once dad was extubated, he was able to croak out his misery and deep hatred of being in the hospital.  he was improving, though, and they even moved him to intermediate care.

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.