Watching your family member die(part 2)

 As I told my Dad that there was really nothing else that could be done I was thinking "I am telling my Dad that he is going to die" except I wasn't exactly using those words. During this time it was all I could do to keep it together, there were times when I had to stop and take a couple deep breaths. I have told people that their situation was grim and that I was going to do everything I could for them but they weren't my Dad and that was not what I was telling him.


I explained to Dad that they(the doctors)could put a tube down his airway and put him on a ventilator and what the issues with that were. I explained to him that if that were to happen he probably would not come off the vent. What I had to do next was something I dreaded and wanted to avoid but I knew it had to be done. I asked my dad if he stopped breathing did he want a tube placed to breathe for him? I asked him if his heart stopped did he want CPR? The nurse asked him if his heart needed defibrillating did he want electric shocks to do so. I knew that my Dad had a DNR, and when I asked each of those questions he told me no. 


In my heart I knew what that meant, that meant that if any of those were to happen Dad would be gone. I also knew that if any of those were to happen he would go in peace, but in the end, no matter what was done he was going to die. I told Dad that he would have to answer those questions with the doctor to make it legal and he said ok. I went to get the doctor so she could get on the same page with us. 


 Meanwhile, while all of the above is going my sister is driving up from out of town. I am in contact with her but am limiting what I am telling her so that she can keep her mind on her driving. I did tell her that Dad was very sick and I told her that they were doing everything that they could do for him at the hospital. 


When the doctor came in she said hello again to Dad, she said Mr Pelham your son told me that you have been talking about what your wishes were so I am going to go ahead and ask you some questions. The doctor asked him the same questions that the nurse and I did, and his response was yes to each of them. He decided that he wanted the doctor to do everything they could. I looked at the nurse, the nurse looked at me and we all then looked at each other. We all knew what that meant. 

Too be continued in part 3

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 25, 2024 at 10:20 AM

    😭

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 19, 2024 at 8:52 AM

    This is the most raw thing. This is going to help ease a lot of pain people feel at times like this.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am that guy

 Over the years, I have questioned many things that people have done or not done to make their situations worse. Over the last couple of weeks, I have seen people who have had to lose parts of their bodies because they didn't take care of their diabetes. I have seen people who have had cardiac issues because they didn't control their cholesterol. I have also seen what happens to people who haven't led the healthiest of lifestyles.  Well, I am here to tell you that I have done all of the above, too.  In 2010, I was doing well for myself. I was running all the time, I would do 5-6 miles several times a week, and once a week, I would do a long run from 11-13+ miles. I lost some weight, and I felt good about myself. I got hurt after running a simple 5k with my boys, which was essentially the end. I did buy a nice bike to ride longer distances with, but unfortunately, I just couldn't make that work for me the way I wanted it to. There was one exception: When I went overseas,...
Read more

I am struggling

 It has been a while since I posted anything and for that I am sorry. I have been struggling in my personal life for quite some time but it has really come to a head in the past several weeks.  I was having dinner with my son Kai and his now fiancé the other weekend and he was telling me about a podcast he has been listening to. He sent me a screenshot of it and I looked it up. The podcast was an episode of the Shawn Ryan podcast, I have heard some of Shawn Ryan's podcasts but mostly shorts on FB or YouTube. The particular podcast Kai was talking about is the one with Navy Captain Brad Geary. Captain Geary is the Commander of the Navy SEAL school and he has been under fire after the death of a sailor who was going through SEAL training. The part of the podcast that really hit home for me was when Captain Geary was telling about when he was in charge of a SEAL team that sustained extensive loss in a helicopter crash. He talked about the difficult decision he had to make to stay...
Read more

Desert Storm(part 2)

SECTION 1 — The Port The flight in was its own kind of stress. Fear wasn’t the driving force, but the uncertainty sat in everyone’s gut. None of us knew what we were flying into, how long we’d be there, or what things were going to look like once we hit the ground. We carried weapons on the plane, packs jammed everywhere, and zero room to move. Every seat was filled. Every aisle. Everything about it said the same thing: this is real now. Everyone thinks “desert” means heat. We sure did. We figured we’d step off the plane and just bake. Instead, we arrived in the dead of winter, and the first thing that hit us wasn’t heat — it was the cold. There was freezing rain, sharp wind, and absolutely nowhere to get warm. It wasn’t what we expected, and that only added to the whole “what exactly are we getting into?” feeling. We lived at the port in a massive warehouse packed with thousands of soldiers. No heat, no privacy, barely enough bathroom facilities for the number of people crammed in ...
Read more