Protected: Trip to Bozeman, Montana

Posted on April 27, 2011 by fatheral

Death of my Father

Posted on April 18, 2011 by fatheral

My father died on Monday, April 11th at 12:50pm. He was 93 and lived a good life. I saw him the morning of his passing and held his hand and he only briefly opened his eyes, for just a moment. He was breathing heavy, but it appeared less labored, even from what I had seen the night before. I knew the time was near.

We started seeing the signs last month. He became a little bit more fragile looking, walked a little slower and tired easily. Over the past 2 weeks, he began telling us that he was “dying”. I would say to anyone, when your parents are strong enough to tell you that they are dying, we should all listen. It’s so easy to just ignore it and play it down. Maybe it’s because most of us don’t want to hear it, don’t want to realize that life does come to an end. My father was always like that, so I should have known better. He was always ‘to the point’ on just about everything in life.

My sister, brother, mother and wife were all at his bedside when he passed. I had just returned to the house from the office and was able to still hold his warm hand, even in the minutes after his death. To me, he looked peaceful. Soon after, the funeral home came to take opa from us and transfer him to the crematorium. He had always wanted to be cremated, just like his mother before him. He had sprinkled her ashes over the bay from the pier of her final apartment on Ocean Drive. My mother and father had both purchased a plot in the 1970′s under a beautiful tree at Memorial Gardens. This is a place I often cycle by knowing my father would once be laid to rest here. I will continue to visit often.

The funeral on Friday, April 15th was wonderful. It was a beautiful and uncharacteristically cool day for April. We listened to the wonderful eulogy by my sister and we all gave a few passing words before his ashes were laid to rest.

The celebratory party at the house afterwards was something opa would have loved. Friends and family gathered at the house, exchanging stories and past events. We had books made with photos of opas life and happy moments.

Since the weekend has passed and it’s now 1 week since his passing, we will take a moment of silence at 12:50 today in memory of Opa. The happy memories will sustain us. I will remember my father fondly, sharing a coffee and cigar at the house. I visited him every morning at the house and watched him enjoy his sudoku puzzles to keep his ‘mind sharp’. The picture above is how I will remember my father. Always talkative, happy to sit in the yard and share stories. He was a wonderful man and will be missed.

The process of dying

Posted on April 9, 2011 by fatheral

My father is 93 and about a month ago, I began to notice that he was getting a little more withdrawn. His appetite waning. My father and I would make it a point to see each other almost every weekend since we moved back to Corpus Christi in 1994. He is a strong man, born in 1917 and experienced the world as a musician, entertainer and father. He enjoyed a good cigar and coffee every time we met. He survived the war and moving to another country.

He was diagnosed with colon cancer when he was 88 and had a colon resection that certainly gave him another few years to live. He always felt good. Never complained that he had cancer. In fact, if it was not by our insistence, he probably would not have had his first surgery. He asked me at that time, “why go to surgery when I feel so good”. We all knew that the few years he had with us were a gift because of that surgery. Unfortunately, a few months ago he was diagnosed with a secondary tumor to the liver , “about the size of a golf ball” , we were told.

Again, we were confronted with the same dilemma, should he have another surgery at 93, he again told us that he didn’t have any pain and “felt good”. Fortunately, he underwent a simple ablation of the tumor, his enzymes returned to baseline. Success, however the doctors did tell us that not all of the tumor could be ablated.

The turning point for Dad was about 2 weeks ago when he began to have trouble eating. He told me then that he was dying. The frankness startled me and I actually thought he was being a little dramatic. However, the following few days, he would not eat, no desire he kept telling us. As a family member, I got a little frustrated thinking that all he has to do is eat something. However, not until doing some reading about the dying process, did I fully understand what was happening. All of this was normal, I would soon come to realize. When the body is dying, the person obviously knows it.

The downward spiral from an active, strong man to weakness and the inability to function has amazed me. Just last weekend, he came to dinner, walking on his own, sitting at the dinner table with us, but not eating. He had some soup earlier in the day. He had been napping more than usual. His withdrawn mood seemed to get worse because he couldn’t really hear any of our conversations. This always seemed to frustrate him. Especially for a man that has always been so social.

