Let me first tell you all about my father while he was
here. My dad was 46 years old, he was born in Sanford
Maine on June 14 1956. He found out he had diabetes
back in the 80's. Around the same time he started
having children. I never thought it was all that bad.
I mean it didn't phase me that he had it. Well Now I
know better. In The early 90's he Found out he had Hep
C. They told him they had just really started
discovering it and that most likely he had it for
years. Now that scared me a little. I knew more
information about it thats all, because as he was
learning about it, so was I. I know now more than I
ever could have imagined.
My father was a wonderful person. He lived in
Worcester Mass with my younger sister and brother, and
with his girlfriend. He was a motorcycle enthusiast,
and loved nothing more than jumping on a Harley and
going for a ride. He worked as an insurance adjuster
for many years throughout Maine, and New Hampshire,
until 1996 when he left work because of illness. He
loved to go camping, and fishing too.
My father left behind 6 beautiful children. My older
sister Danielle who is 19, Myself who is 17, My
brother Justin who is 15, My sister Laurel who is 11,
My sister Delaney who is 7, and my brother
Frankie who is 7 also. It really killed me to watch
them have to see my father like that.
He knew he had diabetes for a long time now.
He also was infected with Hep C, and unfortunately for
him there is no cure for either. My father was on
insulin, he was also doing kemo treatments at the same
time. The kemo made him feel sick after he took it,
and not able to do much but lay in bed. It was really
sad seeing him like that, but I loved him. A few days
before he got really sick he took his kemo shot, after
that he started feeling like crap, but this was normal
to feel after taking his shot. Anyhow the point of
this is he had an infection, and he didn't know it. He
just thought he was sick from his shot. He became like
bound to his bed, and couldn't really move or do much.
One morning his blood sugar was really high when he
woke up, so he had to go to the hospital. When I got
there he was just laying there and shaking all over
the place, he was still awake, but he was more like a
retarted 5 yr old, rather than my dad. His blood sugar
was almost in the thousands.
They started him on the insulin and it started going
down, but he was aggravated and still not with it.
He was hurting from the IV and was trying to pull it
out, so they put him to sleep. I never saw my dad
awake from that moment. From then on his breathing
went to hell, and he was hooked up to a ventilator.
His body started blistering and his face started
swelling up. No one could tell us what was wrong with
him. Shortly after that he went into a coma. After
that his kidneys started failing and they needed a
dialysis machine to act as an artificial kidney. It
was horrible. It turns out that he had a staph
infection, and he didn't know about it. He was never
told about what could happen to his body if he didn't
know, so he sat at home thinking his kemo was making
him sick. When really the infection was taking over
his body. I think people need to be more educated on
diseases, because people die everyday from them and
some people just don't know. My dad was a wonderful
man, and is missed alot. He left behind 6 beautiful
children, and I love nothing more than watching them
grow because they are a part of him. I think if we
were more educated he might still be here today, but I
guess you never know.
At the
end of all this 5 horible days of sleeping in the ICU
waiting room and everything. He needed a catscan, to
see if he had blood leaking into his brain, but they
couldn't move him because they thought that he would go
into cardiac arrest, they told us he would not recover
from any of this, that the brain swelling from the
blood would make him unable to recognize anything.
The only thing keeping him alive was them.
So after long and painful decisions we decided to take
him off the medicine. They let all of us into his
room and my little sister who is 7 held his hand and
stood by his side. After about 3 or 4 minutes she said
"Daddy It is Ok for you to go to heaven now" and it was
then he left. I still get teary eyed when I try to
tell someone that. I knew he had to go, and I think
since He Had to there was no better way for him
to go than that.
|
