#76

Tomorrow is my dad's 76th birthday. The past six months have been so difficult for him physically, which is wreaking havoc on him emotionally, and I feel so helpless that I can't help him. It's not so much that I "can't" help him.

It's more about him being so damn stubborn and insisting on doing it himself, and now he is so "disgusted" with himself (he actually used the word 'disgusted') because he's not making any progress. Add Kay's stubbornness and how hard she pushes him to do things more like he used to, to how disgusted he feels about his own progress and - well, now I am sitting here crying.

My dad thinks he had a stroke. Which is something I have been saying since he was wheeled into ICU after surgery. I practically begged Kay to ask the doctor to do an MRI to see if he did indeed have one - and he STILL has not had one. He is almost 6 months post-op and he should be doing so much better physically and mentally than he is and it is breaking my heart because HE knows it too.

A couple of months ago he and I were talking when nobody else was around and he told me that he cries at the strangest things. One of the examples he gave me was when he was watching a woman's tennis match. Even now while we're talking, or just watching television, sometimes when I look at him, he is teary-eyed.

I asked him yesterday, point blank, if he had given up and he assured me, quite confidently, that he has not and that he wasn't even close.

Thank you, God.