THE UNEXPECTED JOURNEY Part 5

Thanks to Raychel Erdmanczyk for this installment of the Unexpected Journey.

Well it is my turn to tell you about this crazy journey we’ve been on. Dad saved the best for last! I’m to tell you about some of the funny things that happened during this time. There were lots and lots of laughs had. 

I think the sayings go, “Laughter is the best medicine” or “If I’m not laughing I’m crying”. Both of those are very accurate! Maybe not the first saying for my dad, he needed a bit more than just some laughing. But for mom, Mel and I that was completely the case! The first trip Melissa and I took to Texas to check up on the whole situation was the first time in YEARS it had been just the four of us spending time together. And boy was it nice. We really did a ton of laughing with our time together. It’s hard to recall on that trip what we found so humorous, but it was good for our souls to be together and crack jokes. 

The second trip to Texas, you know the one that came a week after we had returned from the first trip, was a little more serious. But once again still filled with lots of laughs. There were times at night we (Mom, Mel & I) would be sitting in the camper listening to music, one of us might start crying, then all of us would be crying, one of us would say a smart-aleck comment and we would all be laughing. We know that due to the stress we were under, laughing was a way we were coping with it. And sometimes it was the silliest things that would make us crack up. Like Mom and Melissa not knowing about the Minnesota State Dish?! It’s tater-tot hotdish, by the way. Or it was dad’s reaction to the food we delivered him to the hospital. One night he asked for some Orange Chicken from Panda Express. “That chicken was so good! SO GOOD!” He raved about it for days! I’ve had Panda Express, I’ve enjoyed it but never that much.

While I was back home in Minnesota, I would wait impatiently for my daily updates from Mom or Mel. While most of those messages were hard, I always got a kick out of the crazy things dad was doing. He ALWAYS let the nurses and doctors know he was a comedian and to look him up on YouTube. Dad’s thought processing became really slow! We would joke that he was just like the sloth from the movie Zootopia. Shortly after his surgery dad was demonstrating to mom and I how he had to take deep breaths and count backwards to fall asleep for his surgery. He was so dramatic with his actions and tried to convince us that the anesthesiologist was trying to kill him. We clearly knew better. Then there was the time that he was convinced that he needed to ”call those people”, the people he was referring to was a picture of all his grandbabies taped at the foot of his bed. When I would ask why he wanted to call his grandbabies he would get so annoyed with me and tell me, “not them, I know who they are. I need to call those people” while continuing to point to the same picture. I would go sit down and a few minutes later we would be having the same conversation. Mom and I would just giggle. Another time after the surgery I called him and he was telling me about how beautiful his nurse was. He was trying to get me to know who she looked like. None of us could figure out whom he was referring to. We all just ended up agreeing with him. Have you tried to follow a conversation with a drugged up sloth?! It’s hard! 

We knew dad was slightly delusional during this time. It was hard watching him in the state that he was in. And if we didn’t continue to find the funny moments in all this we would have cried a ton more. If that was even possible…. There are so many funny moments that we had during this whole process. I truly believe that God gave us these moments to ease some of our worries and stresses. 

Next week we will begin the next chapter.