GBE #22 AFTERLIFE

 

My last conversation with my sister Colleen was a brief call.  She was going up to her camp and asked if I wanted to come with her.  I was tired from my first day home from a trip I'd been on, and I didn't go with her.  I have often wondered if I had,  if it would have changed everything else and she would still be with us.  One of the biggest regrets of my life.  

Her husband found her on the floor at camp when he arrived a few hours later.  At the hospital they discovered she'd had a tubal pregnancy and performed surgery to remove it.  Her 9-month-old daughter was with me at my parent's house.  My Mom had been at the hospital all day working (she was the nursing supervisor) and then all evening with my sister but had come home because my niece had a fever that I couldn't get down.  The phone rang right before I was going to wake her to go back in to spend the night with my Colleen.  They had found my sister on the floor with wide pupils.  She needed a CT scan and that hospital didn't have one.   They were transporting her in an ambulance to the closest hospital that had a CT when she arrested.  My sister had no brain activity, so her husband made the decision to not put her on full life support.  She was 23.  

My father died in 2004.  He had congestive heart failure and other issues.  When there was no other medical intervention available, he wanted to come home on hospice care and our family made that happen.  We knew it wouldn't be long.  The last day of his life he had his children and some of his grandchildren in the room with him.  He was in and out of consciousness through that last night, but he called my Mom's name about 4:00 in the morning and I was immediately on my feet, as was she.  He wanted to speak with her to help her let him go, and I looked around the room at my sisters and daughter and niece dozing on the furniture and staircase, and I went to make Mom a cup of tea knowing she would need it.  I could hear their voices from the kitchen - hers distressed and wanting more time, his insisting he was going to be with his parents and his brother, that they were waiting for him.  When their voices quieted, I brought in her tea and asked him what he needed.  He said he wanted some medication to rest, so Mom and I got him as comfortable as he could be and he drifted off.  

Hours later, his breathing worsened.  We sat his recliner up more and were giving him morphine.  The hospice nurse had told me that my Mom's nightmare was that he would be gasping for breath and she didn't want that, so I needed to give him enough morphine that he would go when he was ready and not from air hunger.  She said I didn't need to worry about giving him too much because while it would depress his breathing, he needed to be comfortable.  I heard her and was fine with it.  

At the end, he sat up and reached out his hand toward my sisters near his feet, or the brilliant morning sun beaming into the room but when I turned my head I saw Colleen, with her hand on him.  Dad took one last breath and was gone.   

I have heard from hospice nurses since that often people who are about to die talk about someone coming to get them.  I have listened to people talk about how a dying brain can 'mix up' a memory with reality but he was cognizant of what was happening to his body.  He told me and my Mom the night before that he didn't need the IV anymore because he was 'going home to Mom and Pop'.  He knew and he went the way he wanted to go, and she was there with him.

I hope she comes to get me too.