That was Saturday, last week. Over the past week, he has gone from being able to sit up on the side of the bed to completely bed bound since yesterday. He got up last about 2 days ago to sit outside in a wheelchair with the help of my sister and brother. This morning, he is barely responsive, but still able to mutter a few words. His cheeks were always so full and now they are hallow. His breathing is rapid and labored now. He assured me the day before that he had no pain. I am consoled by this fact.

He is cold, then warm, but he still enjoys the ice chips and cool cloth to his forehead. He is getting some medication now for restlessness at night. As I held his hand this morning, I could tell that he knew I was there. I tell him I love him and I’m hopeful he still hears me. It seems like the touch of simply holding his hands is more important than anything I can tell him now.

MLL 1 Year Later

Posted on February 3, 2011 by fatheral

It’s been a while since I visited this blog (since I have 3 other blogs working right now). Anyway, didn’t notice all the posts and the people that I’ve enlightened by this accident. Glad to oblige.

I wanted to give peeps an update to how the injury has progressed over the past year.

I went back to cycling in December for only about a week after having to get off the bike for another unrelated injury. The leg was doing fine, but I tried to get back to cycling a little quicker than I should have and developed a little patellar tendonitis. Anyway, I took off another 3 weeks and started pretty heavy into training in January 2010. The leg was completely healed and I had no problems cycling. My sister, who is an ultrasound tech at one of the local hospitals, put the US to the leg a few times during my recovery. Each time, the residual fluid left over from after the VAC removed got smaller and smaller.

Let me back up, when I had the VAC removed, I had to have the area packed and compressed until a smaller opening finally healed. It took a few weeks for the final area to heal after the VAC was removed. In other words, the area was still healing from the inside-out after the VAC removal.

My last ultrasound in January showed only a little scar tissue, but no more fluid. So , it was then that I went back to cycling full time. I had an active Spring 2010 cycling season. I was back up to my training 2 to 3 hours a day and actually won a criterium in a Cat 4 race in August.

I have a picture attached of what my scar and leg looks like. (in blog post) I have no residual problems with the area. It is a little numb around the skin, but I don’t feel any ‘pulling’ action or pain. I sleep on it without causing any pain. Initially, when I had the injury, I couldn’t find anything on the MLL , so I hope everyone found this little blog series helpful.

The Series
Part 1 – Anatomy of a Bicycle Crash
Part 2 – Morel-Lavallee’ Lesion or Traumatic Hematoma after a Bicyle Accident
Part 3 – Morel-Lavalle’ Lesion – The Aftermath
Part 4 – Morel-Lavalle’ Lesion – The Surgery

Fini-MLL 1 year later

Biathalon

Posted on March 2, 2010 by fatheral

Found this kinda funny.

A Writer at War – Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945

Posted on October 28, 2009 by fatheral

I have just finished reading, A Writer At War, Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945. If you are a World War II buff , like me, you will really enjoy this book. This is a riviting book and powerful reading that takes you directly to the Russion front in WWII. Vasily Grossman was a special news correspondent for The Red Star, which was the Red Army newspaper of the time. Grossman witnessed and wrote on every major Eastern Front battle, fighting and writing along with the Red Army. He wrote on the action from the defense of Moscow to the battle of Stalingrad. As a Jew, he fought closely alongside the Red Army only to return to Berdichev, where he would soon discover that his family and mother where killed in the Holocaust. He undertook writing and recording the German atrocities and published “The Hell of Treblinka”, a report that was used at the Nuremberg tribunal.

Editors and translators, Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova, have done an excellent job at compiling his many ‘notes’ and translating them into readable form. The book is organized in a time-line fashion spanning ‘ The Shock of Invasion 1941′ to ‘Amid the Ruins of the Nazi World 1945′.

Vasily Grossman ((1905-1964) came to be regarded as a hero of WWII on the strength of his war reporting. His novel, Life and Fate about the siege of Stalingrad, was written in 1960, but was declared a threat to the Soviet government and was confiscated by the KGB. Grossman was told there was no chance of the novel being published for another 200 years. Some 20 years after his death and after the fall of the ‘iron curtain’, the novel was published outside of the Soviet Union to wide acclaim.

