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My sister recently visited our dad and found that he had lost 20 lbs (which puts his weight at about 122lbs on a 6' frame)and is having trouble eating, swallowing and talking - none of which has slowed down his alcohol or cigarette intake, of course. She talked him into going to a doctor and now he's scheduled for an endoscopy and cat scan and it doesn't look too good.
I talked to him yesterday and asked if he wanted one of us to fly out and go with him but he has a "friend" who's going with him - a woman he's dated casually over the past few years. (And by "dated", I mean she found a sugar daddy.) In my helplessness last night I did a criminal background check on her and found that she has no record, although I don't think that it makes her any less of a scammer when it comes to my dad. She makes some pretty high claims about herself (two masters degrees) but never seems to be able to hold down a job, so...I think she smelled money and latched onto my dad as hard as she could. He's not exactly a prize catch...and my dad isn't stupid, despite his problems, so I guess I should just be happy that he has some company. I don't know.
My emotions are all over the place. Because of his addictions, none of us expected my dad to live as long as he has. And because he has lived so long (he's 76), in some ways it's even more shocking to think that his lifestyle might finally be catching up with him.
There's much more I could write but I just had a two-hour phone conversation with my sister about it and my head hurts and I think I'll go throw my anxiety into a good housecleaning frenzy.
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