It’s 9:30 PM in the evening and I never had a more Panganay moment than this last 48 hours of my life. And I don’t have words to explain but I’m super sleepy and tired but made me appreciate my relationship with my parents more than ever.
I’ll just summarise because I don’t think I can last another hour awake. I just really want to remember this day, my thoughts, and getting to know my dad a little bit more.
My mom got rushed to the ER around 3PM yesterday as her blood pressure was off the charts (with an on-going analysis of a mild stroke). I stayed with her the whole night and it was really scary being alone in the hospital with the #1 person you most cared about in bad form. Her BP was 190/100 and fluctuated up and down to 170, but didn’t really got any better than that. It was bad and made worse because my mom has existing heart problems plus she gets nervous easily. Medications didn’t help at all and I was really pushing her to get admitted already so we can proceed with a more aggressive cure. She didn’t want to, she was pretending she has a lot to do but I know she was just plain scared.
My dad stayed away because it was his fault why my mom’s BP shot up and carried (still carrying) this immense guilt for the last two days. My focus was with my mom and I wasn’t really known for subtlety. I didn’t realise that my words were driving my dad even sadder and that even though I was mildly angry at him, I still should have been more careful with the words I used. I thought you know, I’m just his daughter. Why would he cared what I think? I was so wrong. Of the chaos that’s already happened, my sister and I were worried sick of mom that he felt abandoned and drove further into anxiousness that it will be all his fault if anything happened to mom. I didn’t help when I said he shouldn’t go to the hospital in case my mother reacts and her BP gets any higher. He was texting me the whole midnight and there wasn’t really a chance of me getting any sleep since I was sitting in a monoblock beside my mom’s bed so we got to discuss things. He started saying sorry for everything and that he knows my sister and I would choose mama in whatever form. That he messed up bad and doesn’t know if he’s ever going to be good enough for us, that he is just super sorry of how insensitive he became. He was really in a bad mental state last night so in between bouts of taking care of mother and people watching emergency room drama, I was super stressed with trying to calm him down. I was calling and texting my sister to wake up and sleep beside papa but she was out like a lamp (she was in the hospital that morning for father’s foot injury checkup so I kind of felt bad for her because she basically had two trips there that day, plus we were fighting and only made up because we had no choice).
I was also trying to figure out how to make my mom calm down and was trying to make her laugh so much by trying to make fun of papa and his drama. So that it negates the heaviness. It worked.. so by breakfast time, when I was conked out and my sister was supposed to take over, I told my dad to come with her. Then left both of them in the ER while my sister and I have a peaceful breakfast together lol. That also was a good play as my mom’s BP went down to 150, and was checked again by her neurologist and cleared her, as long as you know she rests more at home.
I rushed home, had an hour’s sleep and woke up to get to The Feast in PICC. Happy to report that I haven’t missed a single Sunday since August 2018! As a previously agnostic person, that is a major feat. So anyway, after Feast, I had to play catch up with my chores. Had a late lunch at 2PM and got my groceries and home stuff. Couldn’t make myself take a quick nap because I have major catchups to do with paperwork. I was buried in paperwork and dreading scanning so many documents at 7PM when my dad comes in shit-faced drunk. Now, he rarely drinks. I DRINK LIKE 10X MORE THAN HE DOES so trust me when I say this is a rare occurrence. Nobody can really tend to him especially the house help because they fear him lol and I nearly panicked because my mom can’t find out so I dropped everything and went to him. He saw me and instantly went on a rant of how he was sorry and that he loves me so much. I was ready to get super pissed at him for creating trouble again for mom but it changed to just feeling sad (and a bit entertained let’s be honest) that my dad had been guilted out of this wits to be like this. He was telling me that he would have been dead by now if anything happened to mother. I told him that he was wrong with approaching it like that because didn’t he think about his daughters? We would have lost both parents if he thought that way. He responded by saying that he had always admired the three girls in his life as he thinks that we were waaaay stronger than him in everything. That was the first time I’ve ever heard him say that. His drunkenness was still doing its nostalgic spill and he started talking about how he felt the first time he saw me as a baby. How my eyes were so small and he was so afraid to pick me up. My dad had a sad childhood where he was made to believe his real dad abandoned him and was never fully accepted by his stepdad so he’s had this lingering abandonment issues that he was never going to be enough. He talked about that in length too and I was trying to not be emotional about it since hello, I was talking to a drunk person but I hope that he remembers the things I said about him in the morning. That he was by far more than enough and that he has given his whole family, not just us, so so so much.
Anyway, this blog got long na. I was even planning to blog about my thoughts while in the ER and my life’s realisation as emergency room stories unfolded during the wee hours in the morning. My brain is overloaded and my back hurts. I wanted to skip work tomorrow but I have three meetings scheduled that I can’t cancel hay! Of all the days I can’t work from home. My mom is being hard-headed and wants to get out and about tomorrow so let’s see how I’ll manage my stress tomorrow.
To cap it all off, I guess the moment I’ll really want to remember are those moments I secretly cried and freaked out while emptying my mom’s bedpan in the restroom then tried to keep it together in front of her. I wasn’t prepared for any of this, I don’t think anyone will ever be. I knew that there will come an age where you start taking care of your parents but I honestly just shoved it in the back of my head. My mom wasn’t comfortable with the nurses helping her pee so I had to step up. She peed like 15 times the whole night hahaha so I had an intense first day on the job lol. Then my dad came home drunk and had to get him coffee, calm him, help him get up the stairs, be careful not to upset mother with how dad looks, and change his clothes. I also have to be okay in front of my sister just because I have to be. I was also updating both sides of my family about my mother’s health, pacifying dad, and also keeping myself in check. So ayun. What a weekend!! When all I wanted to do was play Sims, watch Tol, and go to church. Ayun, church lang nangyari! Off to sleep because I zzzzzzzz!!!!
