I've Joined the Sandwich Generation!

I have recently come to realize how very blessed my life has been in these 48 years.  I have a son who I love beyond measure, a family I adore, friends who stand by me at all times, and a God who is most gracious, loving and kind.

Blessed.

But the past 5 days have been some of the hardest days of my life thus far.  And now, I'm a teeny-tiny bit worried about the next 5 days, 5 years, 5 decades.

All because I have now joined the ranks of the sandwich generation.  I have jumped in with both feet.  I have immersed myself in my new generation.

I never knew how hard it would be.

And actually it hasn't been that hard for me, if I'm absolutely honest.   But I've seen the mountaintop and I know I don't want to scale this mountain, and I also know I will...lovingly, strongly, sadly and willingly.  I just don't want to.

My dad had knee replacement this past Thursday, September 17th.  I knew this would be a tough surgery, mostly a tough recovery.  I also knew he could do it, but I knew he was thinking it would be a piece of cake.  

Initially surgery was scheduled for Thursday, September 10th, but I had an out of town CE class I had scheduled in May that would have me gone 3 nights to Arizona.  Tate was going to stay with Lindsey Thursday night and my parents from Friday after school until late Sunday night.  My dad's initial response when we realized the conflict?  "No problem!  Your mom can drive us to pick up Tate when I get released from the hospital that Friday."

I didn't even respond to that nonsense.

Luckily, he saw the light all on his own and rescheduled the procedure to the following Thursday.  

I was unable to take off work, but thankfully Lindsey was able to work remotely and met my parents at the hospital.  She passed along updates all day long to me and Kellie.  He did well with the surgery, and Lindsey and my mom came to my house Thursday late afternoon for my mom to stay with me while my dad was in the hospital.

Things were a bit dicey here when I got home from work as my mom was emotional and tired from the long day at the hospital and Tate was being bossy and disrespectful with my mom with his tone and insistence that he could do things without her help and the 'right' way.  Trying to help my mom understand Tate and his need for routine while instructing Tate that things didn't have to be done by others the same way I did them was something I'd never had to do before...smoothing my 74 year old mother's ruffled/hurt feelings and soothing my 6 year old's frustration.  None of it took much time, but after an extremely long day at work soothing 50 pediatric dentistry patients through extractions, fillings, exams, x-rays and cleaning along with their worried 100 parents I just needed some sort of a break when I walked in the door.  Instead, I found tears and hurt.

But we made it through to the laughter and love.

Friday morning, my mom and I took Tate to school then drove to the car dealership to drop off my vehicle and get a loaner then went to the hospital to see my dad and go with him to his first group PT class at 930am.  To say it was painful and difficult would be an understatement.  My poor daddy.  It was a struggle for him and his other classmates, but they made it through.

We made our way back to his room and left him to rest.  He was exhausted, in pain and just needed some peace.  We came back to my house to get my and Tate's clothes for the weekend as we were going to stay with my parents to help them and to get my mom's things and her car.  I convinced my mom to eat a quick lunch while I cleaned up and packed up.  We raced back to the hospital to meet my dad for his afternoon group PT class at 1pm.  We were a tad tardy, but we made it.  

His doctor released him as soon as PT was over, so our plan was for my dad and mom to go on home, while I went to Tate's school to pick him up and attend soccer practice.  This meant my mom had to get my dad out of the car by herself once they were home.  I have no idea how they managed this, but they did it.  I ran over to Tate's school, got him situated for practice, ran home to get what I'd forgotten then made it back for the end of practice.  We then had to sit in rush hour traffic to drive to my parents' house for over an hour.  By the time we arrived at 530pm my parents had been home about 2 hours in their house which had only one of their a/c units working!  The unit that cools the side of the house with the bedrooms was not working.  It was 95+ degrees outside.  The left side of the house was a furnace.

By now my dad was really struggling.  Maneuvering around the house was hard.  Getting out of chairs was hard.  Sitting into chairs was hard.  The meds were making him nauseous.  The meds were making him exhausted.   The injection site from the spinal was miserable.  Tate wanted dinner, he wanted to play with some toys, but not those toys.  My mom's memory which is failing her on a regular basis was trying to work overtime and just couldn't.

I was overwhelmed and exhausted.

But when you love someone you find out how strong you are.  These are three of the people I love most in the world, so my strength seemed to come up and envelope me even when I just wanted to sleep for hours.  Nightfall finally came.  Tate finally went to bed.  My dad finally dozed off.  My mom finally got to sit down.  

I finally got to rest my body and soul.

Tate and I ended up sleeping in the living room which was cool on the side of the house with the working a/c unit....me on the couch, him on his toddler bed mattress on the floor.  It wasn't a good sleep for either one of us, and he was up at 530am.  I tossed and turned all night long.  So, Saturday morning came all too soon.

It was a morning of helping my dad up and down off chairs and changing dressings,  trying to convince him do his exercises, icing his knee, entertaining and feeding Tate, feeding my dad, making sure my mother ate something, trying to give my mom some autonomy to get done what she felt she needed to do to keep her household running, and just keeping everyone happy.  Tate had a soccer game that morning, and I'm seemingly the team mom.  I had sent an email the night before with a reminder of the time and location of the game.  Thank goodness I inputted the address into my GPS an hour before we had to leave for the game and realized I had sent out the wrong address to the entire team...I then had to email and text everyone to get them the correct address, praying they all received it.  We got stuck in unexpected traffic on our way to the game, so we were late.  However, the boys played well, and Tate even scored a goal helping lead his team to victory!  

After the game we ran to pick up my car, drop off the loaner and return to my parents' house.  By the time we got back there Lindsey had arrived.  I got Tate some lunch and then checked on my dad...helped him with his exercises, got his meds into him, got his knee iced and checked on my mom.  

My dad was 100% better from the previous day.  His pain meds seemed to be really working, he wasn't nearly as nauseated.  He was moving around almost by himself.  My mom was going to the grocery store, got her haircut and did laundry.  They seemed to be getting back to their routine.  It was decided that Tate and I would go on home around 4 instead of spending another night (I couldn't do another night on that couch, but couldn't imagine sleeping in that bedroom in a room at 80 degrees!) and Lindsey would stay until about 6pm.

I got Tate to bed as early as I could Saturday night as he hadn't gotten enough sleep the previous 3 nights and he did me the glorious favor of sleeping until 620 on Sunday morning.  We went to Sunday school at church then went back down to see my parents for a couple of hours.  

Night and day the difference.  They were both back to their normal selves.  Well mostly I should say. My dad was still in a bit of pain, but he could get up and down by himself, he was doing his exercises with a minimum of complaint and he was watching football.  What more could a man want?

Caring for my son.  Caring for my dad.  The two most important men in my life.  Me there in the middle.  

And this wasn't all that hard.  This wasn't bad.  

This was just the crust of the sandwich.   

I just wasn't prepared to try to figure out who to help first when you want to help them both.  

It's going to be an interesting ride these next 5 days, 5 years, 5 decades.

It's going to be a sandwich of love.