SteveS: Death Watch

My father is dying. He has been desperately ill for years, dying by inches. Prostate cancer. Diabetes. Congestive heart failure. Kidney failure. So getting the call on Thanksgiving that I needed to get home “right now” was no surprise. Still I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I walked into my father’s nursing home room Friday evening. He is dying. His color is pale, so pale. He is short of breath, the oxygen mask doing nothing to ease his discomfort as he moves his head from side to side, up and down tryting to grab a breath. His hands are in constant motion, but not controled movements. He reaches out, he balls his fists, he grabs and twists his blankets. He can’t eat. He doesn’t want to drink. His blood pressure and his blood sugar level are both too high. He mostly sleeps, if that is what you can call this state. But periodically, his eyes blink open and he looks about with a blank stare. Sometimes he mutters some nonense, dreaming, hallucinating, drifting/Editor Steve Smith , News Is A Conversation.

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DFO: I hesitated before I posted this. Steve Smith has pulled back the curtain to reveal the very personal pain that many of us Baby Boomers have experienced or will experience as our parents slip from old age to death. My father was killed in the prime of life in a car wreck. As painful as that was, I find solace that I never saw him bed-ridden, waiting for death. My thoughts and prayers are with Steve and his family at this time.