Round the clock round-and-around...

My sister and I are sort of switching off on staying with dad in the hospital -- she's three hours away and I'm twelve hours away so this isn't easy logistically, but it is necessary.  Mom is dealing this this fairly well, but she is dealing with her own diagnosis of Alzheimers so she can't help.

Dad cannot feed himself and his appetite is such that he can only eat small amounts of food that really appeals  to him, so we need to be ready with his favorite foods on hand, at the optimal temperature. This is harder than it sounds when your patient alternates between sleep (45%), lucidity (32%), mild hallucination (22%),  and food readiness (1%).

Thing with dad is, when you think he is asleep he is fully aware of all conversations in the room. I had a conversation in hushed tones with the airline company one afternoon, whispering so that mom would not overhear my haggling over the service charge. Mom was five feet away. My dad was twelve feet away, but when I was sitting near him later, he piped up, "How did things go with the airlines?"

This made me look back to all of the other conversations we had when we thought he was asleep -- about his condition, his myeloma, etc. We didn't say anything awful, but we'll need to be more careful.