Soon it will be December 1st, a very sorrow filled day for myself. If any of you can remember, my father passed away on this day in 2005. I still think of him alot as most children do of their father or mother. More specifically I have been thinking about how I could have made better decisions regarding his care. I know that this sort of thought process is rather self-deprecating and defeating, but I think it is something I need to write down.
A couple years back we had a discussion regarding what he would like done if he could not communicate because of a medical condition. Above all else he told me that he did not want rely on a machine for sustaining his life during an illness. He had seen first hand what being in a hospital for six months to a year does to a person in the 60+ age group. He wanted nothing to do with that.
Yet when he came down with pneumonia in the hospital and they put him on a respirator, I never mentioned his wishes. The doctors said the road to recovery would be hard, but doable. I had faith in my fathers ability to pull through it all. He was in excellent health for an 84 year old, it should not take him too long to recover! Once his lungs recover, it should only take a few weeks until he gets home. He will appreciate what we have decided to do for him.
Whenever I visited him, it was painful to see him hooked up to the machines. I so wanted him to survive though. To continue being a part of my life. So I could see him smile again, and go on a a trip that I had been wanting to take him on. In retrospect it would appear that I was blinded by my own selfish want to have him be a part of my life still. When it came down to making the decision, I thought about what I wanted. Not what he would have wanted to happen in this instance.
During his last months when he was awake, he was always happy to see me come by. He never showed me what he was truly feeling inside when he was stuck in a wheelchair, unable to control his bodily functions, unable to feed himself. He smiled when I brought him gourmet chocolate from foreign lands, and smuggled in a beer so he could have a sip or two. He was happy that I bought him some very small dumbbells so he could exercise in his room and Alaskan Fireweed honey for his waffles and pancakes at breakfast.
After he passed my mother informed me how he wondered why we had went against his wishes about the machine. He did not want to live in this new life that had been forced upon him by the illness. With his muscles so weak he ended up a shell of his former glory that could not even take care of himself. He hated being a burden on all of us, but above all he never let me see one iota of that. He did not want to burden me any further with his thoughts regarding the matter.
So hence, Sometimes I think I made a bad decision for him.
Filed by RawCode at 6:51 am under Commentary
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