I’m reminded of the time my father came to visit me in the hospital after my second bowel resection.
He entered the room in earlier afternoon, walking at a measured pace with his cane, neatly dressed in a suit, winter overcoat and fedora. Ignoring my mother’s exhortations that a man of 91 and such short stature shouldn’t be travelling by public transit on a wintery day, he navigated the system to come and sit by my side.
He related in extreme detail, and with great pride I might add, how he walked to the bus stop, got on the bus and leisurely rode the 35 minutes to the subway. He described all of the new buildings he had noticed along the way and admired the courage of the developers and the creativity of the architects. Getting off the bus, he transferred to the subway, agilely maneuvering down the long escalators leading to the cavernous stations. “I took my time” he cautioned, when my eyes opened wide with the image of his aching, arthritic knees adjusting to the many steps. Once off the subway his chest puffed up as he was able to breathe the cold fresh March air and coast the rest of the way by foot to the hospital.
That was pretty much the dialogue that day. I was 2 days out of surgery, still deeply under morphine influence, aching gut, and not up for company. It didn’t matter to him that I wasn’t very hospitable or communicative. He wanted to be there with his son. That was all that mattered and the conversation wasn’t that important.
For the next 3 days he repeated the trip, same suit, same hat. Same conversation.
My father’s sense of duty is an example of how the illness experience can be interpreted by a parent witnessing the illness of a child, regardless of their age (I was 49 at the time). It starts with the first sniffle as a baby.
This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day and the relationship of parents and children challenged with an illness. There’s Aza Raskin’s lyrical memory of his late father Jef Raskin, inventor of the Mac, and Pulitzer Prize winner Buzz Bissinger’s brutally honest memoir of his road trip with brain damaged son Zach. Unlike the conversations I had with my dad that week over 12 years ago, not one of these stories is the same.
Feel free to add your story to theirs.
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My Father’s Final Gift
Twenty five days before my father died, on my birthday exactly six years ago, he gave me a present. He had the sparkle back in his eye—the one that had been reduced by pancreatic cancer to an ashen ember—when he gave it to me. It was a small package, rectangular in shape, in crisp brown-paper wrapping. Twine neatly wrapped around the corners, crisscrossing back and forth arriving at a bow crafted by the sure hands of a man who built his first model airplane at age seven. This small brown package will be the final gift my father ever gives Read More…
Tagged Under: aza raskin, father, father's day, final gift, massive health, pancreatic cancer, son -
The Photographer
A young man sets out on a quest to capture the perfect photograph. In the summer of 2005, I was involved in a severe car accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down. Upon waking up in the ICU, one face was staring back at me; my father's. For the next month, my father had the nurses on duty wheel a chair into my room every single night, and that's where he'd be until I opened my eyes in the morning. Seven years since that fateful day in June, my father remains my biggest supporter. After more than two Read More…
Tagged Under: ara sagherian, caregiver, experience, father, father's day, gratitude, hospital, icu, paralyzed, patient, pic6productions, short film, story, supporter, wheelchair -
The Waiting Room: Fatherhood
William Morgan and his three sons Matthew, Joshua and Andrew wait for their mom to get medication to treat her diabetes. Read More…
Tagged Under: diabetes, family, father's day, hospital navigation, public health care, The Waiting Room -
Adam’s Dad
My name is Adam and I am 11 years old. I also have a brother Ian, who is 13 and an older sister named Karen. My Dad got ALS four years ago and now he is in a wheelchair and he can hardly talk at all. The school that I go to and I, want to raise money for research to find a cure for my Dad. We used to do so much stuff together. I can't remember very well when he could walk or use his hands. We used to play road hockey together, but now he can only Read More…
Tagged Under: ALS, awareness, burden of illness, children's point of view, family support, father and son, father's day -
Awake
By Nicole Ferraro January 2012 I blinked my eyes open. Early morning sunlight sneaked through the blinds on my window, casting a glow on the mess on my floor. Sitting up, I saw my bedroom in complete disarray. There were ripped Hefty bags and stuffed animals spanning twenty-four years strewn across my rug. My room looked like the scene of a barnyard massacre. Looking under my covers, I discovered I was clutching a giant pastel-blue stuffed bunny I’d received as an Easter gift when I was twelve. I could only assume I had spent hours in frantic search of this Read More…
Tagged Under: father's day, grief, hypnosis, insomnia, loss, Nicole Ferraro, parent, patient, patient story, sleep -
A Fly In the Ointment: A New Perspective on Addiction
By Nic Sheff October 26,2011 After years of speaking about addiction, a fascinating new study has radically altered my perception of this disease. It's all about drunk flies. It’s been four years since my memoir, Tweak—and my dad’s memoir, Beautiful Boy—were published in the same month. Shortly afterwards, the two of us went on a national book tour. Since then, we’ve traveled to hundreds of conventions and fundraisers and schools—sharing the hard lessons we’ve learned about addiction and recovery and…well...life in general. That means we’ve had to listen to eachother's experiences close to 50,000 times. And while our stories always Read More…
Tagged Under: addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction, father's day, mental illness, patient, patient story -
Shutting the Door on My Coked-Up Past
By Sam Lansky August 5, 2011 While my dad was recovering from a massive heart attack, I was on a coke run. Since then, I've tried to become a better son, while still struggling to shut the door on memories I want to forget. I've been sober for several years now. But once a month, or maybe even more frequently, my past sneaks up on me and reminds me of the person I used to be. Always, I carry with me a low-level simmering anxiety, a flame that flickers now and again—when a man on the street looks familiar (didn’t Read More…
Tagged Under: addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction, father's day, patient, patient story, regretlessness -
So What If My Baby Is Born Like Me Part 1
Jono Lancaster, 26, (featured in BBC3's Love Me Love My Face documentary) has suffered rejection and discrimination his entire life - all because of the way he looks. Born with a rare genetic condition, Treacher-Collins syndrome, Jono has no cheekbones or external ears and has endured years of bullying and countless hospital appointments. The nature of the condition means that any child Jono fathers will have a 50 per cent chance of contracting Treacher-Collins. Now Jono has an important question he wants answered - what if my baby was born like me? The film follows Jono and his girlfriend Laura Read More…
Tagged Under: collins, counselling #MyPS, father's day, genetic condition, jono lancaster, options, patient, patient story, pregnancy, syndrome, treacher, treacher-collins -
My Kidney, His Life
In April of 2008, I donated my left kidney to a perfect stranger so that my dad could receive a kidney from yet another stranger. Four donors gave to four people they had never met before in the largest kidney exchange to date in the Midwest. All did it to save their loved ones. This short documentary is a personal story about the fears, concerns and joys experienced throughout the donation process. It’s about having the opportunity to save my father’s life yet having to risk my own to do it. What if something happened to me in surgery? How Read More…
Tagged Under: caregiver, child, dialysis, father, father's day, kidney, kidney exchange, liver, organ donation, patient, patient story, son, transplant