Overwhelmed

On Sunday, March 15, 2009, at 1:15 in the wee hours of the morning, the Lord called my daddy home. He went peacefully with John and Jay my two youngest brothers by his side. The last two and a half weeks have seemed like a blur, and still do, however, I will never, ever forget the precious moments we got to spend with my daddy when we finally moved him to hospice. I will share those moments later on when I'm not so tired, but just wanted to say how overwhelmed our family has been by the outpouring of love from our friends and family, and also the community in which my daddy served selflessly. So many people that I had never seen came up to me at the visitation and told me stories of my daddy's unselfish acts of kindness to them. I always knew when he would get up in the middle of night to go to the drugstore to get medicine for someone, and not only that, he would deliver it to their house so they wouldn't have to get out with a sick child. But I never realized the impact that simple act of kindness would have on so many people this many years later. He would have still been doing that up to the moment he died, if it had not been for my mother's illness which required him to retire at an "early" age of 72, to look after her. His sacrificial, unconditional love for my mama is the perfect picture of Christ's love for His church. When I think of my earthly daddy, it isn't hard to picture what my Heavenly Daddy's (Abba, Father) character is like. It is a neverending, unconditional love that is faithful to the end. I thank my Father in heaven for my sweet, sweet earthly father he blessed me with for 55 years. Oh how I will miss him, but the memories we have of him will live on forever.

What a Difference

Since Monday, things have been up and down. Yesterday morning, Dr. Ingram walked in his room and just hung his head and seemed so sad that daddy isn't getting better. He said we really need to think about putting the feeding tube in. I had just pulled in the parking lot at school, and Jay called telling me the news. We decided that we probably all needed to meet with Dr. Horlander as soon as we could, to see what the other alternatives were, and to see what the outlook is. We have been wondering about feeding him through his permanent IV, which would be less invasive than a feeding tube, however, all the drs. agree that a TBN (that's what it's called) would be very bad on the kidneys and also there is a very high risk of a blood infection, which daddy would not survive. Dr. H. also spoke with us about the plans for resuscitation if the possibility arose. He was so kind in explaining everything to us. Dr. A (Ingram's partner) came in and was very concerned about daddy's confusion and checked his meds to see if anything could be causing that. He decided to dialyze him again to see if that would help. Daddy is very congested. When he breathes it sounds like a kitten purring. I asked Dr. A to rate daddy's condition on a scale from 1-10 and he pulled us all out in the hall and was very straight forward with us and told us it wasn't good. He said that we would see if daddy got any stronger by getting the nutrition he needs with the feeding tube for a few days, and if he doesn't, then we would look at moving him to hospice. We are all at peace with that. We don't want to see him struggle anymore, if he isn't going to get any better.
When the nurse tried to put the tube in, he pulled it out. This happened three times! He begged her not to put it in and told her he would pay her not to!!! I think he is just so tired of all the poking and prodding they are doing to him and he just wants to have rest and peace. While the nurse was trying to insert the tube, he was hollering that he wanted Tommy (Whitworth)!! About 15 minutes later, who walks in? Tommy!!! No one in the family had even called him, and he shows up!!
He dialyzed yesterday for the full 2 1/2 hours without any incidences so that was a plus, however, he still is very congested. I got to spend all day with him and we "filled prescriptions"! He did eat a little solid food yesterday. About 4 bites of a grilled chicken strip from Jim Bob's and a few bites of creamed potatoes. He drank 2 nutritional shakes during the day. He's probably thinking he better at least try to eat something, or that nurse is going to start poking on him again!!

Praise the Lord!

Well today is a very different story from Saturday and yesterday. The dr. said that the lung is not as congested as it has been and the dialysis seems to be working. So the plan today is to dialyze him and put him in a room on the 6th floor!! I really feel like a change of scenery for daddy will do him good. They are also going to start giving him nutritional shakes to try and build up his strength since he hasn't been eating so well. Yesterday when I left, I was very down, thinking he was giving up. But today, I feel like, with a change of venue, he will at least have a little hope about himself!!! I was so afraid he was ready to throw in the towel. He tried to get me to take him home last night. It was so hard to leave him like that.
Job 6: 8 - "Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for.

Postscript: I took mama by the hospital when I got off work to see daddy. It seems we have a small setback. He wasn't able to do the full dialysis because his blood pressure dropped, so they aren't moving him to a regular room today. Dr. Brennan told one of my brothers that his heart muscles are working too hard so he wanted to give daddy some medicine to slow those muscles down and try to make his defribilator kick in so his heart doesn't have to work so hard. The problem with this is his blood pressure will drop so they have to watch him closely. So that's where we are right now. Mama had only been there for about 45minutes, when out of a deep sleep, he woke up and said, "Nancy take her home so she can get some rest." When I bent over to kiss him good night, he said, "Thank you for taking care of her." He loves her so much and it is so hard for him not to be able to provide the care he has given her for 58 years!!
Also today, we found out he'd rather have his sons staying with him than anybody else. He specifically asked for two of them this afternoon, so we had to find one to go sit with him!! I guess I know my place!!!

