O Brother!

Mike, in happier times, chowing down on chicken-fried bacon.  That's right. 

I've been trying to figure out my brother's finances, in the hope of keeping his affairs in order while he is incapacitated.  He's been unconscious since the accident October 1st.  But going through his papers is like rummaging around in the bottom of a hamster cage.  I keep thinking I'll find something meaningful, if I can just put together enough snips and bits of litter.  Riiight.

He doesn't have files.  He has piles.  Literally.  Stacks and stacks of old bills and papers laying around on the rug of an empty bedroom, in boxes in the corner of the dining room, and on, in, under, and behind his desk.

He probably banks on line.  His computer might be helpful there, if

1)  I could find a password file, and

2)  if it were not actually the slowest computational device since the Babbage Engine, or at least since monitors glowed green on black.

I spent almost 10 minutes trying to get a single file to open.  I kid you not.  I nearly dozed off.  But then I haven't been sleeping well.

I can't tell if he owns a checkbook.  I do not have any power of attorney.  I am perfectly willing to pay his mortgage and other bills for a while out of my own account, but before I can pay them I have to know what to pay and who he owes and when it's due.

When he recovers, I'm going to suggest that both of us go down to see a lawyer and draw up mutual medical and emergency powers of attorney.  No one ever thinks they are going to be in this situation, until they are.

For now, I think, a tactical surrender is in order.  I'm going to wait for him to wake up, late fees be damned, and ask him how to do this.  That may happen tomorrow.

They finally took him off sedatives this morning, but then he had anesthesia during the operation on his right arm.  They have to get him conscious tonight or tomorrow to do a neurological exam and see if there are further deficits and problems.  So far surgeons have treated multiple open compound fractures to the right arm and leg, and a ruptured disc.  They've put in a feeding tube to his stomach, but he is still on a ventilator.  They cannot do a tracheostomy to insert an air tube yet because of the proximity of the fresh suture from his disc hernia repair yesterday.  He's developed a bit of pneumonia from having his mouth open all this time.  Along about Friday he will be transported to Brackenridge, where they will try to reattach the bones of his face.

I hope by the time his son arrives in town on Monday he will be recognizable.

And I really really hope he doesn't wake up for the first time tonight, alone in a dark empty room at 3 in the morning, in horrible pain, choking on intubation, with the terror of a near fatal collision as his most immediate memory.  If he does, the nurses are going to have their hands full.

My only nightmare has been his "filing system".  His will be worse.

Bob