Monday, December 3, 2007

Fun Monday


Robinella is our hostess with the mostest this week. What's funny about this saying is my dad would always say "the hostess with the mostest", for some reason he and I thought this was the most hilarious thing to say! Which brings me to this week's challenge, Robinella
wants us to search through our extensive posts and choose "one" that is what we would consider best. I have only been a blogger since September this year so I did not have a lot of searching to do. My most precious post was easy to pick having been the most heartfelt and dramatic thing that has ever happened to me. My dad passed away on July 27, 2007 and I found blogging shortly thereafter. I think it has been a God-send because I needed somewhere to post my thoughts and feelings even if no one but me ever read them. It has been helpful to my grieving process to have a place to post my dad's pictures and talk about his life and mine. So this post on October 27, 2007 says it all:

My Dad, My Hero


After being in the hospital six weeks my dad passed away early one morning after he started bleeding internally and receiving and losing blood as fast as they could give it to him. He finally stopped bleeding, but his heart rate and blood pressure went down to something like 20/30 and his heart finally stopped. We had made the decision that they were to do everything to save him except if his heart stopped, they were not to resusitate. You should have seen the condition he was in, he had a surgery that wouldn't heal. He was cut open from his sternum down to his belly button. He had to have part of his stomach removed to stop the bleeding that an ulcer was causing. He'd had these ulcers for years. He had been being treated for a malignant melanoma on his arm before he ever went to the emergency room with his bleeding ulcers. He couldn't keep anything down in his stomach. He was losing weight. His wife (my step-mom) had passed away less than a year ago. He had so many machines and tubes hooked up to him. I left the hospital once to go get something to eat and came back and they said, "where were you? We were looking for you. We had to put your dad on a ventilator." At least I wasn't there to make that decision, it was made for me. They started asking several times after this, "How much farther do you want to go?" They had to put my dad into a drug induced coma because he was in such pain. I wondered as he lay there just how bad it was for him to be absolutely out of control. I wondered if he was still in pain, if he was crying out to be released, to be taken home. I wondered if he could hear us as we were talking in his room, joining hands around him and praying for him. I wondered if he wanted us to continue or let him go. I told him it was alright if he went. The last thing he said to me before he went into his coma was, "You know that I love you." And I said, "Yes, Daddy, I know that you love me and I love you." At the end when they took him off his pain medications to see if he could wake up and function again because this was an up and down process where they thought one day he was 10% chance of survival to maybe he's gonna make it, don't give up! We lived 5 hours away from him so I couldn't be there all the time, but I came every week for a few days and nights. But at the last one nurse told me that he was getting a response out of him, he would open his mouth to let him swab it out. I wanted to be there to see this and I got to. The nurse said, "Claude, open your mouth so I can clean it." He opened his mouth. Now the most excellent thing about this is that means that he could hear everything that was being said.

28 comments:

Swampwitch said...

What a wonderful tribute to your dad. I lost my dad over 20 years ago, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him.
(Check your link: this post. It didn't work for me.)

Junebug said...

I know I don't how to make the code work for a post to my own post. I clicked on the actual title and copied it to the post and put the code in front of it and it did not work. Could you tell me how?

Joy T. said...

Sorry for they loss of your dad. He sounds like he was a strong man and he certainly was a handsome man. A wonderful tribute to your dad, you were both blessed to have each other.

Anonymous said...

Such a sweet post in honor of your dad. You must miss him alot. You were very blessed to have him guide you in your life.

Sandy said...

What a great tribute!

Jill said...

i read this before and thought it was totally awesome. sniffle.

Jenny, the Bloggess said...

So touching...

Unknown said...

Oh, I'm so sorry. At a loss for words.

Kaytabug said...

I love this now as much as I did the first time I read it. So beautiful and touching!

A Slice of My Life said...

Oh wow...I'm so sorry for the loss of your dad.

Susan at A Slice of Life

junebug said...

Thank you all for your kind words.

ChrisB said...

Such a lovely tribute to your father.

Beckie said...

Beautifully written tribute. What a terribly difficult time. Nice post.

Unknown said...

I'm glad he could hear you say what you needed to say before he went.

Anonymous said...

What a heartbreaking, but wonderful post.


Dreaming What Ifs...

Bren said...

A moving tribute! So glad he could hear what you had to say to him.

Peter said...

Hi! My Heart goes out to you and I am sorry for your loss. Take Care!

Regards
Peter

Fianna said...

Absolutely beautiful.

Molly said...

Your dad was a handsome man. You have written a fine tribute to him.

Karina said...

This was a very moving tribute to your dad. Very sweet.

By the way, check my blog tomorrow, I've tagged you.

Robinella said...

As my Mom gets older I wonder about these things and I finally got her to get her papers together in detail. I would hate to have to make these decisions. So much emotion involved. Glad you got to learn he heard you - that must help with the healing.

junebug said...

Robin: Knowing that he could hear helped greatly. He knew we were there and that we were trying our best to help him. If I'd only known before they put him in the coma that we would never get him to talk again I would have asked him those necessary questions about keeping alive, how far he would want to go and such. Every one should encourage their parents and also do it for their children, make a living will, make those decisions yourself, take the burden off your children. Yes. I knew that he was ok with his salvation or that would have tore me up completely.

Jeanette said...

That is a wonderful tribute to your dad. I lost my mom 5 years ago and still miss her so much!
Thanks for visiting my blog. I have been reading you for a while now and I have to say your blog looks really nice. I am such a HTML idiot that I do not know how to do hardly anything. Every day is a lesson in frustration while I try to figure things out. How did you learn to do stuff so well? I'm glad you visited my blog and please keep coming back.

Kila said...

Blogging is great therapy.

Thanks for sharing him with us.

Pamela said...

I read this before. But, it still brought tears to my eyes. For you.

the planet of janet said...

beautiful tribute to your dad.

thank you for sharing it again.

Kerith Collins said...

that is so sweet...and the pictures are wonderful...touching.
kerith
http://momdumchronicles.blogspot.com

Egghead said...

I am catching up on some of your blogs. This one touches my heart because although gone 18 years my dad was my hero. I can still see him in the hospital suffering from the effects of chemo. He passes away after being in the hospital only one month for treatment for lukemia. I too lived far away and could only be there for four days a week. I know they can hear while in a coma because he would respond by squeezing our hands. I took care of my daughter as she was dying and she also was able to respond right up until a few hours before she passes away. I hope everyone knows to be thoughtful of what they say in the presence of a dying person. They can hear.