Chapter 15
Once back in Texas, I tried to settle my life back into some sort of routine. I went back to school. Got an A+ on my Psychology test and ended up with a B in the class overall. I tried to visit my father as much as I could. Sometimes it was difficult. There were times when I could visit him two or three times a week without a problem. There were other times that my visits caused him to become extremely agitated afterwards which made things difficult for the nursing home staff.
Things stayed relatively calm until around May or June.
One day, I got a call from a woman, Rita Sanchez, who said that she was my father’s case worker for Medicaid. She informed me that I needed to make my guardianship permanent. She then told me that there would be an official hearing to make me my father’s legal guardian. She told me that she would be sending me the application paperwork which I would need to fill out and send back before the hearing. She also said that they would be appointing my father a lawyer and that he would be calling me before he went to speak to my father in person. Oh, that won’t cause a problem.
She then told me that I would need to apply for SSI through Social Security, pension and Aid and Attendance payments through the VA, which would be used to fund any and all of my father’s personal needs. I questioned why I needed to do this. Since being in the nursing home, my father didn’t have any personal needs. I was having a hard time as it was buying items for my father to make sure that his account did not go above the allotted two-thousand dollars that would kick him off Medicaid. She informed me that if I did not apply for any and all monies from other agencies, that my father might be entitled to, that his Medicaid would be revoked all together. That doesn’t make any sense. Why am I asking for money from agencies that he doesn’t need? All that does is make it more of a hassle for me to try and spend money on crap he doesn’t need.
It didn’t make sense to me, but I did as I was told. I received the guardianship request paperwork and in filling it out, I read that I needed two references willing to sign the paper stating that they thought that I would uphold my duties as guardian. That would not have been such a big deal except for the fact that the fine print stated that should I not uphold my duties as guardian, these two references would owe the state one hundred dollars each. What the hell. How can they ask people to put their money on the line like that!?!? I mean, I don’t plan on bailing, but still how do I ask people to sign this. I ended up asking my neighbor from across the street and the owners of Deep Woods, my local apothecary.
A few days later, I got a call from David Taylor, the lawyer that would be representing my father. He began by asking me why I was asking for guardianship. I gave him the abbreviated version of what had happened since my original phone call which brought my father to Texas. When I finished, he asked if I thought my father would want me as his legal guardian. I explained again why my father ended up in the nursing home and the fact that there was no one else. I then told him that he needed to be careful when he saw my father as conversations about me sometimes made my father aggressive. He thanked me and hung up. The next day Mr. Taylor called to say that he had gone to see my father the day before, after speaking to me. He said that my father did indeed express that he did not want me as his guardian. He said that my father talked about me trying to kill him and having him locked up and said that he could take care of himself. Mr. Taylor then said my father was very confused and could not answer basic questions including, what my name was. All of these things had led him to the conclusion that my father, did indeed, need a legal guardian and since I was family and willing to be said guardian, he would recommend to the court that my request be granted. Yeah! Insert sarcastic tone here.
The official court date was set for July 19th. I went into court that day for the hearing, which lasted all of about five minutes. After the hearing, I was met in the hall outside the court room by one of the guardianship clerks. She gave me a copy of my guardianship papers, and some other pertinent papers, and then she gave me instructions on my duties. Everything was pretty basic. My role was advocate for my father and liaison between the nursing home, Medicaid and any other agencies that might have dealings with my father. I would be required to visit my father in person at least once per month and would have to reapply for guardianship every year with detailed statements of his finances since I was his Social Security payee. I’m REQUIRED to visit once a month. There are times when my visits make him agitated and I don’t feel like I should go. What do I do then? What if I go back on the road and I’m not around? What if I didn’t live in town? What if I want to move?
The guardianship woman finished telling me my duties. Then she asked me what nursing home my father was in. I told her and then recognition set in on her face. She asked me if people said that I resembled my father. I told her yes. She then told me that she had actually been to Garden Care and knew exactly who my father was. She said she had heard about his barricading himself in the dining room and throwing the chair through the window. I asked her why she knew all that. She told me that she had been called into Garden Care to deal with one of her charges who the state acted as guardian for. She said that she had met and spoken to my father because my father had beaten this man up soon after entering the nursing home. Oh god! My father is the nursing home bully.
Again, things went back to a relative normality. I continued being wife and mother while going to school over the summer. I say relatively normal, because I did lose the ability to tell time on an analog clock for the entire semester I was taking pre-algebra. But other than that, things were normal. I visited my father several times a week when he was having good days and backed it down to once a week or every other week when his days were bad. I received word from the VA that my father was approved for a ninety dollar per month pension. Wow, serve your country during war time and they give you a whopping ninety bucks a month in your old age. The VA approved the pension, but denied Aid & Attendance for lack of disability need. Huh, what the hell does that mean? It’s a good thing he really doesn’t need anything. If he did, he’d be screwed. Rita Sanchez asked me the same question. All I could do was read her the letter that the VA sent me. I also received word from Social Security that my father was denied SSI for the same reason. The money issues out of the way, there was nothing much more to do than visit my father regularly and try to continue my normal life.
During the fall semester of school, life had really fallen into a rather calm routine. I was enrolled in chemistry and horticulture classes and doing well. I was even hired by the school to work as a note taker for a special needs person in my horticulture class. There had been no major blow ups with my father in a while. Home life was calm. I should have known that meant something bad was coming.
While sitting in my horticulture class one day, watching a film about microscopic organisms, I started having trouble breathing. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. I told myself that everything was fine and all I needed to do was focus on my breathing, but the more I tried to do that, the more I felt like I couldn’t breathe. After several minutes, I started to hyperventilate and broke out in a cold sweat. I finally got up and made my way to the back of the room where my teacher was sitting and told him that I couldn’t breathe just as my legs started to go out from under me. My professor caught me by the arm and walked me down to the nurse’s office, which luckily, was located in the same hallway as my classroom. Once in the nurse’s office, I began to feel sharp pains in my chest. I was really scared. I had never had pain like that before in my life. It felt as if my chest was being crushed and no matter what I did to try and calm my breathing, I just couldn’t catch my breath. Since this was not the first time I had had chest pains, I was really afraid that I was having a heart attack. I knew that I was young for something like that, but I knew that my mother had had a small heart attack at work in her thirties, and her mother had had many heart problems throughout her life, so I knew it was not out of the realm of possibility. I told the nurse all of this, the best that I could in my current condition. The nurse called Mike for me and then called the paramedics. Once they arrived, they took me in an ambulance to the hospital closest to my house, which was a good half hour drive.
