SoapBoxVille 2.0

Newer, Better, Stronger, More Mature

  • About Me
  • About Soapboxville
  • The Cancer Diaries
Newer, Better, Stronger, More Mature

death

On Death, and Dying, and Loss, and Grief

September 1, 2015 by carol anne Leave a Comment

white rose

I feel lost,

 I feel angry,

 I feel like this past year can’t possibly have been real.

 

I just don’t even know where to start or what to write. I don’t know how to answer when people ask me how I am. I don’t have words enough to express what I’m feeling.

 

In the last 365 days I’ve lost a best friend, a grandmother-in-law, a father-in-law, and my dad. I’m reeling, I’m numb, I’m in shock, I’m overwhelmed, I’m lost.

 

I.just.don’t.know.

 

 

One year ago my world changed with the words, “Jenn died.” Truth-be-told I never really got the chance to properly mourn Jenn’s passing. Two weeks after Jenn died, my dad was rushed to the hospital and my grandmother-in-law was unexpectedly moved to hospice care at almost the exact same time, we were pulling up to the hospital dad was in when we got the call about grandmom; grandmom passed two days later, dad spent almost a month in the hospital and getting stronger in rehab. Dad was a rock star in rehab; he was better than he’d been in years, but hope is a cruel bitch and pulled the rug out from under us. Shortly after dad returned home from rehab dad had a terrifying, steep, rapid, (did I mention terrifying?) decline. Dad rebounded from that decline and spent the next ten months declining and rebounding, declining and rebounding, declining and rebounding; it was a terrifying, emotional, and exhausting roller coaster ride of good health, bad health, and really bad health. Dad mostly declined over these last few months; I started reading about grief before death. It was like losing Nanny to dementia ten years ago, the dad who still existed wasn’t the dad we all knew and loved; he wasn’t the Reds he and rest of the world knew and loved.

 

Dad was in bad shape when my father-in-law suddenly passed away after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. The night of my father-in-law’s viewing my own dad could barely walk or stand up on his own; six days later I got a call that dad wasn’t doing well and I worried if he’d make it through the night. The next morning we took him to the hospital, all the neighbors were out as dad was loaded in to the private ambulance we called to take him to the good hospital where his cardiologist practices, my brother and I remarked it was like they were out saying goodbye to dad. As it turns out, they were, dad never returned home. After seven days in the hospital and twelve days in rehab he had his third or fourth (I don’t remember now) heart attack and died on the afternoon of August 18th.

 

You know you always expect “the phone call” to come in the middle of the night. I never expected the call to come a little before 7am on a Tuesday morning, but it did. “Your dad’s unresponsive, he still has vitals, but he’s unresponsive, he’s been taken to the hospital.” I called my mother and my brother and rushed to the hospital hoping and praying the rush hour traffic would be unusually light and that dad wouldn’t die before I or someone got to the hospital. Turns out we all made it before he died, but honestly in reality dad was gone before any of us got there, he’d crashed in the ER. Because there was no DNR on file they revived him and transferred him to a hospital with an ICU, where the cardiologist informed us dad was in multi organ failure, at about 1pm dad passed away surrounded by all of us.

 

It’s a little past midnight on September 1st, two weeks since dad passed away and a year and a day since Jenn died. The last 366 days have been a study in grief, and loss, and fear, and sorrow, and I’m not sure what it is I am supposed to have learned from them. I’m so lost, and confused, and adrift, I’m not sure if there’s even anything to be learned from so much loss in such a compressed amount of time. I.just.don’t.know.

 

 

 

Posted in: Soul Baring Ramblings Tagged: death, dying, grief, loss, sorrow

Thank You

August 24, 2015 by carol anne Leave a Comment

I wish there was such a thing as after funeral obituaries or after funeral thank you notes published in the newspaper because so many of the people I want to thank will not see this.

I was worried with the viewing and funeral all being one day and so early on a Saturday morning that dad would not have a good turnout. Turns out I needn’t have worried, I was spectacularly wrong. You came, you all came, friends, family, neighborhood folks, coworkers, employers, all of my and Tommy’s families and friends, you were all there, every one of you.

Thank you for your time, your presence, your memories, your kind words, and your warm condolences, I am more than grateful.

