Charles ☭ H
Well my dad can now get calls from me.
Me: Hi dad, how are you?
Dad: I'm waiting to die.
Me: Um, well, did you have a good lunch today?
Dad: I can't really taste anything.
Me: You've lost your sense of taste?
Dad: Yes.
Me: Do you want me to send you hot sauce?
Dad: No.
Charles ☭ H
Well, the phone does work in that he can call me and seems to be able to use it on his less good days, like when he has forgotten that time zones exist.
I just, he's so fragile. I don't want to refuse a call and then he dies the next day or something.
Charles ☭ H
Dad's dementia phone is configured with a whitelist to prevent people from scamming him, but this feature doesn't work with foreign numbers.
Because it's an American phone, you see, and foreigners are not a use case worth testing because we all have cooties.
Charles ☭ H
Dad's heart checkup sent him to the emergency room because he had a rapid heart rate. My brother checked him out against medical advice.
. . . .
I've gotten none of my marking done. I'm just, like, listening to bandcamp. It's all I've done for weeks.
Charles ☭ H
Reports I've received on how things are going:
Dad at his worst can't eat without serious help, can't open a bottle, gets lost in his room, does weird things.
Dad on bad days can eat finger food and is suggestible and will go and engage with others if encouraged.
Dad when he's most lucid refuses all food and interaction and sits alone in his room in the dark. Is it depression? Is it a suicide attempt? Is it because of the YouTube channels that told him that fasting cures dementia?
Obviously, his most lucid periods don't last for long. He asked for a morphine drip, but says he's not in physical pain.
. . .
I feel really very angry at him and also really struggle to think about anything else.
Even on his best days, he still has dementia and probably had a stroke, so, like, this is just how his brain (doesn't) work now. It just is. I might as well as be angry at the chair that he sits in while brooding. And yet here we are. Him in Texas, me in England, both failing to engage with the environments that surround us.
Charles ☭ H
I've been politely not mentioning anything about Texas to my family who chose to move there during the pandemic. Except for on the last day, I mentioned that about 30% of lyft drivers had made homophobic small talk and that I'd found one of the rides to be actually alarming. My SIL told me not to talk to drivers, ha ha, and then gave me a ride to the airport.
When I last looked, one of the bodies in the state's bicameral legislature had passed a measure outlawing all trans related medical care and the governor had pledged to sign it. I don't know if it had passed the other body or if Democrats had successfully blocked it. Whether or not it's passed/ing, it's already achieved some targets: my fear around this is an intended result.
US healthcare has changed a lot since I left due to the ACA, but it was true recently (and perhaps still is) that there was no duty of care. I can turn up to a GP's office with money and something they know how to treat and they can refuse to do it. This has happened to me in the past. In "liberal" places in the US. I've also had US doctors refuse to engage with foreign medical paperwork. (I went on tour once with an outstanding issue. Honestly, it was easier to get help for it in Russia than in the US.) Even if the bill doesn't pass, it emboldens bigots and increases hesitation from allies, another intended result.
This is germane because the surgery I'm scheduled to get has a 10% infection rate, which is high and jetlag is hardly a boost for the immune system. Again, I don't live in Texas so maybe I'm overly worried, but, as intended, I have a real fear that the medical system there would be slow or impossible to navigate and that I could actually die or face serious injury from something that stared as easy and treatable.
And, like, this wouldn't even have political value. The most I could hope for would be a passing mention in a fundraising letter.
I guess I could fly to California to see a doctor and see about travel insurance that covers medical evacuation for pre-existing conditions.
Or, if dad dies shortly after my surgery, just not go to his funeral.
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