friday morning, he was awake, alert, said he was ready to go home.  what!!!???  really???!!!!  how was this even possible???!!! he made me write “water” on one cup and “iced tea” on another, and i gave him some of each intermittently throughout the afternoon.  mom bought him a steak n shake chocolate shake, and he had a few spoonfuls.

he still had the tube in his nose, sucking stuff out of his stomach, but the doctor seemed genuinely hopeful about his seemingly remarkable change, and said that on saturday they’d clamp the tube and try to give him something substantial to eat, and if he did ok, they’d take out the damn tube.  he also still had the tube in his chest, where they’d made the hole.  the doctor also had us set up an appointment with hospice on monday, to see about getting him the hell outta there.

mom had spent the night friday, and on saturday morning she said he was very unresponsive.

i hoped that this was a minor setback, but continued to steel myself for the worst.

randy and i went to the art fair on saturday and it was nice to be out and about, although it also made me sad, thinking about the years that dad had been in the art fair.  one time it was during my birthday, and mom and dad bought me a cool clay banana split, and i’ve managed to not break/lose it for all these years.

so it was nice to be there, but also i was just so anxious, and then, finally, jim called to say that they’d done an x-ray and found a “mucous plug” in his lung, which was constricting his breathing, and they couldn’t operate on it, of course. so, the end was coming, for real this time.

we agreed that they should take the damn nose thing out, and the chest tube, so he wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

they did it at 2:30, and said he could be gone in 10 minutes or two days.

oh god.

we sat around for a while, and then amy and jim decided to go home for a while.

after two hours, he started going.  i have to say that i am very glad that i was there, to see that he went so quietly and peacefully.

kevin was with mom and me, and he kept checking dad’s pulse as his breathing kept slowing more and more, and we thought he must be gone, and he quickly started to look like he was gone, but then his heart kept beating, but then, gone.

fast.  peaceful.

this morning  i got up, we took mollie for a walk, and i decided i needed to transplant some hostas and ferns that were in the wrong spots.  kevin helped me a lot, because he’s way stronger.

i was glad to be outside, but then i came in and read many nice condolences from people on facebook and this made me really sad again.

today i wish they would have taken that damn breathing thing off his face sooner, i wish they wouldn’t have poked that needle into his chest that made his lung collapse…but i know none of that matters now.

at least we had the one good day.

at least he never has to go back to the damn hospital again.

ok then,

grace hughes

but yesterday morning, was it just yesterday? at 7:20 a.m. i got my 4th call in the past two weeks that he was about to die.

since this is the 4th time, i thought about my driving while driving.  it wouldn’t do anybody any good if i sailed through a red light without noticing.

he had some kind of fluid in his lungs, they didn’t know what.  they moved him back to ICU, and a very aggressive doctor wanted to put the fucking tube down his throat again, but dad refused, and mom refused, and we all refused.  later, this very same ass doctor said that “if he had free rein,” the tube would be shoved down his throat again.  now i think, i would like to say to the cocky bastard, have you ever had anything like that shoved down your throat?  not to mention all the prodding and poking and getting blood and doing scans and turning and everything, constantly, all the time…

a very nice and good doctor told us he was going to stick a needle below dad’s ribs to get a sample of the fluid.  there was something like less than a 1% chance that it would poke a hole in his lung.

they poked a hole in his lung.

the doctor re-inflated it and said it could heal in three to five days, but meanwhile they still didn’t know what was wrong anyway, and once again, the constant stream of people coming in and doing stuff, and so many of them were so loud…

meanwhile, instead of the tube, he had the BIPAP thing, the horrible sucking thing that dad also detested, to help him breathe.  like having a shop vac attached to your face.

when i finally drove home last night, i thought about all the horrors poor dad has had to endure in the past two weeks.  tubes shoved up many orifices, never any sleep, constant poking of needles, procedures, no peace, no rest.

i thought, i just don’t want him to have to deal with any of this any more.

so we all talked and agreed that we were gonna have them take off the damn bipap thing this morning.  i felt better that we’d reached this conclusion.

they took it off about 8:30 this morning, and we’re with him 24/7 still.  with just his little regular oxygen thing that he had at home, he’s breathing great, his blood pressure is good, his heart rate is good, he has sedatives so he sleeps, and nobody is bothering him anymore.

so now we just wait til he goes.

