Hospice

The week that the carpets were removed and the painters came, I got a call from my parents' facility. The nurse practitioner who did check ups each week wanted to talk with me. We had a brief conversation; she wanted to call hospice in for my Dad, he had been going down steadily and she thought we would need hospice to help manage his healthcare in a better manner. 

Later in the week, I met the hospice intake nurse, we completed paperwork, and Dad was admitted. 

I wasn't sure exactly what to think about this. I could see his decline too, but just months ago I had been told that the prostate cancer was very slow moving. 

I told others at the time it was if he was a rubber band wound up as tightly as it could be wound and he just let go. I don't know for sure, but I've always thought it arose from he and I's "come to Jesus" talk. Up until then he had been holding on tight because he felt the need to care for mom was still present. After that meeting he seemed to let go of that last thing he for which he had been staying alert. 

Looking back, I suspect there was unnoticed decline over the early part of the fall as well. I thought he walked slower and slower in that time period.