The first week of December has rolled into my life with sweeping changes. Life happens that way sometimes - things move at glacial speeds for a while and then a sudden shift.
The setup:
For a month I had been planning a launch of my Podcast Alchemy Academy which was going to start with a 4 Days to Attract Clients with Podcasts online training/challenge in my community on Facebook. The business side of things (I empower life, health and transformational coaches to be the change they want to see in the world by providing a private community for networking, collaboration & support, featuring them on my podcast and coaching). The Challenge began on December 4th, 2023.
On the personal side of things, my father-in-law, who is 86 and had been living on his own an hour from where we live, and who had been doing okay up till now suddenly had a change of status. Monday night we got a call from him letting us know he had fallen down three times that day and had not been able to get off the floor for hours each time. My husband was out the door and, on his way, up to his house within the hour.
What was going to be a quick check in turned into a 4 day stay. On the 4th day emergency services were called because his dad was doing so poorly my husband was afraid, he would die. The emergency room doctor (who wasn’t a doctor at all, who was actually a physician’s assistant) decided that my FIL needed way more support than he could provide and sent my FIL to a hospital an hour away.
At first the hour away, trip was going to be by helicopter (I suspect because this is the most expensive way one can be transported). However, because there was a snowstorm raging at the same time, ground transport became an okay option. This is all taking place 15 minutes before I’m scheduled to do the masterclass for the training I had been preparing for all month.
The doctor (who wasn’t a doctor) told my husband he didn’t have any choice in the matter, that he was sending my FIL up to the other hospital.
My FIL hates hospitals and the medical community at large in general and really just wanted to go home. He was in and out of consciousness at that point, so they were able to ship him off.
Of course, when he gets to the new hospital, where there is actually a cardiologist (he has had congestive heart failure for 12 years that he has managed on his own pretty well) they tested him for corona virus. And surprise…
He tested positive. (insert eye roll here)
So now we are panicking about intubation and vaccines and remdesivir and have THAT conversation with the medical staff.
Friday (the next day) I make the trek to collect my husband and then to the hospital in the snowstorm with bad tires, through a town that doesn’t believe in snowplows. An hour trip which is now 3 hours long gets us to the hospital where we, after a couple more hours, are introduced to the cardiologist. The cardiologist, who had initially suggested that he could do something to extend my FILs life, which was the whole reason for the transfer in the first place, announces there is nothing that can be done, and we should look into hospice.
Not really understanding hospice I thought initially that meant he would get 24-hour care in a facility…but no. I means that I now have a short window to get my house in order to accept an adult human to care for who may or may not have much longer to live.
And the cherry on the cake…
because my FIL is mostly deaf at this point, we get to tell him all of these lovely details. Did I mention he is the kind of person who really doesn’t like to be told things? So, that’s on the schedule for today.
Quantum Physics
It’s interesting to me how life goes. Slowly along, changes happen incrementally and then as though all at once something shifts. I wonder if those shifts aren’t a signal that we are shifting timelines. I don’t feel this often but can remember several times in my life where I have felt a shift from one paradigm to another. Life is never the same after these shifts.
What do you think?
I’m genuinely curious what do you think…
about the medical community at large
dealing with end-of-life details
quantum timeline shifts?