when i was napping just a minute ago for a few minutes i thought, “maybe they could take him home in an ambulance and let him die in his own bed instead of this awful place.”  but i know that’s impossible at this point.

not the best week of my life.

ok then,

thursday grace.

they took out the tube before 11 this morning.  i was in the room to see it happen, but it was so quick, i missed it.

dad is much happier now, as are we all.

this is one mother’s day we won’t forget.

ok then,

sunday grace.

writing “bring it on” continues to curse me  – late wednesday, i came down with a bad cold.  seriously?  good grief.  i’ve been taking massive amount of healing things, and don’t feel so bad today.

dad continues to improve pretty dramatically, really, considering that he was frail to begin with.  but he’s also SO VERY STRONG.  today a nurse was re-dressing his incision and i looked at it and did not faint or throw up, by some miracle, because it’s just held together in a coupla places with these big staple-kinda things and you can see all his insides right there and how is that even possible, that he’s going to just heal up from that?

i feel more encouraged now about his prognosis.  before i came here today amy called me – she’d spent the night here last night, slept hardly at all, but she had to give me a very long lecture about how i need to insist that he NEEDS THAT INTUBATION TUBE OUTTA THERE.  she explained how the respiratory therapist today is more passive, as opposed to the more aggressive ones yesterday and the day before, who seemed to think he could be extabated any time.  and i had to tell all the nurses and doctors and anybody who walked into the room or down the hall that WE KNOW HE NEEDS TO BE EXTABATED.

whew.

lucky for me, when i got here, the nurse said that the plan is to EXTABATE HIM TOMORROW.  dodged that bullet, plus i’m pretty amazed they’re doing that already.

another doctor came in later and said that it could be 24 hours or more before he goes to a regular room.  really?  seriously???  it seems that he’s not ready for a regular room because of the GAPING HOLE IN HIS STOMACH.

but apparently, not such a big deal.

well, a pretty big deal.  but something that’s not so bad.

so, today, things are not so bad, a nice way for things to be.

i get to go home pretty soon and rest some more.

oh, and mollie report:  well, the good news is they didn’t find anymore cytoblasts.  but she’s not responding to the chemo as quickly as they’d hoped, but on wednesday they give her a big strong dose of a different chemo drug, and then we wait and see, wait and see, wait and see about everything.

ok then,

gh

whew.

i slept out in the waiting room from 11 til 3 last night; it was an OK chair that laid out flat into a bed.  amy went out and set it all up for me, because she loves taking care of everybody and making them nests.  she does this for her dogs constantly, and did it for mollie whenever she had to stay with them.

i slept remarkably well even though a couple in there had a tv going.  i surreptitiously snuck over and turned it down cause i think they were already asleep.  i put in earplugs, and it wasn’t so bad, and three o’clock came pretty quickly.

i then took my turn here in the room on the torture chamber reclining chair.  it’s the WORST CHAIR EVER and i guess it’s like that so you won’t be tempted to spend the night actually in the room.

i dozed a little, but the really good nurse, amanda, kept coming in a lot to check on dad and do different things, plus sometimes the many buzzer things went off.

amy was going to get up at seven but i figured i’d let her sleep, but in she came, full of energy, promptly at seven.

we both hung out for a while til she got dressed for zumba and went off to teach a class.

mom came in at 10 and relieved me of my duties.

and so it goes…

tomorrow we take mollie to champaign for her third chemo treatment, and even though i’ve had a worry way back in my head about those cytoblasts, whatever they are, that they found in her blood last week, i’m looking forward to escaping town for just a few hours.  the drive will be like a special treat!  and hopefully the drive back home will also be good.

jim took this photo of our beautiful dog – this was when i was at hospital, kevin was still in texas, i believe.  mollie just started at the door when jim was there.

les was more interested in being friendly to jim.

and chester is always on the counter.

it was harder for him to get a good shot of winnie, who was probably chasing lester – i think because chester would attack winnie, now winnie is angry and lashes out at poor les.  i witnessed that today; les was sitting on the hot tub cover, as was winnie, and winnie just pounced on him.  baaaaad kitty.

i don’t feel it was such a good idea for kevin to be taking photos in the rain while driving.  this is when he finally saw the lights of the hotel i’d booked for him; he had issues finding it, but luckily he got there safe and sound.

