For background, my dad (66M) is a narcissist, alcoholic, emotionally abusive, and all-around just an asshole. My mom divorced him and moved out a couple years ago, so now he lives by himself. My brother (39M) and I (32F) go over to visit him every few weeks or so, but the rest of the time he's alone.
His alcoholism is finally catching up to him: a couple months ago he passed out while hanging out with a friend and he found out he's now diabetic. He was prescribed Metformin, but he's AWFUL at taking care of himself and thinks he knows better than doctors, so I doubt he keeps up with taking it. And he's TRIED to stop drinking, but he relapses often.
A couple weeks ago my brother and I went over to visit and found him unresponsive and barely breathing at his kitchen table. My brother had gotten there first and said he was asleep, which struck me as odd, so I went to shake him awake and got no response. That was when I called 911.
The dispatcher on the phone instructed me to lower him to the ground and do CPR until the paramedics arrived. I get flashbacks to how he dropped to the floor when we moved the chair from under him. I think about how clammy his bald head felt in my hand while I tried to position him, and how floppy his neck was. I remember how his eyes were open and not seeing anything. His tongue was hanging out. The dispatcher told me to put my ear near his mouth and listen for breathing, and I remember hearing/feeling nothing. I remember hearing him make these snorting sounds as I did chest compressions, not from breathing, but just the mechanics of his chest being pushed in. It felt like I did chest compressions for hours before rescue came.
(I could write another post entirely on how useless my brother was through the whole thing. I asked him how long Dad had been like that, and he said since he got there, around 40 MINUTES before I showed up and called 911. He didn't help me get him onto his back to do the chest compressions; I had to do it all myself- my dad is 6 feet and over 250 pounds, and I'm 5'5" and NOT strong at all. My brother may as well have not even been there.)
Anyway, the hospital said he went into a diabetic coma from severe hyperglycemia (due to not taking his meds and drinking a 24 oz can of beer! Surprise surprise!). He stayed at the hospital for a few days and was discharged with instructions to follow up with his primary care physician.
I pleaded with him to take better care of himself and he seems to have taken it to heart. Since then it SEEMS like he's made more of an effort to stop drinking, but he's done that before and keeps relapsing, so it's hard to get my hopes up that this time will be any different.
Ever since The Incident, I'm paranoid that he's lying in the house dead. He's always called me to talk on the phone every day; I don't always have time, but I talk to him at least every couple days. But now if a day goes by and he hasn't tried to call me at all, my brain irrationally flashes to him passed out in the kitchen.
I feel like I'm in hell. I can't keep constant surveillance over him 24/7. He CANNOT live with me, and I CANNOT live with him. My brother lives with our mom, so he can't live with him either. None of us can afford any kind of in-home care for him, and he'd rather die than agree to any kind of nursing home situation. Also, why do I even care? He's a MASSIVE asshole who has abused and traumatized me over my entire life!!
But at the same time I panic at the thought of him being in the house by himself. Maybe I'm just afraid to lose any more of my family? Maybe I pity him for being so unable to put his life back together after mom left him? Maybe I'm dreading how when he does die, whenever/however that may be, all of the responsibility to take care of everything will fall on ME and me alone?
I don't really know how to end this post. I have nobody else to vent about it to I guess, so I'm just dumping it all here. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.