My story

[SavannahShaye]

My dad died on April 2^nd of this year. I should preface this by saying it’s a pretty long story. On March 25^th, he went to the hospital for active bleeding in his stomach due to liver failure. Luckily, the doctors called me- his next of kin- before they put him on the ventilator to check for more bleeding. Unlike others in my position, I got to tell my dad I loved him. He also told me that he wanted me to sign a DNR for him, since he had been on painkillers and couldn’t legally do it himself. There was a nurse in the room, and she asked if he really wanted that to happen. I’ll never forget his words, as I repeated them many times in the week that followed: “I want you to do everything you can to save my life. But, I don’t want to live in a vegetative state.” Soon after, the doctors came in to bring him to the OR. They decided to keep him on the ventilator since they found bleeding in his esophagus and they didn’t want to keep performing intubation if there was more unforeseeable bleeding. On March 27^th, they began the day trying to wean Dad from the vent. Unfortunately, that afternoon they noticed he was convulsing. They did a CT and found he had severe swelling in his brain. Later that night, an intensivist met with me and said that there had been damage, but they couldn’t tell how bad it was until the swelling went down. Two days later, I saw the actual results from the MRI. Legally, they couldn’t tell me what I could now plainly see: my father was in a vegetative state. The next day, I met with palliative care and decided that on Sunday, April 1^st, it was my duty as the only child to an unmarried man to take my father off of life support. My entire family congregated in his room that night. It marked one week since the last time I saw my Daddy’s blue eyes, heard his mischievous laugh or heard him call me “my love”, the title I held in his heart from the day I was born. He took his last breath around 1:15 AM on April 2^nd. It just so happened to be the first real day of my spring break. I’m a twenty year old education major at community college right up the street from the hospital. As fate would have it, my grandmother passed away ten days later. I had been extremely close to her my entire life, living no more than two houses away for the last fifteen years. The day after her passing was my evaluation for my field placement course at the elementary school. I chose not to reschedule. I went to the kindergarten classroom and helped the children with their journals while my teacher watched on and took notes on what would be the most important grade for that class. I dove back into school immediately. That’s kind of why I’ve written this post. I feel like I didn’t get the chance to grieve, because I didn’t allow it. The shock hadn’t worn off before I was already head first into studying for finals or catching up on assignments I missed. Now that I’m on break, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m hoping someone might understand what I’m going through, as cliché as that may sound.

[ThomasP]

My deepest and sincerest comdolences on the passing of your beloved father. I completely understand what you are going through. If you need someone to talk with who has been there, and is still grieving for my father, I am here for you. Blessings.