On the drive to the hospital, the EMT working on me said that for all of my vital signs, he did not think that I was having a heart attack. He said, in his opinion, I was having a panic attack. As we pulled into the hospital, I asked him if he was sure that was what the problem was. He said that I could go in and be seen, but he was relatively sure that’s what was going on. When they opened the ambulance doors, I could see Mike in the parking lot and waved him over to me. I thanked the EMTs for their help and told Mike to take me home and call my doctor.
My doctor’s advice was that I try and make myself sleep with the Clozapan that he had prescribed last year when I had chest pains. So I took a pill and got in bed, but try as I might I could not sleep. I was having a little better luck regulating my breathing, but I was still in a lot of pain and the hyperventilating would hit me in waves which would scare me and make the pain sharper. I tried taking another pill a few hours later, but with no effect. I finally told Mike to call my doctor back and tell him everything that I had taken and ask if he thought I could have a glass of wine to try and make myself sleep. My doctor said it should not be a problem. So I had Mike pour me a Big Gulp sized glass of wine and after drinking about half, I thankfully passed out. Yes, I realize that a 32 oz glass of wine was probably not what the doctor meant when he said a glass of wine, but I was scared and in pain and just wanted it to stop.
I stayed home for a few days without any more incidents, so I figured that was the end of it. Boy, was I wrong. Several days later while I was driving my kids to school, I had another full on panic attack in the car; hyperventilating, cold sweats, chest pains, the works. I was able to maintain and get myself home, but after several hours of this I had to take another Clozapan and take a nap. It happened again on my way to pick the kids up. Mike was working, so I couldn’t anesthetize myself for the evening, so I had to function through it. The next week I tried to go back to school, but I got about a block away from the house and had another panic attack and turned around and came home. I eventually dropped out because I was too afraid to get too far away from the house alone. I had to have Mike drive me to school to do the actual withdrawal. I couldn’t make the trip by myself. The panic attacks became less intense after a few days, but still continued to come on a daily basis. After a few days, I was able to function enough through them to be able to make it to and from the kids’ schools and to and from the nursing home to visit my father, but that was about it. I never went back to school.
During the time I was having my panic attacks, I got a call from the nursing home saying that they had discovered that my father had come down with another UTI (Urinary Tract Infection). When I finally went to see him, it was as if he had slid another notch further in his downward mental spiral. He was very disoriented, but pleasant. The only really weird thing was he didn’t seem to know who I was at all.
When I greeted him, he smiled at me congenially as if he recognized me. I went to hug him hello, but as I walked toward him, he did that male step back, look me up and down move and then said, “You’re a very nice looking lady.” EEEEWWWW! Uh, yeah Dad thanks, but I look like you! No hug for you today! If I wasn’t having panic attacks before, this surely would have sent me over the edge with an oog factor of 100.
Those visits happened off and on for years; strangely always precipitated by an onset of a UTI.
I had many such creepy incidents not only with my father, but with other residents of the locked Alzheimer’s ward. In the first days of my father being at the nursing home, I was standing at the nurse’s station talking to the nurse on duty. Mid-sentence, I jumped with a yelp; someone had grabbed my ass, hard. I turned around to see one of the patients, who I came to know as Henry, slinking away from me with his head down. Alright, that’s not even fair. I can’t smack an Alzheimer’s patient for grabbing my ass. If guys only knew, this is a whole new way to cop a feel without repercussions. It was not the last time I would be manhandled while on the ward. On one occasion or another, I have been groped, propositioned, and proposed to by patients.
I have also seen more elderly penises than I dare to mention. You would think someone other than me might take notice to the elderly man pulling out his member to urinate in the middle of the hallway or against the wall, but you would be wrong. On the many occasions that I witnessed this and made mention of it to the nursing staff, my comments were always greeted by a nonchalant, “Oh, hell someone’s going to have to clean that up.” And that’s it.
The most memorable encounter I ever had on the ward was actually something done by one of the female patients.
Again, I was standing at the nurse’s station talking to the nurse on duty, when one of the female patients, Miss Ruby, came up and started talking to me. I always tried to be polite and tried to understand what was being said to me. On this occasion, Miss Ruby was trying to ask me where something was. I wasn’t able to understand exactly what it was she was asking me. Trying to seem interested, I threw out an offhanded, “What are you looking for, honey?” In response, she held out something in her hand to me. I looked and at first I thought she was holding a large pinecone. At second glance, I realized she was actually holding the single largest intact bowl movement I have ever seen. OH MY GOD! The really scary thing is, that it might not even be hers!
Thankfully, my outburst did elicit a prompt physical response from the nurse and orderlies.
I usually liked to go visit my father at lunch time because my father and other patients tended to get very antsy sitting waiting for lunch to be served. I would hang out and keep people occupied talking and in their seats the best I could, while the staff did what they needed to do. On one visit, Mike and I were in the dining room waiting with my father as the staff got lunch ready. Miss Jessie, one of the feistier female patients, motioned for me to come over to her table. I walked up and said, “Yes, Miss Jessie what do you need?” She reached up from her chair and put her arms around my waist and said very forcefully, “I need a man and you ain’t no man!” Mike and I laughed a long time at that.
Although Mike didn’t go to the nursing home often, he was not immune to being accosted by patients on the ward. The one incident that stands out in my mind the most, happened a few months after my father entered the nursing home. It was the first time Mike came with me to the nursing home, so he was uncomfortable from the onset. As I sat on the edge of a chair talking to my father, Mike was standing, leaning up against a wall just kind of hanging out. As he stood there, this little woman, whose name I don’t remember came walking down the hall directly toward the spot where Mike was standing. As the woman approached, Mike tried to move out of her way, but she moved in the same direction he did. Mike tried moving the other way, but again the woman moved the same way he did, all the while still walking slowly toward him. The two of them continued doing this strange slow motion dance until the woman was right in front of Mike, actually touching him. Before he could move again, the woman put her head down on Mike’s chest, put her arms around his waist and closed her eyes with a peaceful look of bliss. In contrast, Mike had a look of complete horror on his face. I wish I had had a camera because the picture would have been perfect comedic sadness. Once Mike was finally able to peel the woman off of him with the help of one of the orderlies, we were told that he looked a lot like the woman’s son who had not been in to visit her in a very long time. There were a lot of sad stories like that.
