breezy22's Journal

My dad passed on away on Saturday Sept. 13 2008. He decided to end his life support. I got to spend the morning talking with him and then he just said he was ready for his nap. They hooked him up to sedation and removed his ventilator. He lasted 8 hours. His funeral was today and i think this has been the hardest week of my life. But i am lucky to have my mom and brother and sisters. Family makes everything so much easier. My dad has been sick since last September. One year later he decided he had had enough. I do no blame him. I could not imagine deciding to choose when you die. He was totally at peace because he heart was with the Lord. I wondered why he had to go through such a hard year if he was going to die anyway, but then i realized God is merciful. Now saying this may seem strange considering the pain and suffering my dad went through, but God and my father was protecting us children. This past year has changed our lives. But over the past year we have started families and made major decisions in our life. I think that the Lord and my dad waited until we were settled in our lives. It is so amazing that even though my dad was the one who was going through this he still only though about his children. A parent will do anything to save their children from being hurt. I know that now that i am a mother. One of the last things my father said to me was Be Strong and Don't Worry. What amazing words coming from a man in his position. The Lord is good no matter what. He has a reason for everything. Sometimes it is hard to see his reason but eventually everything comes out. It is hard to say goodbye but for those of us who know the Lord we are only saying see ya later. I will see my dad later.

My dad was a pretty healthy man. He was 53 at the time he first got sick. My family and I moved to Ohio to live with him. At the time it seemed like a hardship on us because my husband had lost his job and what couple wants to move in with the parents. But the Lord has a way of putting us where we need to be when we are needed. We had only been home for about a month when my dad started to get sick.  He just stayed in his room all the time and slept. Which was not like him at all. He loves being outside. Well long story short docs found a tumor in his pancreas. Every doctor just knew it was cancerous even though the biopsy said it wasnt. But when your dealing with pancreatic cancer it was just scary and we were told to be happy that it was found in an operable stage. So...he had the surgery and lost half of his organs and it was NOT cancer. Well since he lost half of his stomach, eating was hard for him when he came home. all the meds with not eating caused bleeding ulcers. He almost bled to death before i talked him into going to the ER. Another surgery later they finally stopped the bleeding. But he lost even more of his stomach. He was sent to a rehab to tube feed this time so he could regain his strength before he was sent home. While he was there no one seen that his kidney were failing. We kept asking why he was gaining so much water weight.  One brave nurse at the nursing home kept telling us that he knew it was his kidneys. He would stand up to the doctor and say it but the doctors said that his levels were high but nothing they could do. Until one day he couldn't breath. The water had filled his lungs. He was sent back to the hospital went through emergency dialysis. The doctors thought that he would regain use of his kidneys after a few treatments. But no one was expecting him to catch a super rare strand of MRSA. That infection kept him on a ventilator for 3 months on and off, mostly on. He had a lung surgery and we thought that he wouldn't make it throught that. So he was pretty much in a sedated state for 5  months before he finally got cleared to go to an icu rehab. He is there now. I went to visit him the day he got there and praise the Lord he was back. It was like talking to dad at the kitchen table. The Lord has worked so many miracles in my dad's life and i know that this kidney situation will be taken care of in the Lord's time. But dad told me it was like waking up and your body doesn't work. He had no idea that he was in kidney failure and that he had been through so much. So its very sad watching him be so helpless. But having him is worth it. He could have died so many times but the Lord has brought him through the rough of it because i know that he is meant to be alive. But although my dad has faced all of these trials he still looked at me and said "What can we do? Life ALWAYS changes, and we just have to adapt" That was such inspiration coming from a man whose life has been turned upside down.