This is the preface of a multi-part series of my synopsis of Vasily Grossmans book, A Writer At War, Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945. Stay tuned for varying synopsis of this wonderful book.

Cleaning the clutter

Posted on October 26, 2009 by fatheral

It all started when my favorite DVD collection, that I’ve spent hours to categorize, was in a sheer state of shamble.

One of the biggest problems I have around the home is keeping down the clutter and trying to keep a sense of organization. Unfortunately, this is the mess that occurs with everyday living. I don’t consider myself too uptight, but I’ve always found my house to be much more enjoyable clean rather than cluttered. Unfortunately, with four children, two of which are now teenagers, trying to keep a house clean is next to impossible. And trying to teach children and teens how to clean up after themselves, well that may be tougher than parting the Red Sea.

Unfortunately, our children do not see the cleanliness of our home the same way we do. I don’t think any child does. There are far too many more important things to do than to clean up, like watching TV or playing video games. We are partly to blame. In our more convenient world, texting and being on the computer has taken us away from those rudimentary tasks such as house cleaning. However, if we can teach children and teens to see cleaning as a part of living and the importance of it, then they will be that much closer to acting as a responsible adult. I guess that is the underlying premise here. Until you are an adult, you probably won’t see the importance of organization and how cleaning the clutter is the same as learning and perfecting organizational skills that can be used in every facet of life. In fact, I’ll bet unless you get really good at organizational skills, you probably won’t be very successful in life? Can that be a fair deduction? Or can you really have an organized life in a cluttered world?

The easy thing would be to just ‘clean the clutter’ when you come across it. But if only one person is cleaning the clutter, you will be in a constant state of cleaning up after other people.

As I talk to other parents about this, it appears this is almost like a right-of-passage for most children and teens to live among loads of dirty laundry in their rooms like plies of doggy- do in the yard that never gets picked up. It’s all part of ‘growing up’, right?

A few years ago, my wife and I decided to eliminate as much clutter from the house as possible. We had a major ‘spring cleaning’ and got rid of many items that we thought were cluttering various rooms around the house. We read an article in a magazine at that time how less was more when it came to the way a room was decorated. So, we took down most of the pictures, photos and items from the walls and put up just one item per wall, instead of fifteen or twenty. Same went for what went on tables, only one or two items on a table instead of five or six. However, one of the biggest problems we have is what I termed “pack ratting”. This is where you just can give up these items and they remain in closets or the garage forever.

Luckily, we have what are called “garage sales” and a few of these throughout the year will take care of that problem. So, what are some of the tips circulating around the internet on getting your children or teens to see the importance of cleaning up and keeping down the clutter? There will come a time when they will have to clean up after themselves, right? Like when they go to college or get their own apartment or home. That day will come sooner or later.

Most experts agree that starting young is key. If you can get your child to begin cleaning up and making it a habit at a younger age, it’s probably easier to do when they are older. Use money as a reward. Money makes the world go around and can also provide an incentive for your children to clean. Also, make it a family affair. Cleaning by example and having your kids involved in dinner and dishes afterwards can get them into a routine of helping to see the importance of family cooperation. Making a chore list and rewarding a chore is also a good way to establish a cleaning routine. It seems the teens respond better to monetary rewards where the younger ones respond better to other rewards, such as toys and games.

And, until my home gets uncluttered, I’ll continue to live among the piles and keep my own little clutter stations in check. Living among the clutter can be manageable in the right frame of mind. There is always the beauty of knowing that clutter management is another part of parenting that we all will master and overcome.

To Nurture again-The Death of a Child and the Courage to Overcome

Posted on October 24, 2009 by fatheral

Parenthood is challenging in itself, but made even more daunting by the death of a child. Writen by Ann Hood, this is an excellent story from the New York Times of a mother who lost her 5 year old daughter, Grace and then adopted a child , Annabelle to nurture again. After a similar scare befalls the mother a second time , now with Annabelle, she reflects on her past experience of death and flashbacks of her former self. It then helps her find the courage and strength to continue and overcome. The story, Modern Love – To Nurthure Again with Courage is an interesting look at the dynamics of love and the anxiety that can accompany the loss of a child. ~thanks Delia for this recommended reading.