Learning to Listen and Speak more Slowly

A quick note on my dad's progress and a short story:

First off, I'd like to thank any and all those who have helped my family out in so many different ways and all those who are genuinely concerned about his well being and ours. Just so that people know, my dad has had a very speedy recovery. I know all prayers have been heard. The fasts that were made on his behalf I believe have allowed him to recover so much so quickly. He first came out of his stroke unable to move half his body. Now, he is almost normal. He doesn't need help going to the bathroom or anything. He showers himself. Shaves and everything. His speech and memory are the things we are working on slowly. But every day shows signs of improvement. He's speaking faster each day and is now remembering Spanish and speaking it more clearly too. Because he speaks so fast, sometimes my sister and I speak to him like we normally do and he has to constantly remind us to slow down. His comprehension is still slow. And some words still come out jumbled and backwards. But we understand one another well when we slowly communicate things.

He made an interesting observation the other day that took him about 20 minutes to explain to me but it made me think a lot. I've become quite pensive over the last couple of weeks as my mother quickly tries to move out of the house back in California to come and live in Utah. Meanwhile, I am here with my Dad and thanks to help from my two sisters, we are trying hard to make him feel relaxed and at home. Both my mother and I felt it would be highly stressful for him to deal with the matters of moving after having had a stroke. So we thought it best for him to stay in Utah with me. It's not easy though. At first, he tried leaving but had nowhere to go and no way to get there. He hasn't lost his character for sure. He's a stubborn man. And a fighter. That first day after my mother left to take care of matters in California, we spent many hours trying to explain to him that it was better for his health to stay here.

On many occasions, we've had to spend close to 2 hours to try and communicate things that would normally take 5 minutes or so. It's tough sometimes, but I think doing this has allowed me to think things through a lot more before saying them. I believe my family has poor communication skills. Because of this, we sometimes speak over one another and gradually get louder and louder so as to be heard. The irony of doing this is that no one is listening and nothing gets heard. The observation my Dad made the other day was that while my sister and I were discussing something petty, he noticed that everything we would say, we would say four or five times. He said to me later, "You say the same things. Over and over." He then asked, "Why can't you just say it once?" He then encouraged me to say things more slowly next time I get into an argument with my sister. I didn't want to hear it at first.

But later that night as I lay in bed pondering what he had said, it made sense. I do say things over and over. And then later on, I had a phone conversation with my husband and even I observed the many occasions on which he repeated the same things more than once. I did too. Our world has gotten too overly fast paced. Sometimes, I do think the world would be a better place if we just stopped for a moment, slowed down our pace, and listened more. Patience is something I've told Alex on many occasions is something I don't think I have. Funny how I am now being forced into learning it through my Dad's condition.

He gets very sensitive sometimes about thinking he might be disabled because I won't let him drive. When I quickly tried to explain to him why and for how long, so that he would calm down, he didn't understand. So I had to slow down. When I tried to explain it again at half the speed, he still didn't get it. I took a deep breath at that point. Extremely frustrated, I made one last attempt to slow things down even more. He finally understood that I didn't think his condition was permanent.

This got me thinking even more. If my Dad, who as a grown man, sometimes doesn't understand me because of his mind being in such an innocent state, I began to wonder about my own children and how maybe perhaps I don't communicate things as thoroughly as I think I am. It's like that silly LDS video clip of that child running to the corner of a street and his mother yelling for him to stop and not run to the corner. When she finally catches up to him, she's very much frustrated but quickly understands how unclear she had been because of the question that is posed to her of "Mommy, what's a corner?" I know my Heavenly Father has interesting ways of teaching us things we might not have learned otherwise. This may very well be one of those things for me.

Anyways, other than our communication issues, we are all well. And my Dad is progressing very well. We are seeing a naturopathic doctor and we also have an appointment with a new cardiologist to see what we can do about reducing his prescriptions to zero. Maybe not all at once. But slowly, I think my Dad can regain his health if he is willing to try more natural approaches. He doesn't like the wheatgrass much. But he grudgingly takes it. We've eliminated his diabetes medications because his blood sugar actually became too low at one point. This is something that we didn't know was possible to reverse. But with all the fresh juices and green smoothies I've been making him for the past three weeks now, he may very well never need diabetes medications again. At least we're hoping for that. I strongly believe that prescription meds do indeed save lives, but I also believe that they are not something we have to live with forever.

Just two days ago, with the help of the doctor, we were able to eliminate two more pills and replaced them with a milder herb that we're hopeful he won't need for life. His vitals are pretty strong and just yesterday, he said some speech began to make more sense to him while hearing it. He's addicted to the television show 24. So I guess, that's how he's learning for now. I don't mind so much. But ask Alex sometime why I don't really like that show. I'm trying really hard not to roll my eyes.

Well, that's all for now. I need to get some rest. Just thought I'd get that all off my chest.