Yesterday my dad was going to make a full recovery, today I pulled the plug on his life.  It happened that quick.  I went to do my daily workout this morning and when I was on my way to the FIA to get my dad some medicaid, Paul called and said that we had to come to the hospital to make a family decision.  This shocked me a lot because we were told yesterday that he would pull through just fine.  I would love to kill that nurse right now.
My dad suffered a stroke, so bad that his whole left side was paralyzed.  We didn’t know that until today.  My dad has been in an induced “coma” for a few days.   He had a little trouble breathing they said so they put him on a ventilator.  He didn’t want that in the first place, so we felt it was our duty to pull him off life-support.  I signed that line on the paper, which forever will stick with me that gave them the authorization to not support him anymore.
We sat in the room, and watched him struggle with every breath. It was horrible to witness, and I never want to ever experience that again.  I just stared at the heart monitor waiting for it to go down.  It seemed as if he just wanted to hang on a bit longer.  We kept telling him his mother was waiting for him on the other side and to let go.  We talked with my aunt the entire time, reminiscing on the good things, laughing about things.  Then came the moment when I noticed the heart monitor was going downhill.  His respiration’s were at 20 for a while, then went down to 10 for a while, and when it hit 9 I knew that it was the end.  Eventually his heartbeat went down to the 30’s, then the 20’s, and his respiration’s went down to 5, and 4, and then down to 0 and he flat lined.  At that point we all erupted in emotion.  It was very hard to witness.  We sat there with his “shell” for about 2 hours until I couldn’t take it anymore.
We donated his body to science, and we will be sent the ashes when they are done.  We will take them up north and spread them at his favorite camping location.  He had nothing, no insurance, no money, nothing.  We couldn’t bury him so this was our only option.  I feel so horrible over the whole thing.  I am definitely very sad.  First it was my grandma, a week ago today, and now my dad.  Who is next I keep asking myself.  Things will not be the same.  He was fine a week ago… I had an hour long conversation with him, that I won’t forget.  He never let on that there were any problems at all.  If only I would have known.
Things will get better I hope.  I have to do the horrible task of cleaning out his apartment, which will be an emotional rollercoaster as we find things that we once knew as children and haven’t seen in many many years.  He never threw out anything.  It will be hard.  Not only will it be hard but it will be messy.  We expect blood, and a real mess.  I don’t know, I will have a hard time. Matt will take his bereavement leave and will help out with that task.
I was going to take him for a real steak dinner for his birthday this year… I wanted to spend quality time and give him something that he very rarely had.  I will never get the opportunity to do so.  Last Christmas I gave him a huge gift card to Red Lobster, and he enjoyed a “real” seafood dinner.  This Christmas I spend hundreds of dollars on gift baskets and gourmet popcorn for him.  I am going to have a meltdown if I see any of it in his apartment.  That will bring back to much.   The last time he came to my house was for Christmas, and he brought the kids some really nice gifts.  Those will be gifts we will never get rid of.  The time before that was several years earlier when he bought a bunch of a seafood and we cooked it together in my kitchen.  That I will never forget.