Another thing I had to deal with regarding the nursing home on a regular basis was trying to keep my father’s stuff around. Over the years, I probably purchased several dozen complete wardrobes for my father. Every time I purchased something new, it disappeared within months. And it wasn’t just clothing. Since my father went into the nursing home, I bought him numerous pairs of shoes, hats, bedding, and two televisions. All were mysteriously lost, stolen, or broken. I was only ever able to recover one of his lost items, the winter coat that I bought him when he first came to live with me.
When my father went into the nursing home, he was still working the same M.O. from my house of wearing his coat all the time. After a few weeks of this, the nursing staff said that they had finally made him stop doing it and kept his coat hung in the closet in his room. One day, about a year into his stay, while hanging up the current new wardrobe, I had just purchased, I noticed that the coat was gone. When I finished hanging the clothes, I went and asked the nurse where the coat went. She said that she didn’t know and maybe it had been taken to the laundry. During my next few visits, I checked his closet and still the coat was gone. Each time I asked where the coat was, I was always told that no one knew. I’m not sure why, but I never gave up on that coat; even through all the staff changes in the ward, every so often, I would ask about the coat with the same result. Eventually, my dogged persistence paid off. It took almost three years, but one day after a consistent pestering, the coat miraculously showed back up in my father’s closet. It was a bit worse for wear, but it was back. Sometimes it pays to be a pain in the ass.
I also had to deal with the issue of the lack of hygiene and quality of care while my father was at Garden Care. Just like no one seemed to notice when patients urinated on the ward floors, no one seemed to do anything more than they absolutely had to regarding the patients’ personal care. I can’t even count how many times in the beginning that I had to forcefully tell someone that my father was soiled or wet and needed to be changed.
Try as I might, I could never get the staff to put lotion on my father. If you don’t know anything about black skin, it’s prone to dryness and will look grey and ashy before it eventually begins to crack and in worst cases, bleed. Most of the nursing and orderly staff that I saw was black, so I know that they understand this issue. I got tired of asking, telling, and begging them to do it. So, I finally began doing it myself whenever I came to visit. I would get the bottle of lotion I bought him, roll up his sleeves and put lotion on his arms. Then I would sit on the floor in front of my father. Yes, I sat on that disgusting floor! I would take off his shoes and socks and put lotion on his legs and feet.
One day, when I sat down on the floor to put the lotion on my father. I took off his socks and was disgusted and horrified. Crusted all around his toes were dried feces. His toes and toe nails were so crusted over and dried that there were areas that were cracking. As I sat there, looking at his feet in horror, I looked up at the nurse’s station and loudly commented on what I had just found. No one said a word, the nurse and orderly on the other side of the desk just looked at me. I said it again and got the same lack of response. Finally, I stood up and said, “Well if none of you are going to do anything about it would someone at least give me a wet wash cloth so that I can clean his feet myself!?!” Finally, the orderly moved from behind the counter, went and got me what I asked for and then went back to talking behind the desk. Holy shit, I have got to get my father out of this place. This is disgusting!
I got back down on the floor and cleaned my father’s feet with my bare hands and the washcloth. That was the beginning spark that led me to try and get my father out of Garden Care.
Yes, the place had saved my household and my sanity by taking my father when no one else would, but I began to realize that the place would take anyone just to get federal money and to hell with the actual patients. There had been signs for a long time and would be many more to come. I should have seen it during the countless occasions when I was asked, “Watch them for a minute,” by many a lone staff member as they left me alone in the ward with the patients.
One of the scariest of these occasions was Thanksgiving 2002. Although my father had only been in the nursing home less than a year, I had been going to visit long enough to know many of the residents and their ailments. During holidays, family members are always invited to the center to celebrate functions with the patients. On Thanksgiving, the home actually went all out for the night. They had a number of large round table clothed tables set up in and around the dining room. They even hired a wait staff to serve for the evening. The table set up for the residents of the locked dementia unit was located in the alcove entry way to the dining room, just before the doors to the locked ward. This kind of put the table in a room all to itself where it could not be seen by much of the dining room. When I got to the nursing home, the staff was in the process of getting all the locked ward residents seated at their table. They had gotten everyone dressed up and once seated, all the units’ residents seemed to be enjoying the festivities. As I sat down next to my father and waited to be served with him and the rest of the residents, the two staff members from the locked ward pulled a, “Hey can you watch them for a minute?” and then disappeared. When the wait staff came to serve the food, I ended up helping get everyone set up to eat and helping a few patients to try and feed themselves. When dessert came around, I had to tell the wait staff not to give any cake to several patients that I knew were diabetic. The locked ward staff only came back when dinner was over and the patients from the rest of the dining room began to be moved back to their rooms. Needless to say, it was a rather stressful dinner for me. I never went back to another holiday event.
Although my father’s moods and aggression became less and less problematic as time went on, his physical health began to become an issue.
First, my father seemed to come down with a UTI every six months or so. No one could ever explain why. I suspected it was a hygiene issue, but I had no way of proving my suspicions. The problem with my father’s many UTIs, besides the obvious, was with every UTI episode my father’s overall health, demeanor, and mental faculties would decline dramatically. With each occurrence, my father would slip further and further away from himself and reality. He would become more confused, he would lose dexterity and balance. It was horrible to watch and very confusing. No one has ever explained why a Urinary Tract Infection would be tied to my father’s mental decline. I tried asking the nurse’s but they could not explain it. I was always told to ask my father’s doctor. The problem was I couldn’t get in touch with him.
About a year and a half into my father’s nursing home stay, my father had taken to walking the corridors almost obsessively, nonstop. Back and forth, up and down each hall. When I would visit, I would have to follow him back and forth through the hall. The only time he stopped the compulsive walking was to eat, to be changed, to be bathed, and to sleep. And even then, you were hard pressed to get my father to stop moving for long.
One day, Mike and I went to visit him. While we followed my father up and down the corridor trying to talk to him, Mike pulled me aside. He pointed out that when my father walked his arm remained rigid, bent at his sides and did not swing like normal. I pointed this out to the nursing staff and said that I knew that to be a sign of Parkinson’s disease. The nurses told me that they would mention it to his doctor and have him call me. I never got a call.
As weeks turned into months, not only did my father’s arm not swing when he walked, he began to stiffen up physically from the neck down. First, my father stopped turning his head when he was spoken to. He still responded to his name and simple commands. The only difference was when called, instead of turning his neck in the direction of the person speaking; he would either turn his body from the waist or turn his whole body. I mentioned this change to the nurse on duty and got the same response. “She’d let the doctor know and have him call me.” I did watch her put a note for my father’s doctor in his chart. I still never got a call.
