My Superman

My dad was like Superman when I was younger. He could do anything in my eyes! He was a semi-truck driver and could maneuver that big rig like no one else. He even won Grand Champion in the “Truck Roadeo”. So he was the best and has the trophies to prove it!

Dad prided himself on knowing the Dayton area. He could tell you the best way to wherever you needed to go. He knew the street names like the back of his hand. He could even tell you how many lights to go through and time to get there with amazing accuracy.

He could fix anything that broke, whether that was the water heater or the lawn mower. Dad could take it apart and put it back together long before we had Google or YouTube. He put up the fence around our yard to keep kids from walking through it and tore down a wall to expand the bedroom after all the kids left the nest. I don’t remember him ever paying someone else to change the oil or service his vehicles. He was definitely a do it yourself kinda guy.

Friends called him “Chainsaw Charlie” because he could climb and trim trees without any special equipment. We had a wood stove when I was a kid so we spent summers cutting wood for the winter. He knew just how to get that tree to fall the way he wanted. 

And barbecue!! My dad was a barbecue chef. He knew exactly how long to leave those charcoal coals before adding the meat. People would come from all over the neighborhood when they saw him pulling out the grill. Another reason to put up the fence – LOL!

Yep, my dad could do it all!! 

Unfortunately my Superman couldn’t keep from getting older. Honestly, with everything dad did he didn’t take care of his body. He ate anything he wanted and never exercised. I guess he thought he did enough lifting and walking in his work. You didn’t hear the importance of taking care of yourself as much back then. 

At 47 years old dad had his first heart attack and had to have a double bypass at 49. I couldn’t even go to the hospital during his surgery. I couldn’t bring myself to see my Superman attached to monitors and machines. That wasn’t MY dad. But after a few days, my brothers convinced me that I needed to go see him. 

I remember walking into that ICU and seeing him and hearing the monitors going off, it was the first time I’d ever seen anyone in a hospital. I remember being so scared and confused about what was going on and how they were trying to help him.  But dad was glad to see me and even told me a few of his “dad” jokes to make me roll my eyes and laugh. 

Since then, I’ve sat in many hospital waiting rooms while dad had heart  catheterizations, echocardiograms and surgeries. He deals with daily doses of insulin for Type II Diabetes along with congestive heart failure. Dad is a fighter for sure. He’s beat lymphoma twice. The second time he went to OSU for stem cell transplant. I honestly thought they were going to kill him there. It was an intense treatment and was horrible on his body. But he came home to help nurse his wife after she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. We buried her in April 2014. 

After Deb died dad moved closer to me so I could help take care of him.  He’s had more hospital stays then I can count and a defibrillator/pace maker put in to help regulate his heart. 

On November 10, 2018 dad drove himself to the hospital after his pacemaker started going off. He had fluid on his heart and lungs so they admitted him and started IV medications. He had a PET scan done on his heart to determine if another bypass surgery would be helpful to him. On the way back to his room after the scan he got sick in the elevator and complained of chest pains. They rushed him into a heart cath lab to find his one good artery was blocked to 99% and inserted another stent. In recovery dad’s oxygen level kept dropping. So after trying several alternatives they decided to sedate him and put in a ventilator. 

Dad stayed sedated for almost five days. On day five as they were trying to wake him up, he grabbed the tube and pulled it out. Thankfully he didn’t do any permanent damage. A couple of days later he pulled out his catheter while it was fully inflated.  Dad’s a fighter! Later I was talking to him about it and he said he wouldn’t advise me to do that. I said “I could have told you that!”

After the sedation he had several days of confusion. He thought he was back on the truck, waiting on his load. He thought he was in jail at one point. He’d call me thinking he was in another state and afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find him. 

At the time of writing this, dad is in a nearby nursing home getting physical and occupational therapy.  He fell the other day reaching down to pick up a puzzle piece that had fallen on the floor. 

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through, watching my dad grow old.  My advice to anyone that still has their parents is spend time with them, listen to their stories, even if you’ve heard them all before. Trust me, the day will come when you will wish you could hear the stories just one more time.