Fathers moving down in the world

Tex Eric Schwass is moving down in the world, but in his world, that means closer to the front door and home.
Last night the earthquake shook his hospital bed over to the wall but apart from that, he was OK. I think he was even more OK when they moved him down to the 2nd floor today. He'll be in room 6 by himself for the next few weeks because it has a hoist thingy and the hoist game started last week.

I could hear the tears in his voice on Friday when he rang to say a few physio's turned up and told him he was going to walk. His was of describing the physio girls is that they're lucky to be 7 stone wringing wet so, having a little left over trauma from the original fall, he said No I'm not! But another 3 turned up, including a guy and with the hoist, he was up on his feet in seconds. When he walked out into the hall, all the nurses were out there waiting and clapped and cheered. No wonder he was so emotional. He's been lying there for 6 weeks dreading that he might not walk again and not walking means not going home - wherever that home might end up being so it was a real achievement and relief for him.

But almost every minute of those 6 weeks he's been obsessing about food. He went on a hunger strike weeks ago and refused to eat anything off the menu so I had to bring up lunch and dinner every day. One night I was feeding him fish from the cafeteria downstairs and he asked his room mate what he was eating for dinner. I couldn't help myself, I said Exactly the same as you except you're the only one paying for it! But that backfired didn't it because then he refused to eat anything I bought up from the cafe too.
He's been spoilt silly (and luckily he knows it too). He's had whitebait fritters, pancakes, lemon pepper seafood salad, garlic prawns from Okurukuru, about 18 chicken wings that New World put in the oven specially for him etc. What worries me is his latest obsession is getting one of those small thermowave ovens so he can cook himself chicken wings whenever he feels like it when he gets home.

Last week he asked me to pick him up some shorts because physio said he could be hoisted into the hot pool for exercise. When I got up to his room and bought out some budgie smugglers, he looked like the world had ended and taken his sense of humour with it. I can never keep a straight face for very long so I let him off the hook and bought out some shorts but he'll probably have to use the speedos anyway because he's got zero buttage now.

He still gets visitors everyday and his favourite thing to do is get one of them to wheel him down in his wheelchair to sit outside. Each day I have new requests. A few days ago it was for his dressing gown, Yesterday it was for a hat and sunglasses. Quite often he'll be sitting out in the courtyard near the front entrance with someone and other visitors will walk by and seeing them, join in - giving new meaning to Holding Court. He had me push him all over the hospital the other day so I took him to the chapel. Part of him didn't want to go near it but I could tell another part was fascinated by the wooden oasis in the middle of the sea of sterile lino.

In amongst all of this, I inadvertently started a business. It's called The E Team (www.eteam.nz) and I clean up big messes. The ones no one else wants to. This means I use Fathers truck and fire pit every single day. Some might see it as a sneaky way out of having to take him up his lunch but luckily he doesn't and he's so happy to see me every night - asking what I've done that day, how the truck's going etc. He's been so supportive and threw me into a mess of tears the other night when he said he wanted to gift me the truck and tipper trailer. I asked him if he was sure because that truck has been his pride and joy for the last year but he realistically said he wasn't likely to need it again, except to move late February. I was so moved because these past 6 weeks have had their ups and downs as you can imagine and when he said it was the least he could do for all that I'd done for him over the past 18 months, not only did I feel appreciated, but validated too. Man it feels good to be a trippy chick with a tipper truck!

The original tender fell through by the way. And the subsequent sale has had some tricky issues around it that I've put in a formal complaint about so yes, the farm is sold, but we're not sure for exactly how much, when Father has to be gone by or what the financial terms are. We don't even have any paperwork so I would give you more information but we don't have it. What we do know(ish) is that Father has to be gone sometime around the end of Feb, beginning of March which gives him plenty of time to rehab and get walking. We're not sure either if he'll have to rent or will be able to afford to buy somewhere but we'll keep you posted. It's good that Father is already planning the process and told me the other day I'd better start getting boxes and might have to arrange storage. He's not planning to get rid of any of the rust around his place though - that all comes too ;-(

So, all is well overall. Although the xrays show he's not healing very well, they're still moving forward with physical therapy and he's still his usual cheerful self and I kid you not, is gagging to get into his exercise so he can walk again but I swear it's only to get to Noel Leemings to chose that damn chicken wing cooker!