A few months later, my father’s condition got even worse. He was having difficulty feeding himself because of his stiffness and began having trouble swallowing. Because of his eating difficulties, my father began to lose weight. He lost a lot of weight quickly. He also all but stopped talking. When he did speak, he was almost incoherent. He then started having stability issues and episodes of falling, or at least being found on the floor as if he had fallen, or so I was told.
Finally, the nurses became concerned. I got a call one day saying that I needed to come in to speak to the DON (Director of Nursing) and the new social worker to discuss their concerns. I went in and met with the two women. They said that my father’s health was deteriorating rapidly and that they recommended that I agree to have my father be fitted with a feeding tube. I told them again, that I really wanted to speak to the doctor about my father’s condition to get his recommendation. Again, I was told that they would have him call me, but in the meantime they asked me to sign off on having the G-tube (gastric tube) put in so they could schedule the surgery. I agreed, and signed the papers and went home to wait on a surgery date and a call from the doctor. I got a surgery date; called in by one of the nurses, but no call from the doctor.
My father went in for surgery a few days later. It was a very quick procedure. I think it lasted all of about twenty minutes. We spent more time sitting in the hospital room waiting for him to go into surgery than it took to do the actual surgery. As a matter of fact, when they wheeled him away to have the tube inserted, I went outside to smoke a cigarette. My father was back in the room and finished by the time I got back. Easy as pie, no complications.
One strange thing did happen. When the doctor came in to verify my father’s medical history he looked at the chart and said, “So your father is taking medications for Dementia?”
“Yes.”
“Hypertension?”
“Yes.”
“Anxiety and depression?”
“Um, I guess so.”
“And Parkinson’s?”
”Um, is he? No one ever told me that they had actually diagnosed him with it. My husband and I have been mentioning to the nursing staff that his arms don’t move when he walks and that we knew that that was a sign of Parkinson’s.”
“Well it says here that he has Parkinson’s and is being treated for it.”
“Okay, then I guess he is.” From that day on, Parkinson’s was a part of my father’s official diagnosis. I asked about it at the nursing home but got the standard ask Dr. Zahdeh, but without ever hearing back from the doctor.
Once the feeding tube was put in and my father was put on a pureed diet, his health came back quite a bit. He gained weight and went back to his incessant hall walking. His stiffness remained. His communication skills did come back somewhat. He would answer in short sentences when spoken to, but he was never completely the same. It became hit or miss whether or not he responded to “Dad” anymore so most of the time I had to call him by his first name. I continued my regular visits several times per week. I continually made inquiries about talking to the doctor. I left message after message with no result. I finally asked for the doctor’s phone number and began trying to contact him by phone myself. Each time I called, I got his answering service.
Weeks turned into months, months turned into a year. Finally in the early spring of 2003, I got a call one morning. It was the weekend nurse. An orderly had found my father on the floor in his bedroom. When I asked if he was okay, I was told that he seemed fine, but he had cut his head and they were planning on sending him up the street to JPS Hospital. I told the nurse I would be right there, but she told me to wait and she would call me back once they transported him and they could tell me more. I said okay, hung up and waited.
After not hearing anything for over an hour, I called back. I was told by an orderly that the EMT’s had just left and taken my father to the hospital. What the hell, the hospital is down the street!?!? Why did it take over an hour? I hung up and headed to the hospital. Once at JPS, I went to the emergency room to look for my father. A nurse told me where he was waiting for observation and I went back to the area to sit with him. When I went in, my father was laying semi-propped up on a hospital bed. He looked at me and smiled as I entered the room.
“Hey there you are, where you been?” he said, which completely shocked me. He hadn’t spoken to me unprompted for months.
“Um, I’ve been home, Dad. How are you?” I said, without much hope of a response.
“Oh, I’m good. How you been?” he replied smiling.”
I was stunned. My dad and I continued having a conversation for about a minute or two. His responses got sketchy and nonsensical but at least he was talking. As we spoke, a doctor came into the room and asked me who I was. I told him that I was Mr. Martin’s daughter. His reaction was shock. He said that my dad had come into the hospital with no information. There was no information on family, medical condition, medications, nothing. What the hell? Why would they send him with no information? I need to get him out of that place. Their incompetence is going to end up killing him.
The doctor then asked if I knew if my dad was a diabetic. Huh? Diabetic? When my dad was brought in, besides the gash to the back of the head that had required seventeen stitches, his blood sugar indicated that he was close to diabetic shock. He then said that they had been trying to get in touch with someone from the nursing home to find out if my dad’s non-responsiveness was a result of his accident or if he was always that way. He said that they had tried asking my dad questions but obviously he didn’t speak. I gave the doctor a brief history of my dad’s condition and then told him that actually my dad does speak and proved it by speaking to him. “Dad, you doing okay?” I said.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” My dad answered, to the shock of the doctor.
The doctor took up my lead and began asking my dad questions. My dad just sat there staring off into space without speaking. I then asked my dad if he needed anything. My dad responded, “No, I’m good.” The doctor and I exchanged glances and I shrugged. The doctor tried several more times with the same result. Finally, he turned to me and asked if I would stay since my dad seemed comfortable with me and they wanted to run some more test as well as start an IV of fluids because he was a bit dehydrated. I told him of course and the doctor left.
Dad, I am so sorry that I had to put you in that place. I know it’s horrible. I swear I will find a better place for you to live once this is all over. I was thinking all of this when a woman came around the curtain into my dad’s “room.” She introduced herself as the hospital’s social worker. She said that she had been alerted when my dad was brought in without proper information. She asked me about me and my dad’s experiences at the nursing home. I told her the stories I have conveyed here in this book along with others that I have left out for liability reasons. I ended by briefly explaining how my dad had ended up in the nursing home in the first place. When I finished, she asked me the name of the nursing home that my dad was in. I told her. Her response was, “I knew it and you need to get your dad out of there as soon as possible.” Lady, you read my mind! She said that she had some information that could help me. She then told me that if I wanted, there was a program that would even allow me to bring my dad back home. She got up saying that she would bring it back to me and left. While I sat waiting, I turned to my dad who seemed to have dozed off, and spoke softly.
“Dad, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to end up in such a horrible place. I never meant for you to have to go to a nursing home at all. I had no choice. I promise you, I will work from today on to bring you back home.”
