Nearing The End

This past Sunday, David and Suze drove down from Montgomery to visit their "Pop-pop". Luckily he was having a good day. We visited with him for several hours, just talking about stuff in general.

One thing I haven't mentioned before is that my Dad always wears a red hat - I forget what they are called, but I call them the English golfing hats - kinda a flat type. Anyway, when my son and daughter were getting ready to leave, Suze put on his red hat and said "bye Pop-pop". He turned to say goodbye and saw her with his red hat on and jokingly said "you can't have that, it's my hat, put it back"! We all had a good laugh from this - one of his last.

Daddy with his "red hat" on his favorite toy!

The pastor from Marlow UMC stopped to visit him on Sunday also. He informed me that he had a really nice visit and that as long as he asked direct questions, Daddy was very responsive.

Dean and I returned to see Daddy later Sunday afternoon and he didn't remember the visit from him. He did remember his grandchildren being there though.

I'm so glad he had this day.

Monday, Dean and I noticed a change in him. Very quiet and wouldn't eat - would only drink milk. Layed in bed all day mostly sleeping. Tuesday morning I received a call from Liveoak that he had become quite agitated that morning and refused his morning meds. When we arrived we found him lying in bed, sleeping, but not a restful sleep. When he would wake up he would speak a few words, most of which were not understandable and he seemed to be in a state of confusion. The hospice nurse came mid-morning and checked his blood oxygen levels and found that they were low so started him on oxygen. We hired a sitter to come in and stay with him Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning when we returned to his apartment we found the floor CNA and the nurse from Liveoak in the room, attempting to get him to take his meds and put a t-shirt on. Seems that Tuesday night he became highly agitated and fought to take the oxygen off, his shirt off and the bed sheets off. Well, this continued all day Wednesday. Hospice did bring some medicine for anxiety and it seemed to help a little during the day. We again, hired a sitter for the night, except I had to return at 9pm to give him the anxiety medication. As to why I had to do this is a long story and I won't expand on it here. At 9 pm, when I arrived, he was in an extremely agitated state. I did manage to get his medicine in him by smashing the pills and mixing them with applesauce. At 10:30 I called Hospice as he still hadn't settled down - kept trying to take the oxygen off or remove his shirt. The sitter and I sat on each side of the bed holding his hand to try to calm him. At 1 am the Hospice nurse came and immediately said "I can't believe that your not on "Crisis Care". I told him that I couldn't believe it either, that I had told the nurse that I thought it was time, but felt like I was ignored. The nurse upped the dosage of anxiety medicine, gave him more and after about 30 minutes, Daddy finally drifted off to sleep. Dean and I stayed until 2 am and then came home to grab a few hours sleep as we had to return by 6:30 am.

Thursday morning when we returned to Liveoak, Daddy was still resting comfortably. As the day progressed, Hospice did place him under "Crisis Care" which means that there is now a nurse 24/7 and it takes a lot of the stress off of Dean and me. The goal is to keep him resting comfortably until the end.

I didn't mention that on Wednesday he did turn and look at me one time. I asked him if he knew who I was and he said "yes, your Virginia". My heart stopped, as that was my mother who died in 2002. He then turned his head back and shut his eyes to sleep some more. I like to think that he did see his wife of almost 60 years and that she is indeed there to lead him home.

With that, I'll end this post....