One of the challenging aspects of going down with some of these eventually-life-consuming ailments is that everybody – the patient and others around have to go thru a sharp and excruciating learning curve getting used to the new normal. One usually does not get trained for these kind of phases in life. Sometimes, the best training you might have is what you recollect having seen happening with your grandparents or other elders while growing up.

Yesterday, most of the day we struggled with that learning curve. Dad was clearly uncomfortable. He was being very restless the whole day. Kept us on our toes trying to figure out how to ease some of his pain. The problem is that patients cannot always describe what their problem is. Of course, with his speech severely debilitated, he had his own challenge even putting words in his mouth

At around 11 at night, my brother theorized “I think he is having difficulty with his breathing”. Among all other complications, my dad is also a COPD patient. His lungs are very weak and only a fraction of it is functional. My brother then gave him a treatment to boost his lungs – I guess some kind of medication that you inhale thru a nebulizer.

In about 45 seconds or so, dad went off to sleep From his facial expression, you could see that he was much more comfortable. It seems his challenge was he was not getting enough air, but obviously, a patient like him cannot self-diagnose it. We had to learn it by stumbling upon it.

At the time of writing this – and it is past 6:45 in the morning, he is still knocked out. In fact, I can hear him snore. No other sound can be as reassuring as that right now.

Going back to last night, we then finished up dinner, got mom to sleep off and then spent some time knocking ourselves out too 🙂 My brother, sister in law and myself. Finally, we were relaxed enough to open that bottle of vodka that I had gotten after fighting thru the rains last evening 🙂 Whipped up a quick cocktail late at night…

Stacy Roy Roderman, you had wisely advised in a prior comment that I should remember to take care of myself too. May I submit this picture as Exhibit A in support of that 🙂