My dad opened his eyes and looked at me for a moment and then said, “You would do that?”
“Of course I would.” I answered shocked and saddened.
“I don’t want to be any trouble.” he replied.
“It’s no trouble. You’re my dad.” I answered; even more shocked at this exchange.
“Thank you.” He finished and then closed his eyes and went back to sleep. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing bone straight. I began to shake and cry silently. Oh my god, he’s still in there! I don’t know how much he understands, but part of him is still in there somewhere. My gosh, what the hell has he seen and experienced in that place and understood, but been unable to do anything about? My God what have I done!?!
It was like a scene from a movie. If someone had told me the story, I would never have believed it. But I was there. I lived it. It was real. And I was devastated.
When the social worker came back she brought with her a book which she explained would give me all the information that I needed. It had information on every nursing home and home health care agency in the area. She also gave me the name and number for CBA (Community Based Alternatives) which is the agency she said could help me to bring my dad back home, if that’s what I wanted. I thanked her for all of her help and she turned to leave. As she walked away, she stopped and told me that I should report the nursing home for neglect among other things from what I had told her. I told her that I had thought about it numerous times, but I was afraid of the repercussions that my dad might face in the nursing home. She said that she understood, but urged me to think about it and then left. I sat with my dad for a few more hours until the doctor came in and said that they would be taking him back to the nursing home. I followed the ambulance back to the nursing home and sat with my dad for another hour or so once there.
When I got up to leave, my dad was laying in the bed with his eyes open staring at the ceiling. I touched his arm and said, “Dad, I’m going, but I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.”
My dad turned and looked at me and said, “Thank you” and then went back to staring at the ceiling.
Despite my trepidation, I did call Adult Protective Services the day after my dad’s “fall” about my concerns at the nursing home. I was told by the woman that I spoke to that I needn’t worry, “The call was completely confidential.”
About two weeks after I made the call, I was sitting on the floor putting lotion on my dad’s legs when one of the orderlies came up to me and said, “Nobody pushed your father down. He fell, ya know.”
“Yeah I know.” I replied stunned.
“Well, I don’t know why you need to have people come here and talk to us. No one did anything to your father.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. From then on, I was really afraid for my dad. I knew I needed to get him out of there.
Chapter 16
Before I can write about trying to bring my dad back home again, I feel I need to go back and talk about a few things that happened on the fringes simultaneously during the years this story took place.
Sometime during the summer of 2002, I got another phone call from Andrea Van Leestan, the lawyer representing my Uncle Wheeler’s estate. She said that they were on the verge of finalizing the estate sale and would have the exact amount of the assets that were owed to my grandmother. I informed her that my grandmother had died in April. She asked me who my grandmother’s Will listed as my grandmother’s heir(s). I told her that as far as I knew my grandmother did not have a will. I then told her that as far as heirs, all I knew was my father, my cousin Carla, and that my grandmother had a sister who was still living in Georgia named Eunice. She asked me for contact information on everyone, which I gave her. I then explained the situation with my father. She told me that I would need to call a lawyer to represent my father in the matter. She then took my contact information, gave me her contact information, said that she would be sending me more information in the mail and hung up.
Since I didn’t have a lawyer, I contacted the guardianship office and asked what to do. I was given a number for a legal referral service. I called a few of the lawyers on the list that were located close to me. None of the lawyers were in, so I left messages at each of their offices asking that they call me back. The only one to return my phone call was a Robin Accipiter, who had an office about five miles from my house. She said that she would be glad to take the case and told me to forward any and all information to her office. She also told me to refer my uncle’s lawyer to her whenever I spoke to her again and she would handle things.
A few months later when Ms.Van Leesten called back, I referred her to Ms. Accipiter and waited to be told what to do next. I didn’t hear directly from either Ms. Van Leesten or Ms. Accipiter for months. I received a few letters from Ms. Accipiter’s office stating dates for court hearings, but I always received letters of postponement several days or weeks before the actual court dates. The letters always said that the hearings were postponed by my father’s lawyer, David Taylor.
Sometime in 2003, I got a call from Ms. Van Leesten’s office asking what was happening with the case. She was growing impatient because she wanted to close out my uncle’s estate case. I told her that I didn’t know. I told her about the postponement letters that I had received and that I hadn’t heard anything else directly from my lawyer since the last time we had spoken. I told her that I would call Ms. Accipiter and get back with her as soon as I knew something. I called Ms. Accipiter’s office and got her legal assistant, Cinnamon. I explained to her what was happening and that either I needed to speak to Ms. Accipiter or she needed to call Ms. Van Leesten directly. She told me that she would give the message to Robin and I left it at that. I didn’t hear from either lawyer for a long time.
The next time I heard about the case was another phone call from Ms. Van Leesten asking what was happening. Again, I told her that I hadn’t heard anything and would call my lawyer and get back with her. This time when I called and spoke to Cinnamon, I told her that I wanted to speak to Ms. Accipiter myself. She said that she would leave her a message and have her call me back. After several days of no phone calls, I called the office back. Cinnamon apologized for the lack of a return phone call and said that Robin was out of town but there was a hearing set for two weeks from then. I thanked her for the information hung up and left a message telling Ms. Van Leesten what I had been told. Several days before the hearing, I got another letter saying that it had been postponed. This time I called Ms. Accipter’s office and asked what the deal was. Cinnamon said that she would talk to Robin and call me back. Cinnamon actually did call me back this time and said that my father’s lawyer had asked for further documentation from my uncle’s lawyer. I told her that I would call Ms. Van Leesten and have the information sent. I did just that and then waited for something to happen.
This legal dance went on for months. I’d get a call from Ms. Van Leesten, I’d call Ms. Accipiter, get Cinnamon who would tell me that she would have Robin call me back, so I’d wait. Cinnamon would call me back tell me a court date then I’d get a letter of postponement. It was nuts. During all of this, I asked several times if I should call David Taylor and speak to him myself to see if I could speed things along. I was repeatedly told that I was not allowed; since he was representing my father, it would constitute a conflict of interest.
Finally, in the beginning of July 2004, I got another call from Ms. Van Leesten and she was pissed. She had made payments to all the rest of my uncle’s heirs and wanted to close the file. Again, I told her what had been happening, but I told her that this time I would make sure that I got results. So again, I called Ms. Accipiter’s office and got Cinnamon. We played the same phone game as usual, with me leaving a message and waiting for a result. The difference this time was I decided to call David Taylor myself, regardless of what I had been told. I still had the number from our dealings with the guardianship case.
