152: fever + brain bleed + morphine = it doesn't look good

My mom and I went up to the nursing home to see my dad. To say goodbye, basically. His fever remains at 104. They took him off the antibiotic because he has an awful rash that they think is in response to the antibiotic (and it does look like the one I get from Keflex).
He's severely dehydrated.
He's unconscious.
He can no longer swallow.
His kidneys are failing.
His brain is bleeding.
And they have him on morphine.
The various opinions of the aides and nurses is 3-4 days, maybe a week. They all tried to give us hope: he could rally! He could pull out of this downward spiral. That's not what we need to hear.
He's so thin that under the covers he looks like a mummy. He's burning up. We had a wet cloth on his head and after a few minutes it would not only be dry, it would be hot.
So we held his hands and kissed him and told him over and over to go. That Aunt Bert, who was his mother in all but name, would come for him, and he could see Alf and Patches again. We told him we would be all right without him. He can watch over us from the afterlife.
He's unconscious, but with one eye open (hanging open, if that makes any sense), breathing harshly through his mouth. He didn't respond at all to me, holding his right hand, but he did squeeze my mother's hand with his left. His color is very high, very red, from the fever. He doesn't have that pinched nose dying look yet, which he did have a couple of weeks ago in the hospital. So I'd guess maybe some time this weekend.
Honestly, there is nothing left of him TO rally. His brain is shot, his kidneys are shot, this infection is blowing through him like wildfire.
My mother says she won't go back up there again. She said her final goodbye today. I'm going up tomorrow. I can't go on Friday. If he makes it to this weekend, I'll go up again then.

151 fever & it's all about me rant

The nursing home called my mom at 2:30 last night to tell her my father's fever had spiked back up to over 104 and they HAD to bring him to the hospital (yes, the same one I told them yesterday not to bring him to!) for emergency hydration. They have no one on staff who can set an IV and couldn't find anyone to come in and put one in.
My guess is it's the MRSA. It's obviously not under control.
I was going to bring the dog up today to see him, but the dog is still sick. So my original plan was if the dog was sick, I'd go to the gym today and bring the dog tomorrow. But now I've got to go up there and find out what the hell is going on.
(now begins the rant)
Last night I went to a writing meeting for NaNo and did terrible. This is my worse year ever. I didn't even write a thousand words yesterday. I am feeling really discouraged about my life in general. I've got to stay strong, support my mother, support my grandmother. My husband works full time and goes to school so I have to be a good wifey-poo at home, and I suck at that, I'm not domestic, I don't clean or cook.
But who is supporting me? I think I've got a pretty sad life when the only people who understand me are strangers I've met online. I have one friend whose sister died of dementia in her 40's (from complications from "successful" brain tumor removal surgery when she was a child), and another whose grandmother is stage 7 with a MRSA infection, and other than that, people just don't seem to get it. And they don't want to talk about it endlessly with me, or really at all.
I'm feeling whiny and selfish and childish. My father is dying and yet I have to go home and wash the dishes and feed the cats and pay the bills while my husband plays World of Warcraft. I still have to do everything for myself as well as everything for everyone else. When does the help come, when do loving people start to support me and take care of me? Where are the offers of food so I don't have to cook (and make more dishes to wash) or go out to eat (and run up my credit cards)? There is an inverted pyramid of support going on and I am the bottom point. Eventually I am going to crack, or the weight of my responsibilities are going to drive me into the ground.
I haven't got much more left to give. I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning. But I am selfish for asking, how dare I ask, because my MOTHER needs me, my FATHER needs me, I can't ask for help for myself when they need me. But if I go to the gym, if I go to a writing meeting, how could I do those things when my father is dying? Why am I not at his side?
I don't know, okay? I don't know anymore what to do, what to think, who to turn to. My friends have pretty much all taken off. They have their own lives and their own problems and they don't want to deal with mine. I have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins. I have a husband who has no time for me, and that's it. I have a low-paying job with no sick time and no compassionate leave. I can't take time off or I lose income, I can't rearrange my hours to make up lost time if I do leave early or take a day off.
I am drowning, I am choking, I am lost. My father is dying but if I leave work early to go to him, that's almost a hundred less dollars in my pocket. My mom's got no money left anymore to help me out because she's got to spend down to 1600 ridiculous dollars so my dad can go on Title 19 but she can't just GIVE the money away, she has to account for where it goes--she was going to buy me a new car (mine is 14 years old with 135K on it) and the lawyer said no, that wouldn't be allowed.
Everything is such a mess. There is no help for me anywhere. Kind words from strangers online, silence from so-called friends. It really is true that if you laugh the world laughs with you and if you cry you cry alone. If I dare to laugh, how could I be jolly in such a situation, when my life is a mess. Crying is understandable, but no one cares, no one wants to hear about my childish selfish problems. They say you are strong, you can do this. But my strength is gone and I can't do it anymore.

