July 9, 2018 is the day my dad died. He has been struggling for a while (obviously). He has slowly gotten slower and older and sicker. He was not very mobile and he was losing color. He has been on Hospice for two months. When hospice came to assess, they said he had about two months and that was on May 15. He died almost 2 months later. 6 days short. Very good estimate.
He had a hospital bed delivered to the house on July 7. I didn't think it was super necessary but we did it and moved out his King size bed. Saturday he didn't want to get out of bed. Saturday night we started him on Morphene and anti anxiety medication. McCall was over there...I was texting her all night...She texted me the status and I went over at 4:00 am Sunday morning. We kept him on a morphene schedule every two hours. The Nurse came and said he was saturating around 50 I think. She came back at 9 and said he had gone down hill since she was there a few hours ago. She said Mark needed to come before 5:00 as originally planned. She said she thought today was the day. Wow. That is a hard one. It is one thing to know someone is going to die and another to know they are dying today.
We called Mark and he came and so did some of the grand children. It was super hard to watch everyone say good bye to him. I told him that the nurse said he was leaving today so he better make that happen. He needed to go to the light and go to find his Mother, Father, Sister June, and his daughters Melanie and Kathleen. We would all be fine and we would take care of Gma.
A few people from the ward came, the Home teacher only because we had to tell him they didn't want the sacrament that day...
Also, Mr. Rodriguez came over with a ham and rolls and potato salad from Costco because he saw all the cars and thought something might be going on. So nice.
My family, Andrew (who was in town from school because of a mission farewell for his friend) and Nick came over. Jack decided he didn't want to come. Abi was teaching Primary and had to play the Organ at church.
He had the breath of Death and this death rattle in his lungs..His legs were getting cold and his breathing was labored...morphene was continued. I say hey, he can't have too much of that. At 12:43 pm he took a last breath. He just stopped. It was soo sad. Wow. That was the end. His fight was over.
We waited and let everyone have a moment if they wanted. Abi go there around 3:00 pm. They found a substitute for Primary because I had to call and get a Piano Substitute so they knew something was up. Brooke got there eventually too. She was working at the Zoo. We decided we needed to call the mortuary and the Nurse. The Nurse came and did whatever she did and so did the Mortuary.
Here they are loading the body into that Van. I thought they would at least bring a limo. Nope just a van...They even wore suits. Really? Wear jeans and a shirt...!
We went to the mortuary to check the body and he looked good. His skin wasn't sunken in anymore and his color was even better.
What an interesting experience. I hve