I called Mr. Taylor’s cell phone number and got his voice mail. I left a long, pleading message explaining the situation. I ended by asking that he please help me to get the matter resolved, left my cell number and hung up. The next day my cell phone rang, it was Mr. Taylor. He sounded really confused. He said that he hadn’t spoken to or heard anything from my lawyer Robin Accipiter since mid 2002. He apologized for not following up, but he had assumed that the matter had resolved itself. WHAT!?!?! He hasn’t heard from my lawyer since 2002!?!?! What the hell is going on? This woman has been stringing me along for two fucking years!?!? Damn it, how could I be so stupid!?!?
I thanked him for his help and told him I would get to the bottom of things and contact him as soon as I had any news. When I hung up, I wasn’t sure what to do. I went back to the papers where I had written the lawyers I had been referred to and called the other two who had not called me back before. I left detailed messages with both and asked them to call me back. Robert Browning was the first to get back to me. He told me that it sounded like Ms. Accipiter said that she would take the case and then realizing that it was not her area of expertise, she had put it on the back burner. If she couldn’t handle it, then why the hell hadn’t she just said so!
I asked him what my recourse was. He asked me if she had collected any money from me, which I told him no. He said then what I needed to do was write her a letter stating that I wanted a complete copy of my entire file and that I would no longer be needing her services and have it sent certified mail. I asked if he could help me, but he said that he felt it was a conflict of interest since he actually knew Robin. I thanked him and hung up.
I wrote and sent the letter as soon as I hung up. I got a call about a week later from Cinnamon saying that they would send me my file. I told her “no” I didn’t trust them to send it and went and picked it up myself later that afternoon.
In the fall of 2002, while sitting at home one weekend, I decided to make my rounds of family phone calls. I called my mother, my cousins Danielle and Robert, my aunt Rose and my mother’s father, Grandpa Robert. I got no answer on the first four calls, so I left messages. I did get through to my grandfather. Part of me wished that I hadn’t.
My Grandpa Robert lived alone in the Bronx, in the brownstone that he shared with my grandmother until she passed away a few years back. I tried to make sure to call and check in with him every so often. When my grandfather answered the phone and I said, “Hello,” I got the usual moment of confusion from him as he tried to figure out whether it was me or my cousin Danielle. Nothing out of the ordinary. The problem came midway through the conversation. We talked like we always did about the weather, distant relatives, Mike and the kids. Everything still normal. Then my grandfather started to repeat himself. He asked who I was again. He asked IF I had children and IF I was married, even though we had just talked about both Mike and the kids. Then he asked me where I lived. My neck hairs started to tingle AGAIN. Oh shit, my grandfather has Alzheimer’s.
I knew it even more surely than I knew my own name. My grandfather and I continued to talk for a while longer. In that portion of the conversation, my grandfather seemed to come back. He asked me about my father and we talked about what was going on with him for a while. Then he said that, Rose was talking about selling his house and moving him down to New Mexico with her. He chuckled and said that he wasn’t moving to New Mexico. He then started talking about property that he had in Virginia. Then, out of the blue, he says, “I wouldn’t mind staying with you in Texas.” Holy crap, no! I can’t do this again. I can’t take THREE in two years. I can’t. I love you Grandpa, but I just can’t do it.
I ignored the statement and went back to small talk for a while. After I hung up, I immediately called and left messages on both my mother and my Aunt Rose’s answering machines. Later that evening when both my mother and Rose called, I told them what I thought. They both told me that my grandfather was fine and that I was overreacting. Just like my father was fine and I was supposed to sit back and wait to see what happened.
I knew that my instincts were correct, so I made it a point to call my grandfather more often to check on him. Over the next few months which turned into years, his calls got stranger and stranger, to the point that Rose began to worry. Over time, my grandfather’s finances and general health began to suffer. Finally, Rose flew to New York to stay with him for a while in August of 2004, to help get his home and health back in order. My grandfather was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, type dementia in December of that same year. Rose is still there to this day.
A few months after my dad’s hospital visit from his fall, I went to visit him during a musical program they were having for the residents. The musical entertainment was a local man and woman who played guitar and sang folk and blue grass songs. It was terrible.
After the couple butchered “The Man of Constant Sorrow” which I normally love, I decided to see if I could actually get some entertainment in the place that the residents would like. I called my now former neighbor Arlington Jones and asked if he might be willing to come play for the residents. Thankfully, he agreed. On my next visit to the nursing home, I told the social director. I suggested that it could possibly be a special concert event that family members could be invited to. She seemed really excited and we set a date.
The day of the concert came and I went to the nursing home early to help with any preparations and set up. When I got there, nothing was being done. I went and asked how many family members they would be expecting and was told, “None.” They hadn’t invited any family members, hadn’t done anything to promote Arlington coming, nothing. So when Arlington got there, I told him that it would just be a handful of residents and that was it. He was very gracious. They brought in a few residents from the locked ward and about a dozen more from the rest of the center and Arlington began.
Although Arlington had to play on the old worn out, slightly out of tune piano in the dining room, he was brilliant as always and a huge hit. He played all kinds of things, hymns, jazz numbers, pop numbers, he even took requests. The residents loved it. I watched people who I had been seeing for years without any expression light up like Christmas trees. My dad even tapped his feet a few times and attempted to clap his hands and snap his fingers. This was during a time when my dad’s mobility from the stiffness was very evident and communication almost non-existent. During a particularly mellow number, I looked up at my dad; he was crying.
When Arlington finished playing, I got my dad up and brought him with me to thank him for coming. Arlington came over and stuck out his hand to my father to shake. Before I could explain that my father wouldn’t respond, my dad unbent his arm and shook Arlington’s hand and said hello. Arlington asked my dad how he was, and my dad answered, “Fine.” Arlington actually talked to my dad for a good two or three minutes; my dad responding in one or two word answers the entire time. After Arlington left and I got my dad back into the locked unit, he was really talkative. He talked to me nonstop for a good thirty minutes. Most of it didn’t make sense, but it was good to hear him talk anyway.
