Coming Home............
My Dad should have been coming home, but he didn't. Almost two years ago Dad began to have trouble breathing, the smallest of chores would tire him. A walk in the yard, carrying wood to the house for the stove, eventually a stroll up the back woods became a thing of the past.
Reluctantly Dad went for a check-up and surgery was scheduled for an angiogram. While doing this procedure it was discovered that Dad needed more; he needed a quadruple by-pass.
Clogged arteries. This explained his tiredness and shortness of breath. The surgery was scheduled for and performed on July 29, 2005. Dad came through with flying colours, now the healing process began and it would be only a matter of time and Dad would be up and about, his old self.
Dad's old self......daily walks up into the back woods, or what we plainly called "the bush." Cutting down tree after tree with his chain saw, then once the tree had been leveled Dad would cut the tree and the big branches into lengths suitable for the stove. Piling the wood onto the wagon to be towed behind the Argo was something my Dad had been doing since before I was a teenager. Mom was always right there with Dad, helping him pile the wood into the wagon then once chopped into pieces---by Dad, by hand with his axe---the two of then would pile the wood under a shelter that they had built to keep the wood dry.
My parents never used the electric heat that they installed in the house that they built for their retirement in Perth, Ontario, Canada. It was there for emergencies only. Their home was heated, every year for fourteen years since their retirement, with wood that Dad cut & split; wood from their own bush.
Dad was a hunter, he hunted deer for as long as I can remember. He hunted ducks, the odd pheasant or rabbit. Dad enjoyed fishing for quite a few years also; I loved to fish with my Dad. We didn't get out near as much as we should have, but we did get out in that boat and troll Christie Lake.
When I was three, my Dad built us a house in Whitby, Ontario. Apparently I crawled up the plank that Dad was using to scurry up & down on....I wanted to see what my Daddy was doing; he near passed out when he turned around on the roof and saw me.
There are so many things that I want to write down about my Dad, mainly for my grandson who turned one year old just the week before my Dad passed away. Cameron will have no memories of his great grandfather so I will document and detail those memories for him so that he can know the wonderful, strong, independent individual that my father was.
Shortly after the surgery, Dad began to have trouble swallowing. Long story short, the tube that they intubated him with during his by-pass scraped his throat. Test after test showed nothing; every response was "everything looks good." Well, obviously everything was not good or my father would not have had to resort to literally surviving on Ensures and protein drinks. He throat got so bad that he could not tolerate solids of any kind. The food didn't taste right, he wouldn't go down, it stuck in his throat.
Finally an Esophageal Motility test was done and the performing individual had trouble betting the tube down Dad's throat. Alas, they discovered a problem.
Only a week or so after the motility test my Dad was experiencing chest pains worse than usual. He had Nitro, he also had three or four puffers/inhalers. Nothing was working. Dad didn't want to go to the hospital, he kept telling my Mom and brother "wait a few minutes"..."wait ten minutes"..."just another twenty minutes." Mom later said that Dad knew something was up; he wanted to take (the home, yard, etc.) it all in. My brother and mother drove my Dad into Perth, this was on May 4.
Dad never came back home. He spent the last five weeks of his life in Perth Great War Memorial Hospital. Under the care of the Hospital Dr, Dr. D.G.; his own Dr., Dr. T looked after Dad as well, and when he was off, my brother's Dr., Dr. J took over. The nurses/PSW's/HCA's were wonderful. A few things needed straightening out when Dad first arrived ie his diet. He hadn't eaten solids in months and what arrives for supper his first night....chicken breast, mixed veggies, hash browns. We spoke with the dietician and a proper (liquid) diet was ordered.
Dad's therapist, Mona, was wonderful. She had Dad up & about, strengthening his legs. The Dr's discussed inserting a feeding tube into Dad to put some meat on his bones while they did more tests to see exactly what the throat problem was, why Dad couldn't swallow.
The results of the motility test did come back, something showed, and now they had to surgically correct it but in order to do this Dad had to gain some weight and some strength.
The odds were against Dad though, shortly after receiving the news of surgery he took a bad spell and ended up back in ICU where he was originally placed upon arrival. After a few days in ICU Dad was given a room. Upon his arrival in ICU oxygen was given to Dad via prongs. We thought nothing of this at the time, nor did we think anything of it when the oxygen continued in Dad's room. He was weak from not being able to eat, a little oxygen would do him good.
The bad spell.......long story short, they thought they were going to lose Dad. He had such a hard time breathing and ended up on a CPAP machine. It was after that initial spell that Dad (and us) were told that he had emphysema. Even though he had quit smoking near 24 years ago, just before my daughter was born because he said he did not want the smoke around her, the damage was already done. Do not believe the commercials or any literature that states that your lungs will go back to normal, pretty and pink, after you quit smoking. They don't. They remain as they did during the time you smoked, the damage has already set in, and any second hand smoke that one may be subjected to from then on in is just as dangerous, if not worse, to the lungs.
Working in the medical field, I re-assured my Dad that he could lead a perfectly normal life thanks to portable oxygen units. He would be able to come home, he wouldn't be strapped to a hospital bed---so to speak---he could continue a variety of his hobbies, within reason of course. Dad was quite happy to hear this; he was also happy to know that a feeding tube wasn't going to keep him down either. Should it end up being permanent he could go home & lead a relatively normal life. Anything would be better than 'living' in a hospital. No matter how good the care, who in their right mind wants to remain in a hospital if they are able to go home.
That is all we ever wanted, my mother, brother, and myself, was for Dad to come home.
God had other plans.
