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Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Parkinson's Disease May Make Eating Dangerous but it did NOT Prevent Him From Eating Ice Cream!


Yesterday I had to pick my mom up at her up at her nursing home for a doctors appointment at the same hospital my Dad died in a few weeks ago. I didn't want to go there just yet but life has to go on and a part of life is going to appointments.  After we got checked in at the doctors office I left to walk through the hospital to an office I needed to talk to. As I walked through the ER lobby and the main lobby flash backs of him being there dying came to surface. I didn't cry, but I did feel a tugging at my heart and soul.

For whatever reason being there made me start thinking of how my Dad's eating became so affected by Parkinson's disease. We had to put him in a nursing home in summer 2011 because his Parkinson's was getting so advanced that neither my mom or I could keep giving him the 24/7 care needed anymore. After being at the nursing home for about 1 1/2 years he had to start eating puréed food with thickener in it because his Parkinson's related swallowing difficulties made eating dangerous so much so that they had to do the hymlieck maneuver on him several times.
as much.


He continued to choke even on the nasty pureed food but not as bad as he did before his food was pureed. He would get pneumonia every so often from him asperating food into his lungs. Food became his enemy. The good taste of things like meat loaf and fried potatoes no longer interested him. Pureed meat is especially horrible. So this year and more so this summer he began to loose weight quickly as he slowly starved to death if that makes any since. It had become his cruel reality.


He was a tall larged boned muscular man that got down to 165 pounds. For him that was under weight and sickly. He looked so little and sad.


He was wasting away.


I had sinced this summer that he was beginning to lose hope and give up. Giving up was unusual for him. He had been holding on way longer then others in his shape were. His will to live was unbelievably strong. But after needing pureed food and quickly going down hill he was starting to give up but not 100%. He was a fighter not only in the boxing ring but also with the will to live too.


He may have been fading away but that never stopped him from loving ice cream and chocolate. We often took ice cream and chocolate to him. About 4 days days before he died my adult niece and I took him a large chocolate sundae from the near by DQ. He enjoyed it. He got most of it eaten before it began melting and becoming to liquidly for him to handle. I'm so glad we did that for him only days before he died. It was probably the best thing he had eaten that week.


After Dad died me and several other family members ate ice cream that night in honor of my dear ice cream addicted father. His love of ice cream got passed down to his descendants. Eating ice cream with my Dad is some of my best memories with him. He would get vanilla ice cream and put Nestle Quik chocolate powder on it. Then he used his strong arms to stir the ice cream for us kids. The night he died I went and got vanilla ice cream and the chocolate powder in honor of him as my great niece and I enjoyed a large bowl of it. Dad used to make a mountain of ice cream in the bowls as the "mountain" went up tall well past the bowls rim.


He is now in Heaven eating at the ice cream buffet I asked God to give me in Heaven. Dad is the first guest there to enjoy a wide array of ice cream flavors.


Parkinson's disease could not and did not win. All it did was kill his body but it did NOT kill his soul and spirit.


Save some ice cream for me Dad!