Thread by @manu_faktur

Sunday was my dad's 63rd birthday. Today my brother and I had to put him in a nursing home, after what was probably the hardest and most emotionally draining week of my life. I'm already forgetting details, so I want to document it before it's too late. This will be fairly long…

For almost a decade now he has lived with a fairly untreatable brain tumor causing loss of motor function for most of his (upper) right body and huge impediments to his ability to speak. Apparently he knows exactly what he wants to say, but he can't put it into actual words.

During those past ten years he has had better and worse days, and for the most part was able to still live his life on his own. He lived alone in Munich, about 150km from where both me and my brother live. Went shopping alone, went to his doctors, visited our grandma by train.

My relationship to him was always a bit rocky due to how he and my mother separated, a topic about which I could write ten other threads. There's no animosity, but we never got really close either. He tried to change that in his later years while he was still more lucid.

So for the past years, we wrote a few messages back and forth every few weeks to months, had a couple of video calls per year. Last summer, after the first shock of the then-still-fresh pandemic, he contacted us with a very serious sounding message about having to talk to us.

Getting more details out of him via text or call was already getting tricky due to how much worse his overall condition had gotten, so after a bit of back and forth we concluded that it probably was really serious and drove to visit him.

After a bit of an awkard "So how's things?" lunch on which he insisted we not talk about the serious thing, he finally told us about a new diagnosis from a recent doctor's visit giving him roughly to the end of last year, though it almost sounded more like weeks than months left.

He had already prepared quite a few things. He had his will, he had chosen a preferred way of being buried/cremated, we set up a living will and power of attorney. Talked about life and death and such. Not a fun day. But, as is human nature, you get used to everything.

He obviously made it way past "end of last year" and due to *gestures at the entire world rn* after a while we pretty much went back into how things were "before". My brother was always closer to him and kept in touch more than I did. Fast-forward to his birthday last Sunday.

We learned that his health had gotten much, much worse. Not from him, but from his neighbors – who for some reason took care for him in the past two-ish weeks instead of just calling an ambulance. They found him on the floor, unable to move or unconscious, several times.

He had given them his key, but also once managed to lock himself in, so they had to get a locksmith to change the locks. There's other things I don't even want to write down. We thought that the time had come where we would have to insist on outpatient care even against his will.

We got increasingly worried, slowly learning the extent of how much worse he had gotten. We don't know why neither he nor the neighbors had informed us sooner. I suppose for him it was due to a mixture of shame and inability. We considered calling emergency services right away.

Get him out of the apartment, into at least some kind of professional care, even if just into a hospital for a night. He was vehemently opposed, being afraid of medication from doctors who don't know his history. The neighbors also assured as they were still there to handle it.

We figured that in the end it would be more disruptive than helpful, and also that one more night would not make a big difference. Even though we only learned about it hours ago, apparently it had worked out for at least a week already like this, so let's keep calm-ish.

At this point it's worth mentioning that I started a new job last week, so the next day was my fourth day there. A great time for having to make calls to insurance, doctors, hotlines non-stop, while also keeping in touch with my brother, dad and the neighbors at all times.

My little brother is finishing his master's degree, i.e. a bit more flexible, so to help me out he managed A LOT of what's to come. He's a fucking hero. I'm blessed with an employer where the only thing I'd be asked when taking time off for this would be "How else can we help?"

Problem #1: His general practitioner was a) not in Munich but 120km away in his hometown (I know. Up until lately he was able to go there on his own by train. Did I mention stubborn?) and more importantly b) on vacation until next Monday. Bad, as no doctor = no outpatient care.

Problem #2: While we were still trying to figure out how to get outpatient care organized for him in Munich as quickly as possible, the neighbors slowly let on more of just how bad things were. Over the course of Monday it became obvious that outpatient care was not an option.

Instead, as advised by the insurance, we started looking into using short-term care as a way to quickly get him looked after 24/7 by professionals. Mind you, I'm 36, my brother is 23. We've never dealt with any of this before. We knew some of the words, sure. But that's about it.

The insurance was helpful, but still often gave completely contradictory information when calling 15 minutes later to confirm details. I'm cutting things short now – through some miracle we actually managed to find a spot in a nursing home here in Passau where we both live.

We found the spot Wednesday, available on Friday. Problem #3: He needs a negative PCR test to be allowed in. Good luck trying to organize a PCR test on that short notice for someone who can't even stand up alone and is barely able to speak. At least he was vaxxed already.

We somehow got this done as well. I spent last night on the phone for an hour with the contractor that did the test, spelling my email adress over and over again because they got it wrong & didn't send the result. We were terrified of having organized the spot and the transport…

… for nothing and basically standing in front of closed doors due to a missing PCR test. Organizing the transport was another several hours back and forth between insurance and service provider, always being told "No, the others are wrong, call them again." In the end, we …

… somehow managed that as well. To book it, we had to provide a CC, giving the three digit security code over via phone. I'm not Boomer enough to ever use my CC via phone, so maybe this is normal – to me that was the most sketchy thing I ever heard of. But I didn't care anymore.

If need be I'd just "lose" the card afterwards & get a new one. Everything to make it work. Somehow it did. He arrived in the morning, and we both saw him today. I should have but did not expect that these few hours with him would be even more soul-crushing than the entire week.

He can barely speak more than a few words. He keeps trying, but has to give up in frustration. I don't know if he is still completely "there" on the inside or not. He is almost unable to drink. Still, we're relieved that he is now in proper care for a while.

We can now breath a little and figure out the next steps with a pulse below 150. I'm not expecting him to ever be able to be on his own again. Tomorrow a good friend will drive me to Munich, so I can speak to the neighbors and check the apartment for documents etc.

What broke me a little inside was when at one point during our visit today he heard that his current stay in the nursing home is set to be until December 31st. He reacted by saying "What, that long?!", so I guess he still hasn't realized or accepted what's going on.

Another fun aspect: He now has to quarantine for ten days. We can't visit him for ten days. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to be taken into a new environment that abruptly. Luckily all the personel was extremely friendly and helpful.

Please keep in mind how *extremely* shortened this is, both about the past week and the whole relationship in general. I'm sure that there's many people who could and would have handled all kinds of things here better, I really don't need to hear about it now though.

No big moral of the story at the end, it's not that kind of thread. As I said, I just wanted to write down the timeline with at least some of the details I still remember, also to be able to share it with many friends who I haven't even had time to talk with about this yet.