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Butterfly
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« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2005, 12:32:36 PM » |
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Our dad had been mom's sole caretaker for years. He had taken on all the household tasks, the shopping, laundry, the cooking, in the end even bathing mom on the days that the church ladies weren't able to be there. He did all this and hardly missed a day at his beloved Harrison Park for golf. We all hoped, after mom passed away in April 2001, that dad would be able to relax and enjoy life, to play more golf with his buddies.
It happened that 2001 was the year Lauhoff was on strike and my husband spent almost the entire summer there walking the tracks and helping to keep the plant going. I would go whenever I could to spend time with him and would always stop by to see dad. He seemed fine to me, worn out after his morning golf and then grocery shopping, but really not complaining. He had a cough that wouldn't go away and I talked him into going to the walk in clinic. They told him he had pneumonia and gave him an antibiotic for it. He seemed better, but the cough lingered. Often I would spend time just watching the old shows on TV with him. He seemed content just having someone there. There were always things that needed to be done and he'd say he was going to get around to it, but I began to realize that he just couldn't do things the way he used to. I had gone back in July for a week and had offered to paint the front porch for him. It was peeling and really looked awful. I spent one day washing the porch then scraping all the loose paint off and filling gaps with caulk. Dad was really getting a kick out of it because every kid in the neighborhood was "helping" me. He loved watching the kids. I told him that the next year he should have the porch done right, some boards replaced and the whole thing sanded down and repainted. He just looked at me and said "What makes you think I'll be around next year?". I was taken aback, thinking, of course you'll be around. These were words I would remember just one short month later.
To reward me for painting the porch, I insisted he take me out for lunch. He seemed delighted. We went to Applebees, but he didn't seem to have much of an appetite. He used to cook for mom everyday, meat, potatoes, vegetable and a dessert, but one day I stopped by and caught him eating beans and franks out of a can. He told me about the time he had eaten in a restaurant and couldn't get up from the booth. He had to have the waitress help pull him up ........... he was embarrassed, so he didn't often eat out.
When Marlene stayed with him in August, he was still coughing, in fact, she said he coughed all night. I called him and urged him to go back to the clinic. It took him two weeks to get an appointment. By then it was the end of August. This time, he had a different doctor who told him he did not have pneumonia and to make an appointment with his primary physician. He called Dr Sodi, because he was moms doctor. Dr. Sodi sent him straight to the hospital for a Cat Scan, he drove himself there. He had played nine holes of golf that morning. They admitted him to the hospital and my youngest sister called to tell me what was going on. We got ahold of our sister-in-law, who tracked him down. My husband and I were going to be there the next day anyway, so I dropped my husband off at the mill and headed for the hospital.
I knew my dad hated hospitals, in fact, I couldn't remember a time when he was sick. There he was sitting in the hospital bed, goofing off with the oxygen pipe. My brother, his wife and I stayed with him all day waiting for the doctor to come in with the results of the scan. At 4:30, I had to go pick my husband up. When we got back to the hospital, the doctor was in the room. He waited until we were gathered at the bed, then told us that they had found two spots on his lungs, that it was too late for chemo and surgery was out of the question. I collapsed, any thought of being strong dissolved along with my tears. Dad was the strong one, he told us not to cry, that he was 85 and had had a good life. I marveled at his strength. They had to do a biopsy to confirm it was cancer, which would be done early the next morning.
When I arrived, early the next morning, they were taking him down to do the biopsy. The nurses remarked that his legs were very tan and he bragged that he had played 9 holes of golf the day before. He looked the picture of health. When the lung specialist came out after the biopsy, he sat beside me and took my hand. He told me "it" had spread everywhere. It was in his lungs, his kidneys and if he had been having trouble eating, it was very likely in his stomach. I told him that after our mothers long illness, he had expressed a wish to just drop dead on the golf course. He said that could very well happen, that he could go at any time. They took him back to the room and I called my siblings while he was sleeping. His best friend arrived and broke down when I told him the news. We would see a lot of him the coming month. They wanted to give dad radiation treatments, even though it wouldn't have cured him and any "extra" time he may have had by having the radiation, he would have spent in the hospital. When told he could just go home, his reply was............ "We'll, by god, that's what I'm going to do !!" He went home and my husband and I returned to St Louis. I told myself I couldn't handle it. I had been with mom when she died and couldn't do it again. So, Bob and Pat arrived to stay with him, but, for me, everything changed after 9/11.
I was never so grateful to my brother Bob for being there and always knowing just what to do, having dealt with death many times. After 9/11, I found myself deep in thought, wondering why and at the same time dealing with the fact that dad was dying. Often, while driving, I would have to pull over because I would start to cry and couldn't see to drive. I knew then, that I had to go back. Bob and Pat had been there with dad for two weeks. They would sit at the kitchen table every morning and reminisce, sometimes dad forgetting that he was sick. Word had spread, and friends and family began to show up every day to say their last farewells. Dad enjoyed this precession, never tiring of the visits.
The first week he was back home, they took him to his beloved Harrison Park to say goodbye. His buddies offered to drive him around on the golf cart but he declined, happy to just drink in the beauty of the course. By the time I arrived his deterioration was visible daily. He went from walking on his own, to using mom's walker, to having to use the wheelchair and sleeping in the hospital bed that she had been confined to. Bob knew just when to ask for hospice. They were wonderful. He was on oxygen the last few days and sometimes would just sit in his wheelchair slumped over with a pillow on his stomach. His friend came by almost daily. Dad would always perk right up when his friend entered the room. He came out of dads room visibly shaken one day, saying that dad had told him he loved him. I laughed and said how hard it was for you "old guys" to say that .
Every evening, dad would make his way into the bathroom to get ready for bed. It was heart wrenching to listen to him coughing and gaging, trying to clear his lungs. We would sit on the couch huddled together, listening, crying softly so he wouldn't hear us. When we knew he was back in the bedroom, sitting on the side of the bed, trying to get his breath, we would go in, one by one and say goodnight, not knowing if it would be the last time. I would sit next to him and touch the gray hairs between his shoulder blades and tell him I loved him. He always took my hand in his and I marveled at how strong they still felt. He could barely breathe, yet his hands were the same strong hands that would pick me up when I was little and swing me around. He told me how grateful he was that we were there for him so that he could be at home and he would tell me that he was not afraid to die.
He spent his last day in bed, no longer taking any fluids. Hospice came and hooked him up to a morphine monitor. His friend came by twice that day. My daughter in law came by to see him and was in the room before I could warn her. She came out shaken and in tears. We sat by his bed all day taking turns holding his hand. My brother Steve went to the drug store and bought a portable CD player and we played soothing music, his toes danced to the rhythm. We hoped he was having good dreams. He passed away that night with 4 of his 7 children, and his beloved daughter in law at his bedside.
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