here’s a bunch of his cousins plus his aunt, who is in her late 80s.

and here’s a very fuzzy photo of kevin with his aunt on friday.

once again, taking unauthorized photos while driving, VERY DANGEROUS, and i’m sure you could get a ticket for that kind of behavior.

chester, so very very tired.

winnie and les, at a moment of peace.

i missed les so much last night!  when i took a little nap this afternoon he slept on top of me for a while.

kevin saw this photo today and sent it to me, commenting that we needed this sticker when we were transporting our wedding cake to the reception.  it was a tense situation cause i was very afraid that the cake was gonna fall over and break apart.  we got pulled over on the highway for driving too slowly!  ah, a magical morning, but then the afternoon picked right up cause we GOT MARRIED!

and that is all for this monday.

ok then,

gh

last night they started surgery on him at 10:20 p.m.  it was over by 2:20 in the morning.

he’s still alive.  they took out his entire colon.

it’s a very very tenuous time right now, as they keep telling us, like we don’t know.

this morning i was getting ready to go back to the hospital and amy, who was there, called to say HIS KIDNEYS ARE FAILING WHICH MEANS HIS ORGANS ARE PROBABLY FAILING AND HE DOESN’T HAVE MUCH TIME.

so i jumped in the car and sped down the highway, swearing at every car in my way.

when i was almost there, she called again to say that some doctor had said that but IT WASN’T TRUE.

he’s doing as all as can be expected right now, as far as i know.  they left the big incision open so it won’t get infected.

on a lighter note….

last night amy and randy went to the county market close by and bought a veritable feast of treats.  we drank wine out of styrofoam cups and the first thing i tore into was the big bag of dove chocolates.

tonight amy and i are both staying at the hospital; her plan is that we’ll rotate – one of us will sleep out in the waiting room, the other will sit in the room with dad.

monday monday monday.

ok then,

sleep-deprived me.

so, it was brought on.  at 2:20 this morning, the hospital called.  dad was agitated, they put him on the high pressure oxygen thing, he tried to get out of bed, very agitated.  should i go there?  no, said the nurse, i’ll call you if this situation changes.

i gathered together some clothes and laid in bed, waiting for another call, which came at 3:05.  i roared out of the driveway in kevin’s cadillac, and the roads were very quiet and i tried to not speed too much, but was prepared to say I HAVE TO GET TO MY DAD WHO MIGHT BE DYING.

i got there in record time, and held dad’s hand.  he calmed down eventually, and then amy, jim, mom and aunt sandy showed up about five.

eventually they took the breathing thing off him and his lungs continue to work remarkably well for somebody whose lungs are shot.

but his abdomen, swollen, all blocked up, i won’t graphic detail but it’s not pretty and you’d think they’d be able to get it taken care of but so far it’s not happening.

the morning was lots of waiting and doctors coming in and waiting and waiting.

i came home at one this afternoon and slept in bed with three of the four animals and everybody was happy.

kevin got home tonight at eight, which was great.

he could have gotten home an hour an a half earlier but the GPS had him suddenly going west on some county road, when he should have been going north and east.  he got so mad that he hurled the GPS right out the window.

right now my only hope is that i get to sleep all night.  but i won’t count on that.

not on fire, not on fire, i am not on fire.

ok ok ok,

gh

so that’s what i came up with.

I AM NOT ON FIRE.

so, yay for that.

mom and i took him to the doctor yesterday and they were insistent that he needed to go back in – dehydrated, and his abdomen is really swollen, etc etc it’s always something.  hopefully he won’t be in there too long.

MOLLIE UPDATE:  she made it through another round of chemo; this time it was a tablet in a tasty treat, at least.  but now she has something called cytoblasts in her blood, a low amount of them; they could be something they didn’t detect before, but i find this unlikely since they’ve done the blood work so many times.  it could be the lymphoma spreading, but my hope is that the new dose of chemo will squash it down.

i have to go to the hospital in a minute.

oh, and kevin’s uncle died in texas, and yesterday morning kevin headed there in the car.  right now he’s close to the border between oklahoma and texas.  the funeral is at 11.

ALL RIGHT ALREADY WITH ALL THE STUFF.

but maybe i should quit saying that because something else keeps happening.

so instead, BRING IT ON.

ok then,

i can’t believe it’s friday already hughes.