Watching your family member die(part 1)

In the past several months I watched 2 very amazing men take their last breaths. I have been in EMS for over 20 years and have seen countless people take their last breaths but when it is family it hits differently. 
On the first of January, my brother told me that my dad was "not doing very well" and that he was possibly going to be going to the ER after he went to dialysis. When I was at my son and daughter-in-law's house celebrating a late Christmas, new years and my wife's birthday. The severity changed while we were there and he said that dad asked 911 to be called and he was being transported to the hospital having shortness of breath. I asked if I needed to come to NC where they lived and my mom said yes. 
I left Joey's, ran to the house, packed a bag, and hit the road. I got to NC around 8, ran by mom's house then went to the hotel for some much-needed rest. 
The next morning I went straight to the hospital and went to my dad who was still in the ER. Dad was on BiPaP, his breathing was labored and he looked tired. Talking to someone on BiPaP is not an easy task but you get pretty good at it after doing it with many patients over the years. I told Dad's nurse that I was a medic and from that point on I got the raw data and very good in-depth updates. Dad's numbers were bad, his blood pressure was low, his oxygen saturations were low, his respiratory rate was elevated and his respiratory effort was also elevated. 
At one point Dad had me get everyone out of the room but the nurse and I. Dad looked at me and asked, "How bad is it?", I looked at the nurse and she looked at me. I looked at him and said Dad it's bad, it's real bad. I told him that there was no fixing this, there was no magic pill that was going to make this better. 
I have always been an advocate for letting people die in peace, with dignity, without all the tubes, paddles, CPR and the like. I explained to Dad what was probably going to happen, I told him that currently medications that he had going were keeping him alive and that his respiratory effort was going to get harder and there was nothing that they could do for that. I was trying to tell Dad that he was going to die and there was nothing I could do nor the hospital staff could do to change that. 

More in part 2
Photo from The Institute for the Study of birth, breath and death

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