On November 5th at 4:25am, Daddy drifted away from us. It was peaceful and we were all there by his side. Momma rubbed his head, my brother held one hand, my aunt (his sister) rubbed his arm. And I held his hand while Hubby held me. Then he was gone. The end of a 10 day journey. A journey that I hope I never have to take again, but one I am glad I didn’t miss.
This is our journey…..
Monday, October 26, started like any other Monday, I was cleaning and washing. Then Momma called and said she had a few errands to run and Daddy didn’t feel comfortable staying by himself, of course I told her I could sit with him. He slept mostly and he wasn’t feeling well at all. Momma brought me home before Little Miss got home from school but I was uneasy and worried because Daddy was having such a bad day, but I pushed on and went on with what had to be done.
Hubby called Momma about dinner time to talk about sheet rock he was getting for them to put in the other house and to check on Daddy. When he got off the phone, he said we needed to get over there. Daddy had Momma call the preacher to talk about his funeral arrangements and that it was time to call in hospice and had told her no matter what, he was not going back to the hospital.
It was a long night. Hubby and the kids went home. There was school and work the next day, life does go one. Mom and I sat and listened to him rattle, moan, pray and have nightmares. We asked him to go to the ER only to be told, he just wanted to stay with momma.
As we sat, we talked about how on Sunday he was sitting in his chair, getting in and out of bed by himself and wondering the house. And now he needed help to walk. A day…. that is all it took. I never dreamed he would make it through the night, but he pushed on.
Tuesday it took my brother and hubby, with momma pulling his oxygen tank, to get him to the car to go to the doctor. A wheelchair was needed at the doctor’s office. The doctor was completely shocked by the change. Just Saturday, he was sitting up in the hospital bed fussing about getting out of the hospital. Just 3 days later, he sits in a wheelchair to weak to walk, pale and an oxygen level of 74. The doctor said he never expected him to go down that quick and he agreed with Daddy it was time to call in Hospice.
Wednesday brought us to the hospital for one last CT scan, the proof Hospice needed. It showed a questionable aspiration in his lungs, which had caused another infection. Which got him another round of antibiotics. The nurse told us to keep him as near to sitting upright as he could full-time, give him his medicine and once this infection was cleared up, he would be right back to where he was before this minor episode occurred. She said hospice could be suspended until he needed them again. We borrowed a wheelchair from Granddaddy to get him around the house easier, a temporary need in our minds.
Thursday brought us improvement. He sat up in his chair a good bit of the day, watched TV, talked as much as he could. A real joy. I truly believed when I went home for the weekend that I wouldn’t have to come back except to visit.
Friday, he wanted to be wheeled to the couch for the hospice nurse. He joked some and visited with us, but after an hour of being up, he was so tired and ready to go back to bed. I came home that night, my brother was taking the weekend shift with mom. I was torn, I knew I needed to spend time with my family, but at the same time I felt I needed to be with mom and dad. I knew that my mom and brother would take care of daddy, but something kept pulling me back. I needed rest and time with hubby, but…..
Saturday hubby and I cleaned our own home and washed clothes, did what had to be done. We went to check on mom and dad, make sure momma ate something. I had found out that when daddy didn’t eat, mom was having a bowl of cereal or toast for supper. Not good for a woman who needed all her energy to tend to a sick man. All was well, daddy showed no improvement but he was holding his own. I felt better about leaving, but still a bit uneasy. Hubby and the kids needed me home. There was no decision to make, my family needed me.
I found out Sunday, Daddy had a horrible night, momma didn’t get any sleep. Every time she would sit or lay down, daddy would want something. Sit up in bed, TV on, TV off, lay back down, sit in the chair, get back in the bed, covers on, covers off. My brother called Sunday morning to tell me daddy was having an anxiety attack and having trouble breathing, so they had called in the nurse. We got there, my aunt came and the nurse got there. Nice guy, he explained things to us, no one else had. He said that when daddy’s oxygen level got low, he knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know exactly what. So he would run through his mind and try to find something that helped. That helped us a lot, where we thought daddy was being a pain in the ass and we were getting ill with him, now we knew he couldn’t help it. After the nurse left that afternoon, daddy ate a few bites of potato soup. That would be the last food he ate, he took to ice chips and never went back.
When night came, it was hard to let hubby leave. He had went down in his back and physically needed me to be with him, but momma needed me too. Hubby told me to stay with momma, that he would be OK, but I felt so bad leaving him.
I thought Monday was bringing us a good day. I got up to momma and my aunt getting daddy in his wheelchair. It lasted all of 10 minutes before he was too tired to sit up in it. He went to bed and never got out of it again. My aunt fed him ice chips all day. She was like that carton dog shaking and ready to jump at a seconds notice. She didn’t want to leave but she knew that she had to. That was the first night hubby and Little Miss stayed with me at momma’s. That eased my mind so much. I was with everyone that needed me.
Tuesday was a long day and night. Daddy wanted constantly. We had frozen peach, mango V8 fusion and he really seemed to like it. (It was my idea, so he could get some vitamins and such and when momma told him that, he said I was worth a shit sometimes. HA!) We also froze his strawberry DanActiv. He would eat a few bites of his “flavors” then a few bites of his “sherbet”. Dinner and Dessert. HA!
Tuesday night Daddy kept us all up (even hubby). By then it took 3 of us to sit him up and move him around in bed. Every time I would get warm and comfortable, mom would have to come and get me.
The nurse came Wednesday morning, without saying a word to us, she called in what we found out later was a crisis nurse. My brother got a call at work informing him daddy had a couple of hours to a couple of days and that he needed to get over there. He got there in record time. He called my aunt who also made her 2 hour trip in record time. My brother couldn’t tell us what he knew. Larry , the nurse who would spend the next 12 hours with us, told momma and my brother managed to tell me.