John spent the night with daddy last night. Just talked to him and he said he had a fairly restful night. Dr. Ingram came in for his early rounds this morning and told daddy that they weren't going to do anything to him today. His job was to rest and eat today. Hopefully, we can find him something to eat that he likes and will gobble it up! John said he did eat two fruit cups this morning when he woke up. So that is a good sign. I spent the night with mama last night. Didn't sleep much, worried about next week and going back to work. She is really my main concern because I know that daddy is being taken care of. However, we are having a difficult time weaning ourselves from someone being at the hospital with him around the clock. He won't call the nurse when he is hurting unless we are in there with him. Even on his sick bed he doesn't want to be a bother to anyone. He has always taken care of everybody else!! Anyway, back to last night with mama. I stayed awake most of the night running next week through my mind about what to do about me going back to work. I am having a really hard time with that, because I feel like she really needs me. We can't leave her alone for any long length of time, because she gets so disoriented, and I'm afraid she will get confused and do something to hurt herself. We are all meeting today to discuss the schedule for next week. Around 6:30 this morning I could hear her in her bed sniffling and then just crying. I walked over to her room and asked what was wrong, and she said, "I just miss him so much." If ever there were two people who truly are soul mates, those two take the prize!!! We have been truly blessed to have been the children of two such precious people!!

I am sitting in my daddy's hospital room watching my sweet mama sitting by his bedside holding his hand and just watching him sleep. Oh what a love they share!! He is squeezing her hand and she is smiling at him.
The dr. regulated his defibrilator last night so his heart rate is better. We learned the other plan from Dr. H today. He said that he can go in with a syringe and poke around that sack of fluid (which is the consistency of leather instead of jello!) and try to pull some of it off that way. There is a 35% chance that he can puncture his lung, so the procedure is risky. We are all going to discuss this and decide what we feel is best for daddy. I feel like he is alert enough to know what is going on, so we are going to ask him what he wants. He dialyzed again today for around 4 hrs. He has been dialyzed 4 days in a row so he is so tired.
He did eat some last night which I was very thankful for. He said this morning that he might eat some chicken and rice after dialysis, so mama and I went back to her house to make it and brought it to him while ago. He isn't feeling to0 well right now so we are just letting him sleep. He keeps saying that his back and his leg hurts. The nurses have moved him around in his bed several times to try and get him comfortable. This last time was a charm. He is sawing some logs right now!!

Daddy had a pretty tough day. They put a perma cath in for his dialysis this morning and then took him to the cancer clinic to insert the chest tube to try and get some of that fluid off his lungs that dialysis isn't pulling off. They brought him back and said they couldn't do it because there were too many small pockets of fluid and it wouldn't do any good because the tube would only draw fluid from the point of insertion. The dr. explained to us that the fluid is a jello consistency. I kind of pictured it like if you put a straw in jello, the only portion that would be drawn out is where the straw went in. Anyway, needless to say we were pretty devastated. The transporter who brought him back to the room said that the dr. has another plan but when I left around 5:00 we had not seen him so don't know yet what that plan is. They did manage to dialyze the sweet thing for four hours this afternoon and he slept and rested better than he has since being in the hospital. He is worn slap out. Buddy just called and said he was able to eat a few bites of his dinner, which is a huge praise, because he has eaten little of nothing since last Friday. For those of you who may read this, please continue to keep him in your prayers, as well as my mama. She is holding up, but I can tell it is taking a toll on her. She has been a champ!!!

Lamentations 3:22-25 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.

Whirlwind Week

Wow! What a week it has been! Daddy was admitted to the hospital on Friday, February 27 with congestive heart failure. His lungs were filled up with fluid and he was having trouble breathing, so they admitted him on sixth floor. They ran all sorts of tests and put him through the ringer, so to speak! The plan was to do a procedure (don't know the medical name), but they would go down his throat with a light and look behind his heart to see if there were any bloodclots or blockages so that they could shock him and get his heart rate back to as normal as possible for an 81 year old man with a defribrilator. In the meantime, they did a scan of his lungs and veins and arteries and found there were several blood clots in his legs and lungs. Needless to say, they were more worried about that than his heart at this point. On Monday, his dr. decided that he needed to go on dialysis, since his kidneys were shutting down and his heart wasn't working properly, therefore, not emptying the fluid in his lungs. So, the plan was to put a temporary dialysis shunt in his neck, and then to do the original EKG scope thing down his throat and then to do the shock. The temporary shunt insertion went without any problems. When they finished there, they took him to the heart clinic to do the heart thing, and he had a reaction to the anesthesia and they had to reverse that to bring him back around. They immediately took him to dialyze and before they even got him hooked up to the machine, his blood pressure bottomed out, so he ended up in ICU. (They did finally insert a filter in his groin area to catch the bloodclots before making it to his heart on Wednesday. They also said, that sometime, they can't exactly pinpoint when it was, that he has had a mild heart attack.) From there we have been on a major roller coaster ride, thinking one day, this would be his last day on earth, to seeing him bright eyed and actually responding to us. Today, is one of those days we are climbing up that steep, steep hill. We are truly encouraged by his drs. that he is making progress, however small the steps may be. He just got back from having a permanent dialysis shunt put in and then they will do dialysis to see if they can pull some more of that thick fluid off of his lungs. Next, they will insert the tube into his chest wall to try to pull more of that fluid off, if the dialysis doesn't seem to be pulling it off. I just pray today that all that thick fluid will become more liquid so he won't have to go through another invasive procedure. He is really worn out.