Sending you and your family healing thoughts and well wishes!

Sending positive thoughts and well wishes to you and your family.

@)-}-----

keeping you and your family in my heart

I'm really glad you shared that with us. My love to you and your family. May you come together with much loving. Peace to your father

my thoughts and prayers will include your dad and his family...

Positive thoughts and energy to your father.

My prayer are with you and your dad.

Thank you all for your words of kindness and your prayers. My father is still hanging on but at this point is not responsive. He is no longer squeezing hands or moving his feet which were the signs of him being a little bit aware last week. Now we have more and more doctors and nurses nudging us towards a morphine drip which will slow down his breathing until it eventually stops. Some of the doctors are indicating now that by continuing to give him oxygen and an IV we are sustaining his life essentially against his will. So we are either artificially keeping him alive or giving him the chance to come back to awareness; it is all a matter of point of view. The hardest part is coming to grips that, regardless of what we do to sustain his body, the Dad that I knew is for all intents and purposes gone. I will never have another long mandering 3 hour conversation with him. I will never watch another football game with him. I will never hear his voice again.

We have been considering for the last week if it would have been easier or harder had my Dad had a massive heart attack and died instantly. We cherish the week that we have had with him, the week that my family has come together but to watch him slip slowly away is absolutely brutal. There is no easy death, not for the families anyway.

We have met some wonderful health care practitioners through this process. And some very cold, pragmatic ones who seemed to be second guessing our ability to have hope. One nurse last night came in thinking that we had given the order for the morphine drip and we had a few questions. She seemed to resent the fact that we had questions and started bickering with me and my older brother about how we did not understand what was going on with my father and that we needed to just let him go. That he was her patient and she was doing what she thought was best for him. All we had was a couple of questions but she turned it into a pissing contest. How dare she tell us we did not understand what was going on? Like we had not processed it repeatedly over the last 7 days. I know my father is coming back but if I want to wait a couple of hours or a day to send my father into his gentle good night I have the right. She was very cold and callous and looked like she just wanted to get that bag on so she could finish her shift. Suffice it to say, we told her we would wait.

My family had quite a few discussions last night and will have more today. Likely we will do the morphine drip today. Then there are arrangements to plan and logostically before Christmas Eve as my Dad would not want his funeral associated for the rest of our lives with his favorite time of year.

Please continue to pray if you can. Sorry to use this as a venue...writing is therapeutic for me and you are some of my favorite people who I have never met This is a safe place for me to put this stuff down and I appreciate it.

Those are some tough decisions you have to make together. I wish you and your father wisdom and light. If I may also suggest, spend as much as time with him as you can possibly still can. The morphine will have often him knocked out, but that doesn't mean your presence isn't valuable to him. On the contrary. Take care.

Positive thoughts for you and your family

Sending you and your loved ones positive and loving energy.

you are in my prayers

I feel for your situation. I had a similar one three yrs ago, after my father struggled to live for the last 9-10 months of his life. He had been on life support/ respirator, had a trach and g tube, couldnt walk, talk or eat and had mild dementia. Let your family comfort you during this hard time. I think it is one of the hardest things in life a human being has to face, that of dealing with the last days of a beloved parent and letting him go.

My prayers and thoughts are with you, and if you believe in a higher power, I hope you gain comfort in that, too.

Melody

PS- Dont let that hospital staff bully you into cutting his life short. This is what had been done to my dad as well. They had tried to say that he had mumbled he had wanted to be "let go" (the man could not talk and had dementia). Know that by law you are the decision makers about life support by any means necessary and it is not up to them to decide.

Thank you for all of your kind words and prayers. My father passed away at 5:45 this afternoon after a long brave battle. I was in the room with my my Mom and older brother when he passed. His blood pressure had been very low today and there was starting to be serious apnea between his breaths. He would go 10 seconds or more between breaths. We talked to my father throughout telling him how much we loved him and a few minutes before he passed, we saw him move his hand almost as if to wave. My mom opened the window screen because she had heard that a soul sometimes gets trapped unless you open a window. I told my brave father not to be afraid and I held his hand tight as I watched him take his last breaths. I saw his very last breath, which was not a toubled breath but a calm one, and then waited for another. After about 30 seconds I realized another breath was not coming. I told my brother that I thought he was gone and we both agreed after watching him a few more seeconds that he was gone. His looked extremely peaceful.

We never did put my father on the morphine drip. We decided after last night's drama to continue doing what we were doing as long as my father was not in pain.

My father will always be an irreplaceable part of my life. This will be a hard time but I have started the MPP (Make Papa Proud) campaign with my family where we are going to make every effort to have farewell ceremonies that will make him proud.

Thank you all for caring and for your support.

Oh NO i am so sorry for your loss

may he rest in peace

free2bfreeda said:

so sorry for your loss.

very sorry for your loss

Our very deepest Sympathy

I am so sorry. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. My deepest condolences to you and your family.