Lewy did not wake up today except for a few seconds when we…well when I had Hubbie roll his pull sheet under so the dried phlegm from the night before was not visible. I can’t take those kinds of body fluids, and this was crusty and brownish red rather than the clear or yellowish you might expect.
I suppose the red color means Daddy is getting some blood into his lungs.
The only thing he said today was that he wanted to tell me something. When I asked what it was, he could not remember, then he was fast asleep again. He is no longer breathing deeply and snoring with his mouth open. I had taken to spraying his mouth, but now that too seems to have drifted by the wayside.
Several times today I stood over him looking to see if he was still breathing. At one point I was in the recliner across the room from him where I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he slept. I tried to mimic Lewy’s breathing. If I was anything close, I don’t see how he is getting enough air. I had to gasp several times to get my needed quota while mimicking him.
Perhaps it is because I’ve never witnessed first hand the process of dying, but I’m not so sure that Daddy will make it the full month that Nurse Goodbody guessed it might be. Certainly he is not taking enough fluids or eating. I try to get him to eat and drink more, but we are down to less than 8 ounces of food and liquid combined per day.
Not so long ago time seemed to fly by. Days seemed like mere hours, now the days drag out so, it seems like a year between the Friday Hospice visit and the Monday visit. Maybe it’s because Lewy is fading so fast that it seems so long.
You don’t realize how fast things move until you do something like download a memory card full of photographs. 230 some odd pictures to be almost exact. For us that many pictures took us back to Christmas. Daddy was sitting up in his chair, opening his presents, (with assistance) and holding Tweak in his lap. They were such good buddies. Now she naps under his bed or in his recliner without him.
It is hard to imagine that he was walking, talking, and understanding pretty well only 3 ½ months ago and now he is this pitiful shell of a person wasting away day by day. He legs are so thin it is no longer hard to hold his feet up for Nurse Goodbody to dress his now almost healed sores. I wonder if we would have been just as well off to have not done the surgery, but I guess we had to. Amputation was thrown out on the table if we didn’t.
Still I can’t help but feel like he was doing OK after the surgery, until they drugged him for the ambulance trip home. The more I think about it, perhaps irrationally, I cannot understand why they would drug anyone up so much they would crap themselves from their shoulders to their knees for a short ride home from the hospital. When I left him in his hospital room to head home to get ready for his arrival, he was alert and responsive. Who/what could it possibly benefit to drug someone up so?
I want to go back to the hospital and find out who ordered the drugs and how much was given. Perhaps that is just SOP to keep the transport easier for the EMTs, but someone should know what the result of the drugs has been. I know in the Grand Scheme of things, it probably didn’t change the ultimate outcome, but it sure speeded it up; perhaps my months. Perhaps mercifully.
I look at Daddy and try to think through those things I need to say, but I cannot get past the first line without breaking down. I watched my mother Code in the CCU. I will never forget the last breath she took. It was so labored so deep. So final.
I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately. I’ve done the job she wanted me to do. I know that summer day in 96 when she said something was not right with Daddy, that she was passing information along so I would take care of him if the need arose. Perhaps she had some intuition about her fate. The last time I saw her, when I hugged her goodbye, I knew I would never see her alive again. I was almost right. I got to Atlanta just in time to see her pass away.
And so I have taken care of him, Momma. Not as well as you would have, no doubt, but I’ve tried very hard to do my best by him. I only hope you would approve.
2 comments:
kddove said...
I know your momma is thankful. and even if he doesn't know it, so is lewy. to be at home with his stuff and people he knows to feel safe around, and tweak and food he likes, even if he barely eats now, compared to a nursing home... you and hubbie are 2 people i am very proud to know. will you adopt me?
Stella said...
Pauline, I can only tell you the pride I feel when one of my daughters stay the night with their dad and I hear about the bathroom issues and such as they have experienced and not once have they called for me. I ask if it bothered them too much and they just smiled. I believe he waits for them. I think the next time I hear anyone low rate younger people, I will hit them over the head. Every generation has its heros. Your mother raised a hero.