My Dad is in the ICU right now with a terrible case of pheumonia that's made even worse by the fact that he also has asbestosis. The man can't even breath on his own at the moment. They have a trach tube in him and he's on a ventilator.
They have him on other medicines to boost his blood pressure because it's too low to sustain him as it is.
And as if that weren't enough, I heard from the doctors that there's signs that his infection may have spread into his blood stream. They say if it hits any of his other major organs then he won't be with us much longer.
I think the part that's worst, from an emotional standpoint, is the constant see-sawing of it all. Last week, he was doing much better and they were talking about transferring him out of the ICU and into a regular hospital room.
This week, they're talking about him not living much longer.
Along the way, he's had two emergency surgeries. A bunch of small improvements came along the way, too. There were also all of these set-backs.
I just feel so numb.
All of this really reached a head this afternoon when I was driving home from the hospital. I saw some guy run over a little cat. A cute black and white bundle of fur.
By the time I reached him, he was having a death spasm. That final series of frantic twitching that ones body goes through as all life leaves.
I look down at his tiny body, totally surrounded by blood. His eyes seemed so large that they appeared to take up his whole face. And those looked at me for an instant, as if he expected me to do something that I didn't know how to do.
A second later, the spasming stopped. He layed there in the street in peace. No one around me seemed to notice.
"Great," I remember thinking, "one more senseless act of suffering and death that I can't do a damned thing about."
They have him on other medicines to boost his blood pressure because it's too low to sustain him as it is.
And as if that weren't enough, I heard from the doctors that there's signs that his infection may have spread into his blood stream. They say if it hits any of his other major organs then he won't be with us much longer.
I think the part that's worst, from an emotional standpoint, is the constant see-sawing of it all. Last week, he was doing much better and they were talking about transferring him out of the ICU and into a regular hospital room.
This week, they're talking about him not living much longer.
Along the way, he's had two emergency surgeries. A bunch of small improvements came along the way, too. There were also all of these set-backs.
I just feel so numb.
All of this really reached a head this afternoon when I was driving home from the hospital. I saw some guy run over a little cat. A cute black and white bundle of fur.
By the time I reached him, he was having a death spasm. That final series of frantic twitching that ones body goes through as all life leaves.
I look down at his tiny body, totally surrounded by blood. His eyes seemed so large that they appeared to take up his whole face. And those looked at me for an instant, as if he expected me to do something that I didn't know how to do.
A second later, the spasming stopped. He layed there in the street in peace. No one around me seemed to notice.
"Great," I remember thinking, "one more senseless act of suffering and death that I can't do a damned thing about."
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