The Diary of a Grieving Daughter

Happy Birthday Dad!!! I’m sad that I can’t go visit you.

This is an account of my fathers death, my true uncut raw emotions, what i was thinking and feeling.

I know I’m not the first person on the planet to lose a loved one, and I won’t be the last, but writing helps me. I need to write. I need to articulate exactly how it happened, exactly how I felt. It helps me process,. So be prepared for the uncut honesty that is too follow.

“I can’t get a pulse”. What? You’re mistaken, I jump out of my chair and join her at his bedside. Surely there is still a pulse, he’s just quiet because the morphine relaxed him. Neck….no pulse, chest is still, no breath sounds. There is no pulse. I look at my mother who is sitting at the foot of the bed. There is no pulse.

He’s gone mom. We were both in shock. I mean, yes we knew he was dying, we knew he wasn’t going to get better this time. But it still came sudden, I thought it would be at least another day. He just stopped breathing. His struggle was over.

I think this moment will haunt me for a long time. the five minutes leading up to this moment will haunt me for a long time. I’m trying to be at peace with it. I’m trying hard. He would want me to be at peace with it. I was in the room with him, that counts for something right? Please tell me it does. 

earlier that day, well technically the day before:

It’s 12:05pm on Sunday March 23rd, 2008. I’m sitting at my computer desk, thinking I should probably get ready for work soon. My phone rings. I pick it up and look at the display screen. It’s ProTem, and the number isn’t from my old house so that means it’s from the house where my dad lives.

“Hello”

It’s about my dad, he took a turn, they couldn’t wake him up that morning, he had bled out quite a bit and blood pressure is low. It’s not looking good. I call my mother and get ready and head over to the home.

I go right into my father’s bedroom, extra mural is there putting in a butterfly so morphine shots can be given to keep him comfortable. I go to his bedside but I don’t talk. I talk to the nurse but not my dad. I will always for the rest of life wonder why I didn’t talk. I always talked, whenever I saw my dad, even if he was sleeping, I always said “Hi dad, It’s Tina, it’s okay Dad” or something like that. Always. Why didn’t I this time? I was quiet, I curled up in the chair beside his bed and just sat there. My mom came. We talked. It became 2:20 pm and I had to decide to go to work or not. He seemed stable at that time, so I was fairly certain he wasn’t going anywhere in the next few hours so I went to work. Also because I didn’t know how many days he would last, I didn’t want to take to much time off work before hand, but I did want to be there with him. It was all about the perfect balance, the perfect timing. I went to work. It was a slow day because it was Easter Sunday. I got to leave early. I will always be grateful to the managers who were on that evening, who let me go early. They gave me the gift of 4 extra hours at my fathers bedside. I didn’t know then that he wasn’t going to make it through the night. If I hadn’t of gotten off early I don’t know if I would have gone up to the home at 11pm when I got off work, I may have just called and went home with plans to return in the morning. I would have been too late.

Again I just went into the room and sat there. His mouth looked dry, I went in search for some lemon glycerin swabs. The care-worker handed me some and I said “I can’t do it” why couldn’t I? I couldn’t even watch because it made him uncomfortable…I went into the living room and silently wept.

 Again I sat in the chair. Talked to my mother. I wanted to talk to him alone so I would wait until my mother left the room to use the bathroom or something….after-all I have time, he has at least another day. I have time.

Never put off til tomorrow what you can do today. I’ve now adopted that saying as my motto. my mom did leave the room to use the bathroom, but I was tired, it was late, I will have time to talk to him in the morning.

Sometime between 1 and 2 am the congestion started. “That’s normal, I told my mother” it can last for a long time, days. the congestion got worse and worse, by 4am he was really struggling to breath and was uncomfortable. between 4 and 5 he sounded like he was choking on the phlegm. The hardest thing ever is to sit and listen to your loved one struggling for air. And there is nothing you can do about it. You are helpless.  

At 4:30 I went to tell the care worker that he was uncomfortable, she came in to check and gave him a Ventolin mask to see if it would help break up some of the phlegm. Well from where I was sitting I couldn’t see his face, just her back. But my mother could. She said the mask and noise scared him, he looked panicked. This too will haunt me for a long time. For what we did not know in that moment was that he was in his lat few moments of life. He was scared. She comforted him but I stayed in my chair. It’s okay I told my self, this will help him breath a little easier for a little while and he’s going to get a morphine shot in a moment, so he’ll be okay but I couldn’t see the panicked look or I would have gotten up. I would have, I know it. Why didn’t you tell me mom, why didn’t you say something? He was scared in his last few moments on earth. This breaks my heart. breaks it. she finished the mask and gave him his shot. He slowly but steadily calmed down adn quieted, a few moments later he was quieter but made 3 quiet choking type sounds, not like a gasp but like no air was getting through, I rose to my feet and went over and checked hid neck for a pulse. there’s still a pulse. I sit down and grab my book and read. I read a few paragraphs, silence. He’s quiet, too quiet. He looks grey my mom says, I look up as the care worker enters the room and goers to his bedside, once again blocking my view. I look down, I look at my book, staring at the words but they aren’t registering. She has been standing there for over a minute, why isn’t she saying anything…..2 minutes, she hasn’t moved…I know what this means but I’m in denial. I continue to sit and stare at my book, 4 or 5 minutes pass….she says “I can’t find a pulse”.

thoughts from Sunday, March 23rd. 

Palliative care was the part of the job I enjoyed most. I’ve had friends tell me I sound morbid when I say that. I worked in a special care home for dementia for 2 years. We did our own palliative care in the home so our residents could live their last days in there home and familiar comfortable environment.

I loved doing palliative because we came to love our residents, and in their last few days, I felt honored to be able to care for them, make sure they were comfortable, bathe them with care and compassion, and be there for the family. I never had a hard time doing any of this. I wanted to do it.

As I sat in my fathers bedroom during his last hours, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t help turn him, because he would moan in pain and it broke my heart. I couldn’t even swab his mouth when it looked dry, I had to get a care worker to do it, yet I had done it myself many times before for other ppl. Why couldn’t I? I usually make myself do things like that even though it’s hard so that I don’t have regrets. Now I have regrets. Why couldn’t I do those last for things for him? Why was it so weird for me? I don’t believe in regrets or guilt so I’m trying to process it and rationalize it. This is all so hard.