Posted in: Soul Baring Ramblings Tagged: Dad, death, dying, funeral, grateful, gratitude, obituary, thank you, Thomas A. Rawlings Jr.

A Life Well Lived in Photos

August 22, 2015 by carol anne Leave a Comment

Over the last five years I’ve had a lot of time to sit alone with my dad with each of us in the hospital so much and four years ago daddy accompanying me to my radiation treatments two days a week for more than six weeks so he and I have had lots of time to sit and pass the time together in hospital rooms and oncology waiting rooms. It’s hard to be grateful for sickness, but I’m so grateful for all the time we got to spend together over the last five years.

Posted in: Soul Baring Ramblings Tagged: Dad, death, dying

He’s Gone

August 19, 2015 by carol anne Leave a Comment

Dear Old Dad

 

Dear Old Dad is gone, he passed away just before one o’clock Tuesday afternoon. Rest in peace Dad, maybe the Phillies play better in heaven.

 

Posted in: Soul Baring Ramblings Tagged: Dad, death, dying, grief

Writing to Help Myself Understand

August 8, 2015 by carol anne Leave a Comment

I can’t believe this photo is just 14 months old, so much has changed

 

Brooke Gladstone wrote in beginning pages of her book, “The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media,” that she writes and reports to help herself understand things so she can help others understand them as well. Five years ago I wrote to help myself comprehend my cancer and all of the surgeries and treatments that went along with it and maybe also others on the same journey understand their own journey; so here I am again writing to make sense of what is going on in my life and work my way through what I’ve read described as anticipatory grief or grieving before death. I feel lost, and afraid, and helpless because I have no control over the inevitable.

 

Dad’s dying, there’s no two ways about it; last fall we learned he has stage 3 heart failure and stage 3 kidney failure and that there is nothing more to be done surgically or medically; basically, it is what is until it isn’t. During the same time period Dad’s primary care doc told my mother and brother, Dad could live five days or five years. Lately what is has been less and what isn’t has been more pronounced and it’s terrifying and sad and all too real.

 

Nine days ago in my last blog post I wrote about fearing that Dear Old Dad wouldn’t make it through the night. Well he made it through the night and went in to the hospital the next morning. He spent seven days there having blood transfusions to get his hemoglobin up to nine from a low of seven point five, receiving IV Lasix to reduce the fluid in his body that the oral meds just weren’t strong enough to remove, and being put on two liters of oxygen to keep his oxygen levels above ninety as opposed to the eighty-five they’ve been hovering around.

 

Because of the anemia the cardiology team took Dad off of his Effient, which is basically a blood thinner that helps keep plaque and blood clots from forming around the six or nine (I don’t remember the exact number) stents in Dad’s heart; so it’s a trade off to I suppose give him a little bit better quality of life and a little more strength and in all honesty he’s not much stronger after seven days in the hospital. We had him moved to the rehab he was in last September to hopefully get him stronger, but he had a bad day today with nausea and vomiting and confusion. I hope once he gets in the swing of the daily routine and gets a few days of therapy going he’ll feel better and more like himself and be able to come home feeling stronger.

 

The term the nurses in the hospital use to explain the confusion is sundown, which basically is exactly what is sounds like, elderly people get more confused as the day winds down; no one’s sure why. Dad is definitely better during the earlier part of the day although maybe not right as he’s waking up. I swore up and down that if Dear Old Dad would take his head out of his ass and just allow the heart failure monitoring service to put him on oxygen at home (he’s a stubborn one) he wouldn’t wake up so confused but he’s been on the oxygen for more than a week now and he still gets confused. I don’t think the confusion is going away.

 

So there it is, what is and what isn’t, and my attempt to wrap my head around the knowledge that Dad’s dying and me trying to come to terms with that fact. I honestly believe it’s harder to watch someone get old and die than it is when they finally pass from this mortal coil. Long, sad endings suck, you can quote me on that.

 

Posted in: Soul Baring Ramblings Tagged: anticipatory grief, Brooke Gladstone, congestive heart failure, Dad, death, dying, grieving before death, kidney failure, sundown, The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, writing to process, writing to understand
« Previous 1 2 3 Next »

Copyright © 2021 SoapBoxVille 2.0.

Family WordPress Theme by themehall.com