Saturday, June 28, 2008

Dad continues on. He is not happy. Might sound harsh, but I'm trying to be honest about what is happening here. He was able to sleep mostly through the night - I must admit at one point around 11:15 I basically forced him awake by talking loudly and asking him if he wanted some pain medicine, just to make sure he was wakeable. He was. We all spoke and actually Janine had called in while we were talking and I was able to hold up the phone to dad's ear and they were able to speak a bit....

Janine was at home because Nicholas' baseball team (Marty is coach) is in the All Star Tournament and he had a game last night - they won - they play again today and Janine will be up after that game. Janine and Moira are cheering the family on! Go team!

...while I was on the phone with Janine in the other room filling her in on things, mom came out and said dad wanted to speak with me. I went back into the room and there ensued one of the hardest conversations of my life so far. He asked me how things were going and where they were going, he repeated that he just wanted to die, he was done, and wasn't there anything that could be done to make it happen now, faster. I with, Janine, supporting me on the phone let him know the basics, that we couldn't at this point predict how long things were going to last, the dr.'s had said any where from 2-3 days to a week'ish. That we, because of what he wanted and because we didn't want him experiencing any more pain or being like this either were hoping, just like him that it would the former rather than the latter. That unfortunately all that we could do is make him as comfortable as possible, try and keep him pain free, and be there giving love. He looked at me and asked why more couldn't be done. Why it couldn't be over now. I choked backed tears, and let my defense mechanism take over and told him that "unfortunately, Dr. Kevorkian, even learned and lost, that doing different is illegal and that we had to do things the legal way" and that we would make him as comfortable as we could and continue to provide support. I repeated that we loved him very, very much and he nodded sadly to indicate he did understand our predicament and he said he loved us very much as well. I gave him some more pain medicine and he went back to sleep.

I finished my call with Janine. And wrapped myself up in a huge hug from Jason and comforted myself. Jason had mom and I get some sleep and rest and sat vigil for us through the night. Since this morning, Dad has been up here and there, but mostly sleeping. Though during one of his awake periods he looked over to little Lucie and said "come'on Lucie do your job" and I was like "what?" and he said, "there are dogs that kill people." I couldn't say anything, but I did make Lucie and Kira give him kisses and told him they loved him and he gave them a pat and said he loved them as well and then gave that sad, defeated smile once again.

Mom and I are hanging around with him, watching some TV, contemplating paying our everyday life bills that prove that things do have to go on, and talking about contacting Evans Funeral Home in Bowie regarding making preparations.

I will post again with an update later this evening....Love, Hugs and God Bless to all.