these were the last 3 days of his life...the beginning of my nightmare...
we woke up Thursday morning intending on going to see him in the hospital, he was in a regular room and I had just talked to him the night before when I went to bed and he was to be transferred to a rehab facility for physical therapy to make him stronger as he was falling a lot when he would get up...to make a long story short, when we got up to the hospital he was in ICU, on life support...we were not called when he had "coded" twice the night before...
we were met in ICU by the doctor and told we needed to make some major decisions regarding him...if he were to "code" another time, he would not make it...his heart, kidneys, liver were all failing, he had pneumonia and sepsis...the doctor said we should sign a DNR and they would give us a day or two before proceeding to take him off of life support...he did not look good and since he was on life support, they had him sedated...we called his family to come...his mom, 2 of his sisters and 2 of his brothers came up and we all made the decision to sign the DNR and discussed in length taking him off life support...when his mom sat and held his hand, his heart rate would lower and he seemed to breathe a little better too...everyone took their time with him and sat with him and talked with him...even Sian and Zoie made big girl decisions and sat with him and held his hand...
Sam, Tim and I went home that night, leaving his 2 brothers with him...I decided I would leave the night in God's hands and would come back the next morning with a decision as to life support after sleeping on it...but in my heart of hearts, I knew he would not want to live on life support with so many organs failing him...none of us slept very good that night but went back up as early as we could to the ICU...
imagine our surprise when we walked in and they had already taken him off life support and he was awake but once again met at the door by the doctor (same one) who said they had taken him off, they wanted to see how he would do, but unless we said differently, he needed to go back on and as soon as possible...
our decision was to keep off of life support, and do comfort care only...but we stressed he was to be in absolutely no pain and they agreed to give him morphine when he needed it...
this morning was actually a gift to us, since he was semi awake we all were able to tell him we loved him and he whispered it back to us (and then he told us sternly to go home)...his brothers were able to come back up and talked to him and Tim was able to sit with him and go over his wishes...
all Friday night we would not leave him alone and took shifts to stay with him...he struggled all night long with breathing while we sat next to him...we kept telling to close his eyes and that it was OK to let go, we loved him...I sat until 2 am holding his hand but was so exhausted...I kept praying to God
that if He was going to take him to do it peacefully and not let him suffer...
getting ready Saturday morning, got a call from Tim that I needed to hurry back up to the hospital and when I got there was told that his condition had deteriated (sp?) and he looked horrible, frantic and was obviosly suffering...Tim after consulting his uncle Adam told the nurse to replace the oxygen mask and to get a morphine drip going...I sat with him, took his hand and the minute she got the drip going, he let go of my hand, took a final breath and it was over at 10:40...
even today a month later I can still not believe how the day after Christmas he fell but was arguing with the paramedics about whether he should go to the hospital or not and then here we are with him no longer with us...it all seems like some horrible nightmare that I hope I will eventually eake up from and he will still be here...
written by Shayne
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