Randi Kreiss

Election Day events weigh on the heart

Posted

Life has taken another turn, not unexpected. My dad, who is 97, had a major heart attack early this week while at home in Florida. My mom, 94, called 911, and he landed in the hospital.

It was Election Day. I happened to be nearby. Several days earlier I had mailed in their ballots. Born and bred New York liberals, they were adamant that their voices be heard. Safe to say they were No Trumpers.

And so the personal and the political came crashing together. We sat by my dad’s bed all through Election Day, worrying over him but feeling confident about the election returns. Remember, it was still looking very good for Hillary early in the day.

You know the hospital routine. For the very old and their loved ones, it’s a debilitating, seemingly endless wait for . . . really, nothing to happen. In the next bed was a man with a kind of dementia that had him talking without taking a breath. His lines seemed written by Samuel Beckett. He drawled over and over again, “Am I here? Does anyone see me? I just need my underwear to get out of here. How do I know if I’m alive? ”

Hospitalists who did not know my dad or my mother were in charge of his care but nowhere in sight. He had suffered major cardiac damage. A cardiology fellow told us he needed an angiogram (cardiac catheterization) to evaluate the damage and possibly the installation of a stent. The senior cardiologist advised no intervention.

My dad helped us out. He refused all intervention, and when they wheeled him down for a CT scan in the middle of the night, he made them wheel him right back up to his room. That vote counted. Late on Election Day we left him at the hospital and went back to their condo.

That night — how to say it — my heart ached in double time, for my family and for my country. My father was slipping away.

I’m a child who still has two parents in the world, and on some level it is unimaginable to think of being here without them. Even sitting there with Dad, next to his hospital bed, with the hum and thrum of the oxygen machine nearby, it was still unimaginable.

At the same time, the night of Nov. 8, we were watching a national nightmare unfold, with a woefully unfit presidential candidate actually winning.

Losing your father and watching your beloved country losing its moral compass are disorienting. The metaphor of the president as the father of our country is not lost on me. The surreal was becoming real: My dad, who had always been there, a “forever” in my life, was leaving. And Donald Trump, the most unlikely individual to inspire and lead our country, was suddenly the president-elect.

The public grief is deep and wide. I saw a photo in The New York Times of a man at the Javits Center, after all the Democrats went home on Election Night. He was curled in a fetal position and lying on the floor.

Dad was in the hospital for two days. He refused all but basic treatment, and we decided to take him home.

We asked hospice to step in. They brought him home and set him up in the living room in a hospital bed, so life could go on around him. Not enough people are aware of the resources hospice offers. The nurses, aides and doctors are kind and sensitive. When we run out of time and energy and the ability to take the next step, as we all will someday, hospice is there to offer comfort and expertise. This is what my father always said he wanted at the end of his days, and we all feel hopeful that it will be a peaceful time.

The sun is shining today. There are flowers in the room, and beautiful music is playing. The family is gathering, remembering who we are and where we came from.

This is very sad, but not depressing. The election was depressing, and that was the other heartbreaker of this extraordinary week.

Copyright © 2016 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.