LIFE UPDATE: MY DAD AND ALL THAT

Hello, you lovely lot.

As you’ll have gathered, it has been a challenging couple of weeks, emotionally obviously, but just on a kind of physical and energetic level. With my dad in hospital – who a month ago was still going to supermarkets and driving – my mum is on her own, and more or less blind. He had been her primary carer. One of my sisters has been in Spain this week, which left the rest of us doing a lot of the running around… both up to the hospital, and for my mum. The good news is, mum is going to get a carer very soon, visiting three times a day, but my body is exhausted. So, so tired.

The other smidge of good news is that my dad is… a little better. Kind of? A bit. Last week we were told by his doctor that he could quite literally die at any minute, and that family should visit to say goodbye. He was fighting Covid, pneumonia, and a serious bladder infection, and they thought he’d had a stroke (all caused by Covid). I had to go up to the hospital and give permission for a do-not-resuscitate order.

He's having an MRI tomorrow, but now they think that it may not have been a stroke, and that the Covid attacked his cerebellum, which controls motor movements. Apparently, this is a more common side-effect than has been reported generally, and Covid affects the brain in about a third of patients, in some way. It’s a bastard of a virus.

He’s doing this weird thing where he has terrible vertigo, his eyes flicker back and forth rapidly, he shakes, struggles to get words out, and has absolutely no strength in his legs. He gets very scared, and will shout and scream if they move him from the bed to the chair. He’s also not eating, and he’s feeling – as you would – very, very low. Especially coming off the back of a few years where he’s struggled with his health, and had believed he was just getting over all that.

He keeps saying he feels worse every day, but from the outside he is much improved. That’s because, which IS good news, he has beaten the infections. Now he just has to beat the damage they caused, and we’re doing what we can to keep him positive. It’s hard on all of us to see him suffering, both physically and mentally. There have been a lot of tears, but it has also been healing in a funny sort of way. My dad has always struggled with displays of affection, but faced with what we all thought was the end he’s been able to tell us how much he loves and appreciates us all, and that he’s had a brilliant life.

The doctor said that this does happen to some people with Covid, and the symptoms can just miraculously disappear. He seems confident that with some rehabilitation dad will get better, but we don’t know how long that might take, or how much he’ll improve. And, y’know, he’s 88, so ‘better’ is kind of relative at that age. My mum is doing okay, but has been very worried, of course. Everyone in the family has been a bit stressed and snappy with one another at points, because we’re all dealing with so much, and have different ideas of what we should be doing.

I do have to say how brilliant the hospital has been. They’ve kept us updated, been incredibly kind and tolerant with my dad, who isn’t always the easiest of patients, and made us feel he’s in good hands. We are so damn lucky in this country to have the NHS.

Obviously, on top of that… we’ve also still had to continue to deal with my work situation (or lack of). I had a real lift this week, because I got commissioned for my first job on Fiverr. It gave me a proper boost, and I’m going to talk about it more in this week’s Writer’s Club (I’ll save the planned Pudsey episode for another time). My sister is back on Saturday, so we’ve got the weekend off from parental care duties, more or less, and I hope to properly get stuck into your art/design/editing/writing commissions. Those of you waiting, thank you again for your patience on that front.

Because 2022 is determined to be a relentless shitstorm, the other bit of stress I’ve had during all this, which I haven’t mentioned anywhere, is that I had a cancer scare hanging over me the past month or so. I had a couple of dodgy-looking moles that I got checked out, and was told were likely precancerous. Obviously, I know that can be treated easily, but that word brings such weight with it that I did get worried (on top of everything else). Fortunately, I had a hospital appointment on Monday, and it’s nothing. I was literally with the doctor for two minutes, she said it was fine, and sent me on my way… but told me I was right to get them looked at. If in doubt… check it out. Literally her words.

The thing that has been helping a lot is having stuff to do. You don’t need to worry that we will put family first, but our work – Digi, BYAMPOD etc. – is the distraction we’ve needed from all this. In recent times I’ve come to appreciate all of the Digi/BYAMPOD family all the more, for your kindness, your generosity, and for giving me the opportunity to remain creative and not lose sight of what I enjoy doing best. We really do feel supported.

This week’s Digi clearly hasn’t suffered during everything we’ve got going on, and I think it’s one of our best ever episodes. We’re already working on the next run of eps – there are some *really* fun ones coming up – and today we’ll be recording BYAMPOD, Writer’s Club, and hopefully a BYAMPOD bonus ep. Next week there might be another Biffo’s Brain Zoom, but I’ll let you know. Oh, and I’m still going to be part of Cheapshow Live on the 13th, so hope to see some of you there. Oh oh oh… we’ve also put on a TON of subscribers in the past 24 hours, after Nostalgia Nerd linked to us in his latest video. Can’t thank him enough for that. Lovely chap.

That’s it for now. I know some of you were wondering what’s been happening, so just wanted to share.

Paul