Well, folks, the past 4 days have certainly been the surreal life. As some or most of my readers know, I had to make an emergency trip to PA to be at my dying father's side, and I'm glad I did. It turns out my decisive actions at the beginning of last week helped mobilize my entire family to travel from various destinations to PA.
As of this writing, my father is resting comfortably as he enters the final stages of his life. He was fortunate enough to have my grandmother(who just lost my grandfather 3 months ago to cancer), his 3 brothers, his sister, his children, his grandchildren, his daugher-in-law(Amy), and other loved ones spend some individual and group time with him.
After awakening at 5am last Thursday to not only help Amy and the kids get ready and picked up by the Airport Limo, but also to clear all of my porch paraphenalia off in anticipation of a possible hurricane, I saw patients all day, performed 3
Ossatron procedures, got on a plane for BWI, got in a car to drive back to Amy's house, then got a call just as I was getting out of the car at 3:00am on Friday from my uncle informing me that my dad was asking for me and that I needed to get there NOW. Back in the car for what normally is a 20 minute ride that took me 11 minutes, and spent time by my dad's side. I finally passed out on a fold out chair in a side room around 5:30am, and woke up on Friday to go back to my mother-in-law's house to get some sleep, only to have my daughter Tabitha wake up and see me and get all excited. Due to the large number of family members present combined with the sheer exhaustion, I could not get there on Friday. However, I was glad I was there on Saturday, as he began to get frustrated because he was ready to die and had not slept in 48 hours. The most painful part was when he reached out and held my arm, giving my arm a few squeezes. We looked into each other's eyes, and basically said good-bye without saying a word. I don't think I've ever felt such an emotional moment between the two of us in my entire life. We called the nurse back out because he appeared to be in pain, but the problem was that so much morphine was on board, he was having an idiosyncratic reaction and was wired. After the visiting nurse called the on-call doctor and spoke with her THREE FUCKING TIMES, the doctor finally(after a few choice words from me with some hidden threats for me to shove my hand up her ass and rip HER colon out so she could feel the same pain as my dad), agreed to up his morphine and also ordered 2mg of Ativan IV(a sedative/anxiolytic). We awaited the delivery of the med, plus the "Y" connector to go to his IV port so the morphine pump could be hooked up to one and the Ativan could be administered in the other.
Since by this point, I was obviously the one in charge of the entire situation as far as the family was concerned, the nurse wanted me to administer the Ativan and be in charge of the dosages. What is amazing is that my dad, while we were waiting for the medical supplies to be brought via courier, my dad actually asked me if I thought it would be ok to sit up in the chair. Amazing. Another incredible moment- at the time I began the slow one-minute push of the Ativan, my dad looked up at me and asked "Pat, are you sure about this?" I told him "Dad, I'm as sure of this as the day is long." Within 5 minutes, he fell asleep, and according to my family members who stayed there Saturday night, he slept soundly.
I spent 3 hours there on Sunday mid-day before flying back here. According to my Aunt Frances, my father awoke on Sunday obviously not cured, but with the alertness of someone who got that good night's sleep they were looking for. He then had made it clear that the last person he wanted to see was his wife and the last person to see him would be his wife. Henceforth, the entire family shared emotional moments with each other outside of the living room where my father was resting.
What is amazing is the human body and what you train it to do. My father was raised in a strict Catholic family, and was not allowed to play contact sports. Henceforth, he was an incredible swimmer. Added to that was his love for running and hiking, as well as his passion for hunting. The only thing keeping him alive now is the fact that he has trained his body to do 2 things and do them damn well- breathe and have a heart beat. My uncle Pat pointed it out- the nurses are saying he is having periods of apnea, but you watch him breathe, he takes 3 deep breaths, holds it(which looks like apnea), then breathes again, just like when you are swimming.
I would like to thank the people who have passed along their thoughts and prayers to me during this difficult time. Do not worry about my dad- he is comfortable and on his way from this sick and cruel world that while providing positive experiences, also holds many negative experiences. My father has had enough negative, time for the positive.
For those of us still living, get the fuck out there and take a bite out of life and let it's juices run down your chin. Feel every emotion and feeling possible each day- suffer physically each day- for some of us, that's easier than others. Do whatever, take the stairs instead of elevator, drive without the air conditioning on, work out harder than you normally do. As
Jimmy Valvano said in his famous ESPY speech "When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it's the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day."
Have a day that's full of life
Pat
