on?" The 1st jet had slammed into the Twin Towers already and there were reports about a plane hitting the Pentagon." I watched the 1st Tower collapse and didn't believe it. Some students said it came down, and I remember saying, "No, it couldn't have. I think that's just the smoke and debris from some of it. It couldn't all come down."

Later that evening I called my parents to discuss the day's events. That's when they told me that Dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

posted by Unknown @ 6:28 AM