my dad and what I have learned from illnesses

In 2003 my parents were visiting my sister Maria in CT.  They were supposed to go somewhere for the children’s spring Easter break from school.  Dad had a very bad pain in his side and Maria was able to talk him into going to the urgent care place.  Since dad has heart problems (2 of the angio surgeries in the 90s and etc) they tested his pk (sp?) levels.  They were very high and they gave him morphine and transfer him to a very good hospital.  He was in the right place!  What happened was that the muscle in his side was disintegrating and when the proteins in your muscles break down they increase the pk levels which in turn destroy your kidneys and other organs.  They never found out why his muscle tissue did that but the term for the state is Rhabdomyolysis.  The hospitalist saved dad’s life.  When I got the phone call telling what was up and I spoke with my Mom, all we could do was pray.  Dad’s body had shut down and there was a period of about 10 minutes where they were not sure how much oxygen was getting to his brain.  The way I ended up praying was that if that dad still had work to do it this lifetime to let him survived and come back from this.  The pk levels were highest they had ever seen and there was one other person who had them higher and they died.  When I got to CT dad was still unconscious and on a respirator and portable dialysis etc.  He did comeback from that and had some brain damage.  He spent a month in the hospital in CT and then came home to Hampton.  He got dialysis only once in Hampton and then he got a staph infection in his blood.  I just happened to stop by my parent’s house that day and he was all of a sudden getting very sick and throwing up.  Mom called the dr and then 911 and dad was taken to the hospital.  He ended up getting off of dialysis since his kidneys were working just good enough to not need dialysis.  He ended up getting a tube implanted in his arm/ artery for infusion of antibiotic for a month to treat the staph infection.  He developed an organic looking growth on his mitral valve that looks like cauliflower kind of thing.  I learned a lot from all of this and I was laid off from working so I was able to take him to get the infusions and help.  One thing I learned was that Dad will pass when he has accomplished what he needs to in this lifetime.  He was stubborn and the dr in ct were stomped as to what caused all of this and wanted him to go to John Hopkins for a muscle biopsy which he refused (mom was upset with him on that decision since dr thought it might be genetic).  While he was in the hospital in ct there were times when he just wanted to go home to VA and die.  He got beyond all of that and each of us in our family had a part to play.  When I went back up and saw dad conscious that was when he told me there was something special about our relationship.  He has one brother and no sisters.  I am the 2^nd child and the firstborn and oldest girl so that made it special.   I have since learned it is a bit deeper than that.  I was able to see how much my parents really do love each other when I was in the room with dad and mom when dad was on the respirator (which was very good since they tend to fight and argue a lot).  He would respond to our voices with twitches and etc.  In 2003, I was still on probation just not supervised probation and was back on the path of healing.  I had started meditating again while I was in jail in Nov of 2001 and was doing that and going to NA and AA meetings and doing the 12 step stuff.  I learned the power of prayer for sure during these family crises.  Dad had a heart attack 2 or 3 years ago on father’s day and that is when we found out that when he saw the open heart surgeon the previous fall why he did not have bypass surgery.  The surgeon felt that there was no good tissue to bypass to, that he would not be able to get him off the table.  Dad did not tell any of us this until he has the heart attack.  He is very stubborn and set in his ways and we thought he was just being his usual self and not wanting to take care of himself.  Now to now a days.  He was finally given a potential timeline in Jan or Feb. of this year and he was very peaceful telling us that he did not want to have life support etc.  he was told while in the hospital either in dec or jan that his heart id working at 10%  and that his heart would not survive a heart attack, that he could be kept alive but would not regain consciousness.  We had our first ever family meeting and that is unusual, it is very autocratic family with Dad having to be in control.  He was very peaceful and expressed that he had 7 extra years already.  He has living will and my uncle George, my dad’s brother and his wife were the witnesses.  This has progressed since then and when dad went to the dr on this past Tuesday he is slowing down more and his organs are working slower, his kidneys are having more problems.  So he chose that when his kidneys fail to not have dialysis and the dr explained that he would go into a coma and most likely pass within 5 days after that.  It is Dads life and body and his choice as to how to handle all of this.  He has said many times that he is not afraid of dying and when he messed up on his meds he told me it would be soon. I have no idea when it will happen but do see him getting slower and the life force leaving him.  He reluctantly uses the wheel chair and does occasionally go places.  The family took him to Jamestown on Saturday and he really enjoyed that and seeing my nephew Kris working as an interpreter on the Godspeed.  I was over the parent’s house for a little bit yesterday and dad was out and about and telling us how to do things and then went back into the house and was resting.  He was giving me a hard time for sailing instead of going to Jamestown which is just his style of doing things.  I used to sail with my dad when I young, I would sail the boat and would lie on the trampoline of the catamaran and just be there.  It was lots of fun.  I never thought that he meditated but I get the feeling that was what he was doing when it felt like he was in a sense of just being.  I also used to take walks with him growing up in the Wythe area of Hampton.  The Hampton Roads is 2 blocks from my parent’s house and there is this road called Chesapeake ave that runs along the water.  We used to take walks along there and just enjoy being in each other’s company and not always talking, just being.  Sailing was also like that.  Dad is very scientific and was trained as an engineer and very traditional.  He is also Irish and spent a year in Belfast when he was 5 years old.  There are some intuitive gifts that run in my father’s family and he expresses by words that they do not exist or believe that they are real.  By his actions they are real but do not fit the traditional scientific world this has been an interesting journey of healing on many levels for my family.  I am slowly teaching my family heart breath and it very wonderful to see how things are changing for the better as we are all using it more and more.  My niece Dani seems to almost have been born knowing heart breath!  She took a class in college this semester called stress reduction in which she learned yoga.  She is teaching her Mom, my sister Maria yoga and breathing techniques and has an amazing amount of wisdom for someone who turned 19 Jan 2, 2010.  The pieces are falling into place and my family is helping each other more and more and it seems to be letting go of trying to always understand everything!  It is so cool to watch us all expand and grow.  Mom sounds better and seems to be handling the stress better.  T is not easy to live with my dad and his way of constantly criticizing everything you do.  I have seen heart breath and me coming from a grounded, centered place of love help all of those around me and of course help me.  Dad has been told he will not better but that he will get weaker and slower as his body and organs wear out.  That is what seems to be happening.  I have no idea how it will be for me when he transitions but I already connect to him soul to soul and will always be able to do that. Just like I am able to connect with who I refer to as my Irish relatives the ones who have already passed on.  My dad’s mom was one of 9 children and I think there were 6 who lived to be adults in grandfather’s family.  Dad was born here in VA and most of my Irish family (human form ones) is in the UK now and Canada and other parts of what was the British Empire.  I have one great aunt who is still alive she is 11 years older than Dad and is his youngest aunt, my grandmother’s youngest sister.  She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  She turned 90 years old on June 8^th which is the same day my brother turned 51.  It was wonderful seeing the pictures that were exchanged from our family’s for the 2 birthday gatherings for the same birthday of June 8th