Also, during the time after my dad’s fall, my panic attacks came back with a vengeance. While driving with Mike to the local CBS News offices in Las Collinas, a panic attack hit me hard driving across an overpass. I’ve been afraid of heights, high overpasses and bridges since I was a kid, but I had learned over the years to cope. I’m not sure what, if anything, triggered the panic attack. The overpass in question is one I had driven over on a regular basis without any problem. Whatever the reason, as soon as we got to the highest portion of the loop, I started to have trouble breathing. I tried singing out loud, which I had learned since the attacks started, sometimes worked to get me through them. Not this time. I tried taking a drink of my soda; no help. I tried smoking a cigarette. A lot of times, if I was having an attack, the act of smoking helped because I can feel the smoke going in and see the smoke coming out of my mouth, which lets me know that YES, I am still breathing. But not this time, this panic attack was going to happen no matter what I did. I was able to hold it together all the way to the CBS office. But as soon as I got out of the car, I broke into a shaking cold sweat. Mike asked me if I was okay when I stopped and braced myself on the side of the car. I told him I was having a panic attack, but I thought I would be fine. I followed Mike inside and we were immediately greeted by Alvis, the long time receptionist there. Mike brought me over to introduce me and it was all that I could do not to break down in tears; I was in so much mental and physical pain. The poor woman must have thought I was a complete lunatic. She came around the desk to shake my hand. I shook it quickly then recoiled as if I had touched something scolding hot. I mumbled a feeble, “hello” all the while shaking and sweating profusely and then plopped myself down in one of the office chairs. I can still remember the look of confusion masked behind the “Be Polite” smile she gave me. I felt so bad, but there was nothing I could do. I was freaking out inside my head.
On our way home, I could see a hospital ahead in the distance. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and asked Mike to stop there. As soon as I sat down in the waiting room, I felt a little better. I knew it was because in my head I knew if something happened to me I was in a place where I could get immediate help. I told Mike all of this and we decided before actually having me see someone, we would try and wait out the attack. As I sat there, the calm that had come over began to fade and the panic attack started to hit me again in waves. I finally told Mike that it wasn’t working and I needed to see someone.
Mike went and registered me and I was called in about ten minutes later. Thankfully, the hospital waiting room was nearly empty. A male nurse came in and began taking my vitals and then asked what the problem was. I breathlessly told him that I was in the middle of a panic attack. He took a step back and looked at me and said, “Really, you’d never guess, you look great.” Um okay. He finished taking my vitals, said a doctor would be in in a minute and left. The doctor finally came in; by this time my head was beginning to swim from hyperventilating.
I still can’t figure out how I learned to hyperventilate without appearing to do so. I think it might be a product of controlling my stage fright. From the day I started doing stand up ‘til the day I stopped, I had stage fright. Before every set, I would go to the bathroom about ten times, then as my name was announced my legs would begin to shake and I would start to sweat and hyperventilate. It did get better over the years, but it did continue to some degree through my entire comedy “career.” The thing about it is, I would tell people who watched me perform that this was going on but everyone said that they couldn’t tell. I didn’t believe them at first, but after I started taping my sets, I would watch and look for any of the signs of what I knew was going on with me and never saw it either.
The doctor looked me over and did some stuff, I’m not sure what. By that time I was kind of out of my head. She left and when she came back, she handed me a prescription for Xanax and then gave me two Xanax to take right then and a glass of water. I took the pills and thanked her. Mike handled checking me out, I think. The only thing I remember after that was getting into the car and saying I was hungry and then pulling into a Wendy’s drive-thru. The next thing I knew, I was in bed in my clothes and it was the next morning.
When I got up the next day, I felt good. But by about lunchtime, I was having another full-blown panic attack. I realized after the previous day that two Xanax was way too much for me and knowing I tend to be hypersensitive to medication, I tried taking one. Still, way too much. I woke up several hours later not remembering much after taking the pill. I had another attack as I tried to go to sleep. This time I took a half a pill, which did make me feel loopy, but I was able to function somewhat. How the hell do people take this stuff and walk around? I guess I’d make a terrible Stepford Wife.
Then the next day, after having to take four Xanax in two days and knowing that they are very addictive, I decided to call my doctor to see if I could get something a little less narcotic to take. My doctor wasn’t in that day, but I was told I could make an appointment with one of the other office doctors. I agreed and went in that afternoon. After asking me what was going on and doing the routine poke, prod, and listening; the doctor told me that she thought I was suffering from a form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and gave me a prescription for Paxil.
Paxil is an anti-depressant, anti-anxiety medication which affects the serotonin levels of the brain. According to the doctor and the website, the affects are gradual and wouldn’t be felt for about two weeks.
It was a Thursday when I went to the drug store and got my prescription filled. When I got home, I popped my Paxil in my mouth and expected things to slowly get better. The next morning I got up and knew immediately something was wrong. Thankfully, Mike was home so I didn’t have to take Dayton to school, so I wandered around the house like I normally do. I got my coffee, had my morning cigarette just like normal, but what was going on inside my head was anything but normal. It was like I was having a full-blown panic attack inside my head, plus some. I know that doesn’t really make sense, but that’s what I felt. I felt like I was trapped inside my head. There was a voice talking to me, inside my head telling me that I was having a panic attack. The voice was telling me that I couldn’t breathe and there was nothing I could do about it. I remember thinking I should take a Xanax, but the voice told me that it was useless and not to bother. I remember then arguing with the voice, inside my head and becoming angrier and angrier. It was awful. Mike tried talking to me at some point, but I could hardly respond. The voice in my head was fighting with me not to. Every word that came out of my mouth was a breathless forced effort. Then the electric shocks started. I later learned that this is a phenomenon sometimes associated with Paxil, but at the time, it scared the hell out of me. It literally feels like someone is trying to jump start a car battery in your head or like spark plugs are firing inside your brain and it’s painful as hell. I spent the entire day trapped inside my head in pain and arguing with myself. By the end of the day, I was trying to tell the voice in my head that I really didn’t want to die and killing myself was NOT the good idea that the voice was telling me that it was.
