Writing an obit: less fun even than you'd think

    We spent four hours with the funeral director getting everything set up for Dad's funeral and composing his obituary, which is pretty much torture when you need to remember 94 years worth of detail accurately and just can't. It didn't help that we were all exhausted and broken-hearted and nearly all sick. The draft is just icky; the grammar comes and goes and some stuff isn't so accurate. So I'll try to polish it up later and email in the corrections. I mean, we totally left out that he was a superhero. (Secret identities expire when you die.)
    I promise I will yet produce an accurate account of Dad's last 24 hours or so. Soon.

Dad died

    There will be a lengthy exposition of the events of last night and today soon, when I've slept more than 15 minutes and eaten more than 100 calories. Suffice it to say that my father died this afternoon surrounded with love. Margaret had decided that she didn't want to be there and Malcolm was returning from taking her home when Dad's heart stopped. It had just been too much of a fight. He's still the champ, though.

Nearer the end

    Dad actually improved a lot yesterday, but unfortunately such improvement ended by the end of the day. His blood pressure has fallen steeply and only adrenaline, maxed out, is keeping him alive at all. They can't dialyse him with his blood pressure so low, so this is pretty near the end regardless.
    Speaking only for myself, I'm pretty close to acceptance. The titan stood tall for almost 94 years. I'm proud to be his son.

They say Dad is dying

     Dad threw up yesterday after our visit and aspirated the food. His O2 levels fell a lot, so Lowman Home sent him to the hospital. They put him on a BiPap machine and he stabilized nicely. It looked like it would be a simple repeat of his hospital visit last month.
     This morning I called just to see how he was doing and the nurse said that they didn't think he would pull through. She wanted me to come and talk to the doctor so of course I did. He said that the BiPap was keeping Dad's O2 up, but that his CO2 was catastrophically high. (96%) So it's unlikely that he'll be able to recover brain function. Also, his vital signs were getting weaker.
     They kept asking if I had any questions; I just said that I was in too much shock. The family is on its way.

Coaster smoothes out

    Can't make any promises that this will continue, of course, since this has already happened three times in a week. However, dialysis went well Friday and Dad has stopped saying that he wants to stop dialysis. All he really needed was a pillow to sit on. That wasn't so hard, was it?
    Today's visit mainly saw Dad and Margaret sleep through it, but when his food arrived, Margaret was able to get him to eat all of it. This hasn't happened in a while. So megayay. Also, we got a little bit of singing, and he remembered more of the words of "Summertime" than I did. He also is slightly irascible these days, but I like that as a sign that he's still in there.
    As to yesterday's post about hospices, probably everybody but me knew that hospice care means the patient has a life expectancy of less than 6 months. This is a little alarming, but then he's almost 94; leaving aside his poor health, actuarial science pretty much says his life expectancy is less than 6 months. I will definitely sign him up.

Don't panic! Hospice news

    Anne accompanied Dad to dialysis today to make sure that it's as comfortable as possible for him, but they had (are probably still having) a long wait for a chair. She's been talking to a woman from a hospice service, and they called me on speaker phone to talk to me. I was inclined to brush her off, as I had already selected a hospice facility in town so that Margaret could visit as often as possible. But it turned out that what they do is offer additional care, whether in the nursing home or at home, even if the patient continues dialysis. And it's a government benefit, with no additional charge. Obviously, we don't know if after dialysis today, Dad will keep insisting that he wants to quit dialysis. If so, there's little point, and I should still try to move him to the in-town hospice facility. But given that constraint, I said (as I'm sure Anne had) Yes! Yes! Yes! Sign us up!
    I was thinking of telling her they should consider a name change, since "hospice" means something specific already. I think what they're talking about would better be called "additional palliative care." But whadda I know?

Again

    Dad is again saying he wants to stop dialysis. We've at least still got a commitment for him to try at least one more time tomorrow. It's possible that between the painkillers and the pillow to sit on, he'll be willing to continue. But we're starting (or Margaret and I at least are) to accept the idea that this is the end. Poor Anne needs to get back to work and also to get back to get her insulin, and is horribly torn. At the moment she's planning to stay at least a few more days.
    We all know it's near the end. We just don't want him to give up while there's any chance he can get better. But I'm not sure he's going to give us that chance. And maybe he's right; it isn't much of a life for him in bed all the time, almost blind, almost deaf, having to go to dialysis three times a week. I only wish he had told us sooner how painful dialysis is for him.