Having an Aging Parent

Some people age slowly and some people struggle losing one ability at a time. If you're lucky you have agood family doctor. My dad has a good family doctor.

Dad and Bennie 2019

A few years ago Dad's doctor recommended he do an end of life plan. I went with him as you have to bring a family member to witness. Today I called to make sure it's on record. Dad just got out of hospital and went back in only a few days later.

Aging has not been fun for him. I don't see him often so I really notice hes changes. His hearing is still correctable using hearing aids but his vision is mostly gone. He's very negative (who can blame him) and anxious about all his loss of ability. Sad because he's a very social person. Once he stabilizes from this we'll get a plan in place to improve quality of life for him and his wife.

His family doctor is in total agreement. Don't wait for an event to find you and your doctor aren't on the same page.

Travel in a time of Pandemic

When my Dad was take by ambulance to the hospital with a cardiac event we had choices to make around traveling. 

One thing about traveling when COVID - 19 is it's so new. If you test positive away from home you have to isolate somewhere that isn't home. Even if you don't get sick enough for a hospital stay, where are you going to be stored, for an indefinite amount of time, while away from  home if you do get symptoms? A big consideration for us was if we got sick dad wouldn't be able to come home.

Since mid-March I've been in 5 stores with 3 of them being since late May. If I went alone that would mean flying since it's a 15 hour drive. If flying I would have an airport transit in a city that keeps having flare ups. In the en, we decided to drive. We did a ton of cooking, put our masks in the car, Bennie went to the kennel we were going to leave him at for our (canceled) trip to the Cook Islands, we had someone come check the house and water plants and we were off in the Macan.

Range at 3/4 tank

The trip out went smoothly and we got amazing gas mileage. We stopped twice for gas and once for a drive thru coffee (they wore masks and physical distancing was in place). We had made Vietnamese salad rolls for the trip and they were the perfect light food for long sitting periods. We used to leave super early but this time didn't leave until 8 am. We got in later but didn't start the trip fighting to wake up.

Once out there, we stayed in at my dad's, only saw his wife and went for walks in the rain. We knew we wouldn't be able to see Dad in hospital but wanted to be available if things took a turn for the worse. Fortunately, oxygen brought him around and he's booked for TAVI - he had been waiting for it but it's been bumped up. Once he had a date and wearing pyjamas instead of a gown - we went home. We'll go back in August if we don't have big (>50 that end up non-traceable) outbreaks here or out there and non-essential inter-provincial travel is allowed.

On the way back we ended up detouring down Hwy 93 because if a road washout just east of Jasper. Funny since we chatted about the Icefields Parkway on the way out. since neither of us had gone on it for decades (we've never been together and we've been married well over 30 years). It's a beautiful area even in the rain.

Last time I was by here ('82), the glacier was down to the road.

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Snow was very close to the road - we're running 20" summer radials

Rocky Mountain House area. Crown land so free camping along the reservoir.

We got home to a lush yard between rain and warm weather. It's good to be home.