He Ain't Heavy; He's Dadzilla

As If It Couldn't Get Any Worse

One day Dadzilla has trouble moving at all. He manages now and then to make trips to the kitchen. He can even go out to the picnic tables under the gazebo, but whenever he comes in, he talks about how difficult it was for him. I encourage him to make an appointment with the doctor. He waits and waits and waits, then finally goes when he has an appointment for something else.

He tells me ahead of time that he'll need a ride. Of course, I'll give him a ride. Just tell me when the day before the appointment. I don't hear a peep out of him. It's hard telling when the day before the appointment is since he says nothing. I wake up on what is the day of his appointment (I found out later) and he's gone. A couple hours later, he shows up and tells me they took X-rays of his lower spine. I wonder aloud why he drove himself. Oh, he didn't want to wake me. Didn't want to wake me? He wouldn't have woken me if he told me the day before like I'd asked. These are the kinds of things that make me feel less sorry for him and his situation; he takes a difficult situation and makes it that much harder on himself.

Seldom do I push anything further. Why?  He'll just have some cockamamie excuse, and the egg shells I continually walk on will shatter and he'll throw a temper tantrum. It's kind of like when he asks me what I need from the store, I tell him, he comes home, and then proceeds to tell me something like he couldn't find it. It could be milk, and he'd say something asinine like he couldn't find it or they were out or something else unbelievable.

So they took the images of his lower spine and tell him that he has some degenerative

disease. Groovy. I don't know what we're going to do if he gets worse quickly. He'd have to get a nursing assistant or other caregiver if it meant toileting or showering issues. I know neither one of us would be comfortable with my doing it. Besides, I don't do poo. I can't physically manage it without vomiting.

They give him some pretty strong pain pills. This doesn't stop him from getting up several times per night to go out in the living room to watch TV because he can't sleep. I suspect he's not taking his pain pills, but I say nothing because of aforementioned reasons.

What his sudden night owl behavior has the nasty effect of doing is having him in the living room even MORE of my waking day. It sounds selfish, but if he acted in any way like a “normal” person, it wouldn't be an issue. Every time I go into the kitchen he has to have something to say, or some snooping to do. Sometimes he'll be especially cranky and ask me what the hell I'm doing out there, that I'm making too much noise. Are you serious?! Too much noise from the man who can't stop banging on the wall and telling the upstairs neighbors to shut the hell up? I've mentioned it a couple times, how hypocritical he is. All I get is flat out denial and yelling. Hypocrisy from him is usually the thing that makes me mad enough to say something, even though I know the result well ahead of time.

Since I now have almost no time alone outside of my room, I go stir crazy. I work more on my internet stuff than ever, trying to make a living to finally be on my own again, live like a normal person, and finally have peace again. I always think to myself, “God, it can't possibly get any worse.” Yet, somehow things usually find their way there: an even worse situation.

<Reminiscences>                                       <cont'd in future post>