On April 8, my father walked unsteadily and spoke slurredly by the entrance of Guilin West Street Foreign Language Primary School. Passers-by called the police. There was no one at home. The police temporarily took my father to the police station and waited for me to rush there to pick him up. I went to Ningbo to see my mother two days ago, and then to Zhujiajian. After receiving the call, I drove to Shanghai. My brother informed me that my father had been taken home by the police. When I got home around 10:30 pm, my father was already asleep and the kitchen faucet was on. After cleaning up, he lay down to sleep.
On April 9, I took my father to the Eighth People's Hospital at noon. The aunt arrived half an hour later. My father did a brain CT and an electrocardiogram. Cerebral infarction was found and he was hospitalized. Bed number, aisle extra bed No. 48.
On April 10, my father's bed was moved from bed No. 48 to No. 45. An MRI was performed at 12 noon, but no report was issued that afternoon. In the afternoon, I got angry on WeChat with my eldest lady, and my mood got high, and I suffered from depression.
On April 11, my father was transferred from the extra bed in the corridor to the ward. The eldest lady asked for the doctor's report and the neurologist consulted. I asked if the bed in the neurology department could be transferred to, but I was told that it was not available and that it was full.
On April 12, I went to Songjiang to park my car. On the way back, I received continuous calls from nurses and caregivers. I was told that my father pulled out the infusion tube by himself, got up and fell out of bed in the middle of the night, and the nurse used a belt to restrain my father's hand during the final infusion. I didn’t go to the hospital to see my father that day, and my aunt didn’t go that day either, because my uncle had cataract surgery on his eyes. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to go, and secondly, the weather was bad and the wind was too strong.
On April 13, I cooked a small soup in a casserole in the morning. I went to the hospital in the afternoon and brought soup and some daily necessities. Entering my father's ward, the eldest lady was already inside. I saw my father sitting on the bed, leaning on the bed board that was rolled up, lying with his eyes closed. She pushed him, opened her eyes, and her expression and emotions suddenly became excited. First she laughed, then she cried, loudly, and she was still saying something vaguely. I was a little panicked all of a sudden. I didn’t know what was going on. I put the basket down and said that I would heat up the pork rib soup for him. I went to the drinking room at the other end of the corridor and heated the pork rib soup in the microwave. When I walked out of the room, I vaguely heard that my father was still in the room and wanted to say something emotionally. His speech was still unclear and I couldn’t know what he was saying. In the bartending room, I should have been holding back in the room just now. There was no one here. Tears burst out of my eyes all of a sudden, and they were mine. Before the microwave was finished heating, I saw the eldest lady on the other end looking for me in a hurry, telling me to come back quickly. Later I found out that my father thought I had flashed away and left again, so he was anxious. When I returned to my father's ward, I burst into tears and couldn't stop them, for no reason. Why are you still crying like this when you are obviously filled with resentment?
On April 14, when my father saw me coming, he would still get emotional and his eyes would be red. I began to unconsciously think about things from his perspective. I felt that he must be bored lying like this, so I dragged a wheelchair to the corridor and helped him get into the wheelchair. When he sat in the wheelchair, his expression relaxed a little, indicating that he wanted to go downstairs. I took him to the small garden downstairs of the hospital to let him relax. We sat under the sun and enjoyed some fresh air. The air in the ward would be very depressing if he stayed there for a long time. My father took the initiative to get up and walk along the stone bench from one end to the other. I didn't help him, I just stood by to protect him from falling. Video chat with my brother to let him see how his dad is doing.
On April 15, my uncle and his aunt came to see my father. In my uncle's eyes, I thought my father was very serious and there was not much hope. My aunt often said that my father had a mild cerebral infarction and that my uncle didn't understand. I said in my heart, it has nothing to do with whether he understands or not, it has something to do with blood. You are my father's sister, and my uncle is my father's sister's husband. Just this difference, the subjective view of the same thing will be different.
The patient in the bed next to his father said to his father, "Your son is fine" (using Shanghainese). His father's expression was already calm at that time, but upon hearing this, he showed an expression that was about to cry again. He frowned, grinned, and burst into tears. This time I saw clearly.
A person who had hardly cried before would now cry every day. The personality, self-esteem, and dignity that he had built up all his life fell apart in just two days after he lost the ability to take care of himself.
On April 16, I had always wanted to transfer to the neurology ward, but there was no bed. So I called my uncle’s cousin, who called the party branch secretary of a tertiary hospital. Ten minutes later, a nurse from the neurology department came and informed me that I could be transferred to the neurology ward. She also said that the leaders there knew about this, so don’t worry.
There is another detail today. There are three beds in a ward, next to each other, with a curtain in the middle. The man next to my father said that my father slept the most soundly last night. I realized that the snoring must have been very loud, so I asked him if his snoring was also very loud and had disturbed you. The man said politely, no, my father must have heard it. So I closed the curtain to reduce the noise of others' snoring. Later, when the nurse came to get the infusion bottle, I opened the curtain again. My father wanted to close the curtain again. Of course, he couldn't complete this action, but I understood the meaning and closed it for him.
With all these phenomena, one question arises: why did my father, after he lost his ability to take care of himself and lost his freedom, and after many of his brain functions were severely damaged, started to act like a human being?