just a mere week and a half after my last entry, i receive a text forwarded from my aunt from my brother "my dad had a stroke.he's not good Auntie...Will you tell Nicole he's at Research neuro icu."

those words hit me like a freight train. my heart sank. time went in slow mo. it took me a solid hour to get out of bed, get in the shower and prepare my mind for seeing him in the icu. is he dying? does he want to see me? how much longer does he have left? asking all these questions melted my heart of ice and i immediately became a daddy's girl again. i miss my daddy.

i get to the hospital and he's strapped up to monitors. i walked to the doorway and say hello. he turns his head, sees me and is all smiles. he struggles to talk but he can unlike his mother and brother who also suffered strokes decades prior. his right side is impacted, although he has retained feeling in both his right and and leg. so as far as strokes go, he had a better outcome. he is going to have to really put in the work to get anything back.

he was excited to see me and asked me questions the best he could. how are you? what have you been up to? i told him i'm fine and i that i am moving to arizona. he looked shocked but was ok with it. i took off work for most of the week to spend time with him and spend the night. spending the night in the neuro icu as an outsider is scary. they come in to wake him up every hour or two to ask him a line of questions to make sure he is not declining. although this is a required practice, it causes what they call "icu delirium". it's documented that having that much activity through the night after that type of trauma will cause it. he kept pointing to the bathroom saying "my brother, my brother". my uncle died about 20 years ago. he acknowledged that his brother died but kept pointing at the bathroom asking for his brother. to see him go through that was not only sobering but heartbreaking.

they eventually cleared him and recommended that he go to rehab to recover. he gets to rehab and gets the rundown of how things will be. therapy 5 days a week so he'll learn how to function again. the first week he astonished everyone. he was doing well and they figured he would be able to go home with my brother after he's been cleared. however, the second week, he was no longer interested in working to get better. they put him on an antidepressant to help but to no avail. he just started refusing therapy or certain aspects of therapy because he didn't feel like it. well, his insurance company found out and now they are trying to kick him out. he became outraged of such a thing and wants to comply so he can stay. an appeal had to be submitted but i honestly think it's too little too late. he denies that he was denying therapy and even went as far to say that they haven't been providing therapy. so i asked why does he want to stay in a facility that is not providing him therapy when he only has 6 months to get a the most out of recovery? silence. my first question should've been why aren't you asking for therapy? but i didn't think to ask.

we ended up having a tiff on how he treated me. my brother wanted to ask when we were all together who my dad wanted to have POA. so i asked my dad and he doesn't answer. i ask again, he doesn't answer. i stand next to his bed and ask him again. two more times i ask and he looks passed me as if i'm not there and doesn't even acknowledge my question much less my presence. i had a quick thought to knock over his dinner but decided against it. so i ask if he wants my nephew to take on the role and he immediately agrees and nods his head. i'm angry that he treated me as though i wasn't there. after spending weekends on a dirty, uncomfortable recliner advocating for his health, buying things that he needs, he had the hubris to do that.

i go back up there wednesday under the guise of celebrating my bday 1 day early since i'm no longer spending my bday with him. i bring us cupcakes and after we get done eating them he is able to muster "i'm his favorite child". although nice to hear, i wasn't going to let that deter me from setting the record straight. i tell him by treating me the way he did he dehumanized me and refused to acknowledge my presence as if i wasn't there. that he gave an example of how my brother and my nephew should treat me. that i believed things changed between us but they haven't, just circumstances. because of that i'm no longer spending weekends at the facility, i'm removing myself as any type of emergency contact for him. i'll replace my name with my nephew's contact info. he got really quiet. he attempted to say something but nothing came. i said that i would still come out to visit and read him scripture. i started reading PS 23. as soon as i got to the end of it, that is when the facility called me and told me he is under review for discharge.

i haven't been back since.