Right at Home provides trusted in-home care for seniors and adults with disabilities. Call us today to see how we can improve your loved one’s quality of life!
2143 W Kearney Street
Springfield, MO
65803
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It was a cold but clear night in December night of 2003. I had just returned to my apartment at about 12:30 AM after a grueling day at work. I had come here to Missouri State University to pursue my graduate education and was determined to try and pay my own way through college as much as possible. I was open to doing anything, and soon found myself washing dishes for the cafeteria and even scrubbing and mopping floors in McDonald’s arena during their intercollegiate basket ball season. It was after one such punishing night, that I saw my answering machine’s blinking red light beckoning me to pick up. Exhausted, I hesitantly picked up the receiver half expecting a telemarketing message of some sort. Instead, what I heard was my mum’s voice pleading me to return home as soon as possible.
My heart sank. I knew my dad had cancer. It seemed like everyone I knew did; and at the time I felt cancer was something you simply dealt with for years on end. At least, that was my underlying assumption when I chose to come to America to pursue my master’s degree. I thought I would have enough time to finish my studies before I returned home to be with dad. I was so wrong.
I returned home to find my dad in a physical state that I’d never imagined. The cancer coupled with the chemotherapy had exacted a massive toll. He had lost all his hair, was gaunt, emaciated and mostly confined to his bed. He was quickly losing his ability to speak, his movements were hardly coordinated, and he needed assistance with all of his most basic needs.
My immediate desire was to try and return him to the quality of life he had known before the cancer began this horrific and inexorable degeneration of his person. One of the first things I did was to build a ramp and procure a wheelchair so that I could get him off of his bed and out into the open air once again. He used to love his morning walks with his beloved dog, so I tried hard to replicate that experience for him by taking him along his favorite trails on the wheelchair. I’d bathe him; I’d shave him and I’d feed him. But the reality was that I was simply in denial; I secretly hoped that all of this effort would help revive him, heal him and bring him back to us. But sadly, that never happened. There were moments when things looked like they were getting better. There’d be mornings when he’d wake up looking a little like his old self, and sometimes, he’d even have the appetite for toast, bacon and eggs! But I soon learned that these were simply imaginary windows of hope that were usually short-lived as his energy would quickly ebb and dissipate in only a couple of hours.