150 slow bleed & sick dog

The nursing home just called me to ask about bringing my father to the hospital for a follow-up neurology appointment. The appointment that was canceled last week, the one we said was useless and stupid.
They are sure my father has a slow bleed deep in his brain. A neurology appointment would confirm that. To get his brain scanned, they have to load him into an ambulance and drive him half an hour to the same hospital that's mistreated him in the past and leave him lying around for god only knows how long before they get to him. And if the scan shows a slow bleed, guess what?
Nothing can be done. They can't/won't operate on someone as bad as him. There are no medicines for it.
So why bother? Why bother with the expense? And the stress on him? It's pointless.
I called my mom to tell her that I reiterated our position on the appointment, and to ask her to bring me the dog tomorrow so I can bring him up to see my father.
And she told me the dog is really sick, feverish and lethargic and being brought to the vet any moment.
You know what? I don't need this. I have a dying father and a dying cat. I'm enrolled in a really difficult 12 week programming class. I'm trying to work out more in preparation for my vacation to Mexico in 2 months (2 months from today)--I want to be able to run around in the jungle and climb pyramids without getting out of breath. And I'm doing National Novel Writing Month. There better not be anything wrong with that dog. He better not die. I can't take it.

149: update

The nursing home has finally taken my dad off all his heart medicines and Alzheimer's medicines. Now he's on a BP medicine (new, not sure why as he's never had a BP problem before), anti-seizure medicine (but reduced from initial dosage), an antibiotic for the MRSA, and I think one other thing, can't remember what.
Yesterday he was holding his head up--not all the way, but no longer chin-on-chest. We were there at lunch. He is still "holding" his food, meaning he accepts it into his mouth but doesn't swallow or chew. I got him to eat his vanilla pudding but it seems pointless. Am I not just prolonging his life by making him eat pudding?
His fever is down to 99-100 from the 102 it was for days. His eye is no longer bright red and both his eyes point in the same direction again. He looked at me a few times and while there wasn't exactly recognition, he was definitely LOOKING, not just randomly aiming his eyes toward a sound or shape. He did something with half of his mouth a couple of times that might have been meant to be a smile.
I held his hand and when I wanted to leave he wouldn't let go. My husband thought I was exaggerating so he came over and tried to remove my hand from my father's and was amazed at how strong his hands are.
Last week when he was really bad, his hands were so hot they were uncomfortable to hold. Now they were regular hand temperature. I have a feeling any HBP he has is related to either the extended fever or the swelling in the brain (if there is indeed any).
My grandmother, now living with my mom, has given up her cane--she used it rather ostentatiously the first few days, groaning with the effort it took her to walk anywhere. She took over, spreading her stuff throughout the house, not just in her room (which was my room once). She talks constantly, eats constantly, and is always fussing with something. She is making my mom insane. She doesn't like to be left alone but she doesn't want to go anywhere so my mom is back to being trapped in the house. Grandma has the TV on so loud I can't stand to be anywhere in the house, and she sits a foot from it with her sunglasses on. (She has macular degeneration.) And it is a little annoying for me that I can't see my mom alone. We have to conspire to keep things from my grandmother--how bad my father is, how bad my grandmother's brother's cancer is--otherwise she flips out and makes herself sick. And how can we do that when she's always THERE?

148 A superbug is eating my daddy

Turns out that while my dad was in the hospital last time, he picked up that nasty drug-resistant infection (MRSA-the so-called Superbug). No one bothered to tell us this of course. So that explains his 102 degree fever for almost a week that they can't get to come down. My mom's uncle died of a MRSA infection after a hip transplant, and so did one of her cousins after a different surgery.
My mom and I went to a care consultation meeting yesterday, to talk about his state and what to do. We advocated getting rid of his Alzheimer's medicine and reiterated that he was supposed to be off his heart medicine by the end of September. But the staff doctor there won't take him off the heart medicine, and he has to see a psychiatrist for a psych consult before they will take him off the Alzheimer's meds. Is that not outrageous? He is almost totally non-functional. What is the point of giving him these medicines? Let him have a heart attack! Let his brain rot more! Can he really get any worse without dying? (Please, those of you who know the answer, kindly refrain from telling me if the answer is "yes"!)
His eyes are going in two different directions and one of them has gone all blood red. The head nurse thinks he is still bleeding from the intracranial hemorrhage--brain swelling and pressure would do that to his eyes. He was unresponsive, head down as far as it would go, drooling, both times we went to see him. He held our hands for a moment. His skin was so hot it was uncomfortable to touch.