By Saturday, I was a basket case. I was depressed, angry, in physical and mental pain and more scared than during the initial panic attacks. I decided to go to Albertsons to talk to the pharmacist, who had always been great when I’d had questions about medications before. Problem was, the voice in my head didn’t want me to get in the car. It took every ounce of energy and strength I had to make the three mile drive to the store. By the time I pulled into the store parking lot, I was shaking, sweating, hyperventilating and crying, but I made myself go inside. When I walked up to the pharmacist counter and tried to talk I began to stutter horribly. I also could not remember basic words. The voice in my head was screaming so loud I could hardly think. I couldn’t even finish a sentence. In broken speech, I was able to say something to the effect of, “On Paxil… panic attacks…. Big one now… Paxil hurting my head… what do I do?” The pharmacist told me he wasn’t real familiar with Paxil and I might want to check the internet. Great! I went back home and spent the rest of the day tying to tell myself I didn’t want to die. But dumbass that I am, I took my pill. Sunday was more or less the same; except I couldn’t even go outside, I was so agoraphobic. Sometime that evening, I got on the internet and was able to have an instant message conversation with Sara. She told me that she had heard horrible things about Paxil and directed me to a website. On the website, I read about people feeling just like I did. They talked about the sudden depression and rage, the suicidal thoughts and even the electric shock feeling. A few of the people had written that they had been able to make some of the side affects subside or lessen by taking Sudafed. I have plenty of that! I went straight to the kitchen and took two and laid down. I had a hard time getting to sleep, but after about an hour the electric shocks seemed to lessen. (Or maybe it was just in my head.) I did not take anymore Paxil. Before bed, I opened the bottle over the toilet and flushed the lot.
On Monday, I called the doctor who had prescribed the Paxil. Usually when you call my doctor’s office with a problem, you speak to either a nurse or a receptionist who always says they’ll ask the doctor and have his or her nurse call back. When I called, I was still having a great deal of difficultly speaking. My speech was now slurred; I was still stuttering and having difficulty remembering basic words. The nurse, receptionist, whatever, who answered the phone tried to understand what I wanted, but finally gave up and actually put the doctor on the phone. When she said hello, I pushed out as much speech as I could as quickly as I could. “Lesssssllllllie TTTTThomassssson. Pppppaxil bbbbbbaaaaaad. Ccccccan hhhhhhaaaaarrrrdddddly tttttt… SSSSSStoppppppped ttttttttaking… Wwwwwwhat ttttto ddddddddo? Cccccaaaannnnt fffffiiiiiinish ssssen….ssssen…ssssen…. Ssssseee!”
She told me that I should not be feeling the effects yet, okay but I AM so what the hell do I do!?!?! All I could do was laugh, and not a funny laugh. Finally, she told me that if I had already stopped taking the medication I could come in and she could prescribe something else. I told her no, I would figure something out, or at least that’s what I was trying to say. What actually came out of my mouth, I’m not sure.
I decided to try some holistic method for controlling what was happening and the panic attacks in general. I got back on the internet and after talking to Sara, I decided to start by trying to get my sleep pattern back on track, which might help me to relax. Sara suggested that I look into Valerian Root. I looked on-line and read that Valerian might be the answer. Later that day, I went to the closest health food store to my house. The voice in my head wouldn’t let me drive the extra mile to Deep Woods. When I went inside, it was the episode at Albertson’s all over again. I was shaking, and sweating, my speech was slurred plus now when I talked, I was foaming slightly at the mouth. God, all I need is a limp and a hump and I’d be all set.
The poor guy at the health food store looked horrified, but was very patient with me. He stood there listening as I stuttered, slurred, and foamed my problem. He finally directed me to the Valerian Root liquid.
The panic attacks continued daily, but with a mixture of Valerian and Sudafed my speech went back to normal and the voice in my head left. After several days, I was able to go to Deep Woods. After talking to the owner, Mindy, and looking through a few of the herb books, I made myself a tea with a mixture of dried herbs that pacified the panic attacks to a manageable level.
In the summer of 2003, with the panic attacks at a manageable level, life had again gone back to a form of normalcy. So, of course, I had to do something to shake things up.
I was in my car one Saturday on my way home from Albertson’s when I had a thought, I need a motorcycle. I don’t know where the thought came from. There were no bikes on the road. There was no reason for the thought that I can put my finger on at all. So I pulled into the garage, got out of the car and walked over to Mike, who was sitting outside on the bench on our front walkway watching the kids play and said, “I need a motorcycle.”
Mike lit up like the sun, “Really!?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you serious!?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay!”
As soon as I finished putting away the groceries, Mike drove up to our local convenience store and bought a Cycle Trader and started looking for bikes.
Mike had been trying to talk me into getting a motorcycle off and on since we’d been together. I always gave the standard chick answer, “They’re dangerous. Not until the kids move out.” I have never been afraid of motorcycles. I would always jump on the back when I met someone that had one, but somehow in my head, owning one was different. I think watching my dad slip away so young and then my recent issues with panic attacks brought me to a place where I wanted to live life to its fullest.
I took the motorcycle riding safety course in June and got my motorcycle license in July. Mike took his riding course in July and got his license later that month. I bought myself a little 86 Honda Rebel 250 and Mike got an ‘84 Honda Magna V65. Actually the Magna was supposed to be mine, but after I dumped it in the garage the very first day we got it (DOH!) and had to get a neighbor to help me pick it up, I decided I had bitten off a bit more than I could chew and got myself the smaller more manageable Rebel.
When one of my female neighbors expressed her shock at my riding and asked me why I had gotten a bike, I answered her with what I still today consider my mantra: “I want to live everyday as if it were my last because even if it isn’t, I might not remember it.”
Thanksgiving of that year, I actually had one of the best days of my life. Mike was scheduled to work the annual Thanksgiving Day Dallas Cowboys football game. This year the game happened to be against the Chicago Bears. Mike, with the help of his work connections, was able to get me an on the field pass as a video tape runner for ESPN. What I was supposed to do as a tape runner was run full video tapes from the camera on the field, up to the satellite truck in the parking lot. I did do that once. But, since this was my first and only NFL Football game in person and my Bears, what I actually ended up doing mostly was standing behind the Bears bench trying not to look like I was teenager watching the very first Beatles’ show in 1964. I was so excited, I thought my head was going to explode. I was able to keep my cool, though. I was even able to walk up and give punter Brad Maynard a pep talk, when I saw him come out and stand in the tunnel to watch Destiny’s Child perform during half time.
My two prize possessions, besides my sons, came from that day: A picture of me with the now deceased Cowboy’s unofficial mascot Crazy Ray and a picture of me standing with Brad Maynard and then place kicker Jay Feely.
The only way that day could have been ANY better would have been if a.) WE (The Bears) would have won the game; which we didn’t. b.) Brian Urlacher had not been injured and had actually been in the stadium, so I could have seen him in person. Although, it’s probably good that he WASN’T there because I don’t think I could have held it together with him in the STATE, let alone close enough to possibly touch. But, most of all, the one thing that would have made that day better and or PERFECT, would have been c.) If I would have been able to REALLY share the experience with my dad.
I did tell him about it on my next visit, but all I got in response was a blank stare.
