Mother's Day with Dad

The aunties arrived Saturday night and came to the hospital early Sunday morning. Luckily my dad has a single room because that morning there were about six of us there. My two aunts, my mom, brother, myself, and the caregiver. It was a pretty full room.

All the emotion that morning really hit me and I started breaking down in tears. I thought my dad was sleeping because he had just gone to the bathroom and was exhausted. But he heard me blow my nose, pulled me over and hugged me. He told me, "I Love You."

As much as my mom didn't want me to cry, I think it was good to have that moment with my father.

Half an hour later, my uncle (married to the aunt from Toronto) and his younger brother came to visit. All the action in the room made him feel really happy. He loves being the center of attention, and in the middle of the excitement. You couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

The doctors prescribed him a laxative to help him go poo. The night before, my brother and the caregiver had to get up 3-4 times to help clean him up after going. They had a busy night and were completely exhausted when the aunties arrived. The doctors decided to stop administering the laxative before bed so he wouldn't be up all night.

My dad's bottom is pretty raw from laying on his back all day and going to the bathroom on diapers. He hasn't had the energy the past week to go to the bathroom on his own. They've tried to use talcum powder and liquid spray bandages to try and help his bottom have time to dry and maybe develop a scab or something to protect it from each time he goes to the bathroom.

I feel that a couple of the things my dad really enjoys is being able to eat whatever he wanted, when he wanted, and being able to go poo in less than five minutes. It's something that he and I have in common. And it was something that we talked about in the house rather freely. Whether we went that day, how fast, the sound, we got into some pretty gruesome details.

Unfortunately, now when he goes poo, he has to prepare for the stinging pain of washing his raw bottom. Since he's on a laxative, he can't control when he goes, which is pretty frequent. Every time my dad went poo that day, my mom and the caregiver would clean him up and dry him off. As soon as they were finished or were about to finish, he would start going poo again.

He went about 3-4 times each round with about 3-4 rounds a day. That day, he had to endure being washed about 12 times. They try to wait until the round is over before washing him, but it didn't always work.

Some good news is that my dad's mouth is recovering. His lips have developed scabs and they're not as raw as before. We think that he might be fully healed in the next couple of days so he can eat real food.

His mouth has been really dry because he hasn't been eating or drinking. With the feeding tube, food goes straight into his stomach. But it's dry mostly because he's breathing through his mouth. We tried using giant cotton swabs so that he could suck out the water, but the swabs were so big that they would rub against the healing sores on his lips and cause his lips to bleed again.

We then tried spoon-feeding him water, but he would still choke a little from it. I took a peek at the inside of his mouth and his tongue was so dry that I thought spoon feeding wasn't helping the overall dryness he felt in his mouth.

Jeff and I came up with the idea of spraying water into his mouth. He still chokes on the water a bit, but the caregiver says it's because he doesn't have enough to swallow. We know it works because when we ask him if he wants us to spray into his mouth, he wakes up and responds with a very clear Yao! And with the spray, it gets better coverage over the inside of his mouth.

We celebrated Mother's Day a little in the hospital. Jeff bought flowers for everyone, including the aunties and me, and we bought a cake for our caregiver.


We all know that dad misses the taste of food, so someone came up with the idea that we should let him smell Jeff's Hey Song sarsparilla while spraying water into his mouth. My dad opened his eyes so wide and fast, he also tried to grab the soda out of my aunt's hands. With that we thought that giving him some soda might cheer him up.

He was so excited with the taste of something other than water, he was cherishing each taste. We asked him how the soda tasted and he replied with a very strong, "Dang ren hao" (of course it's good).

I think that as much as we all try to make him smile and laugh, our mood is really dictated by his responses. And when we end the day with a big smile from him, those of us that leave the hospital leave feeling that at least there's a chance that he'll still be happy when we come back the next day.