Little Miss got sick at school and had to come home. When hubby brought her to momma’s he discovered a water leak that he needed to fix. He happened in the house as my brother was telling me about daddy. I swear Little Miss “knew” something was going to happen and “someone” was keeping hubby there. Hubby rarely left my side after that.
That was a long day. Calls needed to be made, people came, and feelings had to be dealt with, all while not letting daddy know what was going on. I had trouble staying in the room. He rarely opened his eyes and had little to say. Every time Little Miss came in the room, he would say, “Hi Cutie Pie.” He spoke of the time he was shot in the foot and proclaimed himself the eternal tightwad.
Larry, the hospice nurse, was great! He fit right in with us. God himself sent him to us. He “got” us. He said he had a BS degree, which our whole family seems to have. He laughed with us and made us laugh. Daddy would have loved him. Larry was there primarily to make daddy comfortable, but also to provide the family with emotional support, which he did so well. When he finally turned us over to another nurse, he had spent more than his 12 hours with us, he told her that over half of us were nuts, but we would take care of her. He was leaving her in good hands.
Little Miss spent the night with SIL. Easy E and Wifey stayed several hours until it was time to go home and get rest for work the next day. The Boy slept on the couch. Hubby and I laid down in the bed for some much-needed rest, but it really wouldn’t come. Mom slept in the bed next to daddy’s hospital bed. My brother curled up on a couch. My aunt curled up in the recliner. My brother woke us up after the nurse got him up and told him it was close. We stayed with daddy for a while, then stepped out for a much-needed cigarette, when we came back in, I took daddy’s hand and squeezed it and his middle finger twitched and somehow I knew he was gone. He waited for us to get back. It would be another 15 minutes before hubby got my brother to get the nurse to check and be sure he was gone.
Throughout this journey we have had many tears, some laughs and a lot of memories. I want to list a few things uttered by daddy in his last few days. It may not make any sense to you, but will surely put a smile on my face, I will try to explain as I go….
Once when we were trying to slide him up in the bed without much success, we got tickled and started laughing and daddy said, “Ya’ll are having too much fun at my expense.”
When we finally got him slid up in the bed in one giant pull…..”Woo! that was better that Viagra!”
When he suddenly uncovered and slid his legs to the side of the bed and said…”OK, let’s go!” Momma asked him where we were going. He said…” To Hell in a hand basket.”
When we were talking about the water leak….” I know where it is, I will show him!” As we were covering him back up, momma asked him where it was so WE could go and tell hubby, he said..” At the pond, always at the pond.” Momma told him it was further down than that and he said…” Well SHIT! I don’t know then.”
When the nurse inserted his catheter, daddy told him, “I don’t know if you have one small enough for me.” The nurse said he had never heard that before. HA!
Toward the end, it was a lot of single word requests……”Flavors” (frozen V8 Fusion), “Sherbet” (frozen DanActiv), “Covers”, “Cup” ( his spit cup), “Eyes” ( cover for his eyes, the light bothered him). He also had some hand signals…..Hand at his ear meant he wanted his hearing aides (so he could hear what we were saying about him. heh!), hand on his forehead meant he needed his eyes covered, hand on his right shoulder meant he needed his covers pulled up. Kicking his feet meant he was ready to be uncovered. He would ask why you turned the lights on, we had to tell him it was the only way to see his signals and if he didn’t want his ice up his nose, we needed lights sometimes. I think he called us smartass from time to time, but I can’t be for sure. heh!
As we stood by his side, it was so quiet and so early. I heard Daddy’s voice in my head, just as clear as if he were speaking to me……KIZ7180….The dreaded CB call letters from my childhood. Every weekend, bright and early he would break the peace in our little world by saying those letters and numbers so that he could talk to the world. It was perfect…..Mom and my brother knew exactly what I meant when I said it. No explanation needed and it brought a smile to our face.
It has been hard. The visitation, funeral directors (a post all of their own coming), the funeral, family that came and wouldn’t leave (another post to come), cleaning up behind them, but one good thing has come from it. Where hubby and I had drifted so far apart, this has brought us back together again. We see that all the petty things aren’t worth worrying about. Hubby has been by my side, momma’s side, my aunt’s side, the kid’s sides. He did things we could never do, like help to move furniture to get daddy out of the house. He has taken this so hard and still managed to be there for us.
We are on a new journey now. It started the day daddy died and will continue from now on. It will get easier, I know it will, but for now small things will bring on tears. Mom is doing great. She is a very strong woman, she has her bad times and right now she just wants to stay busy. The kids are doing well. Little Miss is having some anger issues, but we are dealing with them. She can’t be mad at Granddaddy for leaving but she has to be mad at somebody. Hubby is spending his time worrying about me, but doing well. And me…..well, I am OK, I am spending a lot of time in “mommy mode”, locking it all away in the dark corners of my mind, like a little mental patient. It creeps out from time to time, but I can wrangle it back before it gets too bad. I know at some point it will escape and I will have to deal with it, but later, when I can better handle it.
Thank you for listening to my journey. I know it is impossibly long, but I had to get it out. Believe it or not, it really has helped to see it all down , to know we did everything we could do for him, took care of him the best way we could and remember it. I left so much out, the lack of restful sleep (mostly momma), many bad memories of his last days (details left out for you Putz…I know how you don’t like all of the gory details. heh!) I chose to remember the good here, I keep the bad for my nightmares….. Until next time………….
HAVE A GREAT DAY AND THANKS FOR VISITING!!!!!!!!!!!