AUSTIN, Texas, Apr. 15, 2005 — Nope I don't mean the tax return. I mean writing down all the drugs Dad takes twice, signing everything in sight, trying to remember the when, where and doctor's name of every relevant thing.

I get to Dad's. He's managed to get a bowl of cereal. He has gotten washed up. I bring in the paper, he reads it a little, gets dressed with a little help. We head for our 10:30. We've been instructed to get there at 10:15. The paperwork, you know. (Never mind that I will see when we are inside that he is in their computer eight or more times. Even though on one record they have his year of birth wrong by seven years.)

I leave him inside the medical office building and

go park the van. This having to get him in a wheelchair and all is a large pain. We get to the place and I fill out paperwork, have the insurance cards copied for the umpteenth time. We get in. We get to talk to a paramedic. He takes his blood pressure in both arms, takes more history. We wait some more. Then we go to another room, the paramedic brings up his MRI. We wait some more. The doctor comes. He's interrupted once but he explains that the vertebra is compressed. Probably fractured. I think he says that. It looks wrong on the film all right. He examines him a little. He concludes it might help to do a balloon kyphoplasty. (See www.kyphon.com.) He mentions possibly making things worse, risks, maybe it won't help the nerve problems causing the leg pain. But what else we got?

Dad wants to go for it. We sign more stuff, get brochures, a CD video, cards, a referral over to the hospital for registration and a surgery date for Tuesday. We go straight away over there and I have to write down a bunch of the very same stuff I just did. I do it as fast as I can. We get called after a while. There is more paper, labels, confusion, a clerk, two nurses, an anesthesiologist, blood drawn. Then we move on for an EKG and chest xrays. They we wait to see if the xrays are OK. It has been over four hours. I take my dad in the chair to a place in the sun and go get the van. We are both relieved.

At home, I heat up some food for him, get his water and cranberry juice. We both missed lunch. I eat something with him. I sit with him a while. Does he want me to stay and fix his dinner? He says he'll get something. He seems to be taking a step or two when he transfers now. I'm encouraging him to do a little walking.

"You made Mom walk when she said her legs hurt too bad." I assert.

"That was different. She was just going to sit there and die in that chair."

"She was dying," I remind him.

"Yes."

"I'm just trying to figure out what's best for you. I'm afraid if you quit walking, you'll just quit. Maybe you should take a little more pain med. You are only taking two a day and it says you can take them every four to six hours. Give you some relief, you can move a little more."

"Maybe you are right."

"I don't know what to do. I'm just suggesting things."

He did end up taking a pain pill when we got home. I feel a little relief that we have a chance to try this fix on Tuesday. I'm nervous that he has osteoporosios. Maybe he even has Multiple Myeloma. Since my mother died everything codes to MM for me. Which is ridiculous...it's a rare disease.

We have other conversations where he is the proper hero. The twenty-something years he looked after mother...with her falls and blackouts leading to the need for anti-convulsants. Attendant problems with the drugs, changing them. The growing announcement of MM, the last hundred days, all in hospitals, rehab or hospice. All those hospital meals and hospital cups of coffee. Almost destroyed his health. There was more, too. Mom was sort of a hypochondriac, albeit an ill one. Dad is much more stoic and a good patient, still able to properly take his meds, understand about eating and fluids and understand the treatments.

And we talk about how he cared for my grandparents and my uncle. No, not his parents. My grandfather died suddenly in 1948. My grandmother of complications of surgery in 1953, cared for by my aunts. No, my dad dedicated many hours looking after my mother's father (who died in a nursing home in 1959 in his eighties) and my mother's mother (who died in 1978 in her eighties after a long series of hip surgeries and loss of hearing from stroke intervention drugs). And the uncle was married to my mother's sister. He died of colon cancer in the eighties and had a protracted hospice at home. My dad, ever the care giver (he was an attendant at VA hospitals for 29 years), took a lot of care of these people. In the nineties, he helped my mother's cousin who lived close to them for six or seven weeks of home hospice while he died of brain cancer.

My dad doesn't have that kind of hero in his story. I'm not up to the nursing like that if it comes to that. Besides he weighs over 180 even after losing his appetite and some weight in this ordeal. I can't do that kind of lifting. But mostly I'm just not up to nursing. If it comes to that, we will have to hire someone or put him in nursing care. But I'm still hopeful (and so is he) that he can get back to taking care of himself, his plants, his bird feeders for a while. Be independent.

Finally I leave him. He seems happy to have something to try to relieve this thing. He promises to call me in the morning.

At home I write a message to some friends and relatives with the details of the diagnosis and treatment. I've already phoned what I call his 'sister network' and the woman I call his 'good daughter.' (No relation, really, she is just like a daughter would be to him, only better than me.)

FFP fixes some tilapia and salad. We watch Third Watch and Law and Order and I watch Numb3rs. I have coffee. FFP makes me a Manhattan. I snack some more. None of these shows I watch really do it for me anymore. Why do I keep watching? I go work on my journal, surf the WEB a little. And go to sleep.