The 2nd anniversary of losing my Dad is on Wednesday. It's there, humming in the background like the drone of a distant neighbor's lawnmower.
I never finished my story about my Dad and his health crisis. My Mom was so sick, and so sick so fast that my Dad's illness crept up on delicate little cat-feet and surprised us all.
He ended up in the hospital following Thanksgiving 2010 with congestive heart failure. He'd been (relatively) fine that fall. My Dad had fought a long battle against prostate cancer, going 18 rounds of chemo, several early rounds of radiation, experimental hormone therapies and finally in the summer of 2010, he was approved for the newly released gene therapy Provenge. Coming off that, he felt a renewed sense of hope and optimism about his health. He did have some persistent kidney issues, both a result of childhood kidney cysts and some scarring from his radiation therapy. My Dad was active and vital, working 30+ hours a week, volunteering with their Church, his model airplane club and had recently retired from 30 years of volunteering at my college alma mater. He was not one to sit and let moss grow.
The diagnosis of CHF was a surprise. I'd been home in early October to help do fall yard clean up and he was busy raking, picking up cut brush, hauling stuff to the car, making multiple trips to the dump. He'd sit and rest in between but he never gave any indication of being ill. To come home 7 weeks later for Thanksgiving, to see him curled up in his chair, unable to get up, coughing heavily and seeming really restless and uneasy was alarming. My Mom, halfway through her chemo treatments, seemed healthier than my Dad. By Saturday morning, I was calling 911 and getting him admitted into the Cardiac unit at the big hospital. He eventually spent 3 days in the cardiac intensive care unit (which he loved, bless his heart) and came home with home health assistance. I took my Mom to her chemo appointment and extended my holiday vacation by an additional week to make sure he was home and settled.
We were home again at Christmas and my Mom's health had continued to decline and my Dad wasn't looking any better. He'd been in to see the cardiologist who basically said to stick with a low sodium fluid restricted diet. He was on massive diuretics. He couldn't have some of the standard diagnostic tests or standard CHF treatments due to his kidney functions. He insisted he just needed to rest and he'd be fine. We returned to our home and I called daily to check on them. He ended up needing fluid removed from a lung and he insisted he felt better.
When the call came that my Mom's cancer was no longer responding to treatment, I headed home. I didn't know how long I'd be there, but I packed for a week or so. It was February 19. She began home hospice on Feb. 23 and she was gone on March 9. During this time, she had weekly visits from the hospice nurse who was often more concerned about my Dad. He insisted he felt fine, just tired.
The week following my Mom's death was incredibly stressful. I was hauling my Dad around town making arrangements and trying to keep him afloat. He fell outside the Church before our meeting with the Pastor to plan her funeral. He fell in the garage a few days later after getting out of the car. He fell in the house trying to get to the bathroom. Every single time my heart went to my feet and my stomach wanted to come up through my chest. His legs were swollen and wrapped in TEDS which meant he had no flexibility and lifting him back up by myself was like try to dead-lift a 170 pound frozen tuna.
My Aunt Pat from Indiana offered to stay with my Dad for a week after the funeral so I could go back to work. I needed to get in the office and get caught up. I was trying to get him to be open to coming to Minnesota to visit the clinic and get a second opinion about his care and treatment. I was beside myself trying to get him to understand that being 5 hours away from me wasn't an option given his condition and he had no relatives in the area to help him. My Aunt worked tirelessly to convince him that a week or two at the clinic would do him a world of good and by the time I got back to his house, 8 days later, he was ready to go. We needed to spend a few days in Milwaukee before coming to MN. He had a pulmonologist visit, a cardiology visit and last, a visit to his nephrologist. After that, we were going to head home together.
The week went by very quickly and my Dad was optimistic and in spite of himself, looking forward to coming to our place to stay. I secretly hoped the move would be permanent, but knew his stubborn nature would lead him back to Milwaukee. Our last visit of the week was the nephrologist, which was the doctor managing his kidney condition. My Dad has his blood work done and got the all clear from the doctor to travel. I'd made arrangements to have his medical records released to our medical center. On the way home, we stopped at Target and I ran in to pick up a few things. My Dad stayed in the car.
I was walking down the aisle when my cell phone rang. It was the nephrology physician's assistant calling to tell my Dad's blood work was back and it was really low in potassium and he needed an RX for potassium. She was going to fax it to Target where I could pick it up while I was there. I headed over the the pharmacy. The Target pharmacist is a lovely woman who was close to my parents through their Church. She saw me and came around and gave me a hug. We chatted and she said she'd go check her fax for the prescription. As I stood there, my phone rang again. It was the nephrologist.
In his Indian-accented English, he told me my Dad was in end-stage kidney failure and that he didn't have long to live. I said, how long? He said, days to weeks.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't feel my feet. 14 days before, I'd lost my Mom and now I'm being told my Dad is dying. He said to call tomorrow and he would talk to my Dad about his options, which were very few. Dialysis. Hospice.
The pharmacist saw the expression on my face and came over and I told her what I'd just learned. She gave me a huge hug, which at that moment, kept me from falling on the floor. I had no legs. She said to go home and talk it over with my Dad. She said dialysis wasn't bad, but what she knew of his heart condition, it probably wouldn't be very comfortable for him.
I walked to the car, not having any idea about how I was going to tell my Dad what the doctor just told me. I got in. He looked at me and immediately knew something was wrong. He asked. I said, let's go home first. He said, no. Tell me.
So I told him. He let out a breath. I think he said a prayer and probably a swear word or two. We went home in quiet and I got him into the house, got his coat off and he headed to the bathroom. I headed to the garage and spent the next 5 minutes creating sounds I didn't even know could come from my body. It was as if all the grief and sadness and stress and anger and frustration and rage all flowed up out of this deep pool somewhere and volcanoed out of me in a hysterical fury.
When my Mom was told her treatments were no longer working and she was facing her death, she was resigned, quiet, calm, ready to be done. I don't think she was afraid of death and dying. I think my Mom was such a pessimistic person, who worried about every little detail and possible outcome, that she'd worried herself into her own grave. She knew when she was diagnosed, that she was going to die. My Mom was more afraid of the unknown than the known. My Dad loved life and was not ready for his life to be complete. He hadn't written his final chapter. He was an eternal optimist and hopeful about everything. To see him so incredibly disappointed broke my heart more than anything.
There's another nearly 3 months to this story. He found out on March 23 that his kidneys were shutting down. He lived until June 12 and there's a lot of story in the middle. I remember the many good days in those 3 months. My Dad told me stories of his childhood, of my birth, of my childhood, of our family story. We enjoyed our waning time together, our morning coffee, our afternoon book readings, our evening baseball games.
One of the hospice nurses told me she couldn't believe how strong I was...having gone through the loss of my Mom and caring full time for my Dad. Obligation and love makes one strong, I suppose. Parents do extraordinary heroic things for their children. It's what people do when they love each other. Emotions get put on hold, days blur into nights, daily personal care activities, once unthought-of are done with care and tenderness and no embarrassment. And then the moment comes when they transition from the here and now to that place beyond and the blessing that comes with being there in that moment.
Two days. I'm looking towards the other side of Wednesday.
