breathe

A vent is not like on TV. On TV, there’s a million cords, which is true, but there’s a lot of sound, beeps and air and oxygen. The person is often times sitting up. They look peaceful with their eyes closed, even with a tube in their mouth it doesn’t look unnatural. The air going into their lungs looks normal – the rise and fall of their chest is natural.

That is not real life. In real life, it looks fake. It does not look peaceful, because sedation does not equal anesthesia … they feel pain and discomfort. The rise and fall of their chest is mechanical, perfect … 1, 2, 3, breathe, 1, 2, 3, breathe…

My Dad has had pain since before I was born. He was hurt when he was in the iron workers in his early twenties… some shoulder injury and then compressed disks. He always required some sort of pain relief, whether it was tylenol, motrin, and eventually narcotics. I didn’t see it then, because I was a kid, but I do remember once my Mom had sinus surgery and it was very painful for her. She was still recovering, sitting in our living room where she’d been for days, and she was out of pain medication. No one could find it.

This was not the only time I heard questions about where certain medications were, but again … what did I know? I was just a child.

My Dad is wonderful. He has been there for me more than anyone. He spent thousands of dollars in an attempt to help me get my kids away from their Dad. He’s given me a roof over my head long after I should have been on my own. He supplied me with a car when I was sixteen. He’s been amazing to my kids – K and him were always SO close. I have so many wonderful memories of him being the grandfather that they needed when their life was absolutely crazy. He loves them so much, I feel like he’d do anything for them.

But he isn’t himself anymore. He isn’t anything except a body on a bed in a hospital with a tube shoved down his throat.

I noticed. I noticed when he started to wreck every single car he owned and it was always someone else’s fault – the last time he drove was after he got into a wreck with my own car. He totaled it, and my baby was in the backseat. When my husband would no longer let him drive, his fury was intense, and directed at the man I love.

I noticed when I was 5 months pregnant and he came to us and told us the house was being foreclosed on – the house we all lived in. He made over three thousand dollars a month and the only bill he had was the house payment (we paid everything else, including groceries and his cell phone). He was three months behind on his payment even though his sister had been helping him keep caught up. Where was the money going? He had bills.

I noticed when my husband found him outside on the ground, barely breathing, and had to do CPR until the paramedics arrived. They said possible pneumonia. They said heart attack. They said everything but overdose – but my friends had access to his chart and it definitely said cardiac arrest induced by overdose of narcotics.

I noticed when he stopped working because his pain was too intense. I noticed when he kept getting dropped by pain management doctors. I noticed when people would come to the house and he’d stand outside at their car for several minutes before he’d come in the house. I noticed when my husbands much needed xanax went missing. I noticed when he’d walk around the house like he was high. I noticed when my baby pulled a router onto his head because my Dad, who was supposed to be watching him, was falling in and out of sleep on the couch. I noticed when he’d constantly lose money and have no idea where it came from. I noticed when he talked me into letting him on the title of my car so that he could get an advance loan from the bank that he was paid through – so they’d be directly taking money from his check – and then got that very car repossessed because he refused to work and stopped paying the loan.

I noticed … but he’s my Dad, you know? He still loved the kids. He still tried to spend time with them. He loved Lucas so much. I mean, L is the baby. He’s the amazing Tiny Iron Man.

So, we moved him to Arizona … get him away from the people who were bringing him down. Let him be with his Dad. Amazingly, he began to become more healthy. His health problems were getting better, medications that were needed for his other health issues were being taken regularly. He felt good. Even when we moved here, he was doing really really well. It was amazing to see him, back to his old self. The Dad I remembered. Active in his grandkids life. Not perfect, but we moved here in part so that he could be around the kids. He’d come over for a few days at a time and spend a good deal of time with the kids. We even let him watch all three of them for a weekend while we went to Jerome.

And then … I noticed, this time I didn’t ignore. The first thing was that he came over and while he was supposed to spend time with the kids, he slept 85% of the time. The other 15% he was eating all of our food, including L’s emergency diabetic supplies (candy, pudding, fruit snacks, etc.). He would get mad that we wouldn’t go out and buy him Mtn. Dew because he hates everything else, and then would drink ALL of the soda that I buy for work (don’t drink coffee, drink a coke a night at work for caffeine). My aunt told me that he never had money, that she was buying his groceries and paying all his bills. He admitted to me he had a problem and he really wanted me to help him manage his meds.

When Lucas was diagnosed with diabetes, Michael had to go out of town for work. My Dad, who had seemed to be doing pretty well the last few months before that, was the only one who could really come and stay with the kids so that they could go to school. So he came for the second night (Michael was with them the first night, but had to leave the following morning). That second night, I called the kids and talked to them but something was … wrong.

I sent a quick email to the counselor at school that evening, simply asking her to watch K – she didn’t sound right.

Crisis prevention was called. My Dad, who very well knew that we monitored K’s medication, had not been and she nearly took ALL of her mood stabilizers at once. Her anxiety and fear over her little brother, who had been so close to death, had done her over. She’d had no supervision, as C told me that my Dad had laid on the couch the entire time that he’d been there and had not gotten up once. My Dad’s lack of supervision could have killed my very unstable child. My child that he knew was a danger to herself. I had a friend pick up K from school and bring her to me, so that she could see her little brother was alive and OK, so I could hold her and be there for her. Michael flew in on the next flight and told my Dad to get out. When I came back from the hospital, I realized that he’d also taken pain medication given to me by my OB-GYN for in case I have a burst cyst. He took my meds. He took something that I needed, to feed his addiction. I noticed. And I was angry. You can do whatever you want to me, but you do not hurt my babies.

So he was never allowed back, and he’s never been back. I’ve seen him maybe five times since Lucas was diagnosed. We go out to dinner sometimes, we go to my aunts, he came over for Lucas’ birthday party… but nothing more than that. So, maybe it’s my fault he’s laying in a bed nearly dead, a machine breathing for him, because I haven’t been there for him the way he needs. Maybe he thinks because I’ve decided to protect mine and my kids’ heart, it means we don’t love him. That’s not the truth, of course. I love him immensely, but I cannot enable his behavior and I refuse to allow my kids to be a part of that, especially K who is so volatile and easily influenced.

He has spiraled out of control, buying benzos off the street. He had a seizure. My aunt called me Sunday morning while I was giving report, surrounded by 20 people. I told her how to protect him, I told her to call EMS. We went to the hospital because I’m his POA – they needed consent to do a thousand things. He was in four point restraints because he tried to attack the nurses and EMT in his drug induced haze. It’s not an OD, they said. It’s a withdrawal.

I miss my Dad so much.  Not who he is. Not because he’s unconscious and wish he’d wake up. I miss who he was.

I don’t know how to plan a funeral.