My Father's Story - Aftereffects, Hospital, and Beginnings....
my father never once complained, through all the procedures and years, and during the brief times at home
Dedicated to the living memory of my beloved father, Joseph Baker
June 6, 1916 - Sunday, July 2, 2006 10:35pm...
I helped my father take care of himself from 1997 on...it was my privilege.
I cannot imagine the fact that as of about the first of Sept my father started his journey through hell and the changes between then and now for him.
He apparently told the rev friend of my brother's 2 years ago that he wasn't afraid of death, he'd just be with my mother, but he said " I don't want to leave the boys" and he said he wanted as much life as he could get and enjoy - together, not separately.
I am so grateful for the fact that every morning I would make him some drink, get some applesauce, get the drink and applesauce into him as he sat up and/or I helped him up;ask him how he slept, how he was feeling, maybe put some ointment on his thighs and back, and then help him have a short nap before I got some small amount of cereal ready for him.
We used to have a bed routine for years here and in hospital where I'd sit on the bed, check each of his hands in turn by grasping, say not too bad, and maybe his feet and then warm two bags to put on either side of them so they'd warm and he'd sleep well.
I'd say I love you, sleep well, I'll see you in the morning .. and he was always saying to me, "You know, Dean, you're a good guy" to which I would usually reply, "Thanks, Dad, I'm alright."We sort of fell out of that lately for some reason and I don't know if he missed it, I know he liked it very much because he always used to grasp my hands; but I am hoping he knew I allowed it to alter in the hope things were changing for the better.
I know he felt my touch at the hospital, he knew it separate and apart from anyone else. I'd stroke his forehead and he would relax, any minute seizure would stop.
My father depended on me and knew he could, always; and that still amazes me, that he knew and that he could - and I did not find out til afterwards that he told this to everyone possible.
I said to him a few times, 'poor you, when he'd say to my brother, Dean will take care of me, meaning food, etc etc etc.
He would often say to me I'm your best friend you know... and I would say of course, I know that Dad, sorry I did not know it when I was younger. ...
Last thing my Dad said to me was after I said I love you Dad, he said I love you too Dean, you and Terry. I said I know you love us Dad, we both know it very well. I said again I love you Daddy and he 3/4 asleep reached to hug me and I hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.
We did have that loving relationship, more so as time went on. The last afternoon, a Saturday, he turned to me out of the blue, while sitting in his chair, and said, “You know Dean, you're a great guy”.. I sort of let it go by, just saying thanks Dad…
Later that night, as had become our custom I told him I loved him and said I'd check on him in awhile. He said I love you too Dean.. and Terry… I said I know Dad, you love us both very well… then I kissed him on cheek and said I love you, see you in a bit… which I did… checked again, rubbed his back.. checked a bit later, rubbed his thigh which ached due to osteoarthritis, gave him a hug and said I love you and I'm going to have a bath, back in about 20 min, and he just sort of mumbled, thank you Dean.. thank you for helping me Dean… I since found out he told everyone that he didn't know where he would be without me, that he could always count on me…. I was about 15 minutes
I went downstairs and he was cold, shook him gently, slapped his face gently… his eyes were fixed beneath the lids I caught a glimpse of then..
We got him back with ambulance, but he started having little 6 second seizures next day in hospital, would only stop when I would rub his temples, wasn't yet responding to touch otherwise… later that evening he did, but before so, they said he was partially brain dead, could register emotions but no thought
I just whispered to him, “Daddy, you go ahead and do whatever you want, you don't have to worry, everything will be fine, it's ok, I love you, Terry loves you, you will be fine.”
It's been, and remains, hellacious
This past weekend I went to the cottage – almost the hardest thing I have ever done in my life… the weight of the world…so much fun there last year.. I drove up there with him myself on Aug.21, with him out of hospital Mar.3 from being in since Dec.10, said we're going, no more I don't know.. he loved it.. on Sept.1 we went up there again, returned Sept.11, and it hit me there this weekend… we didn't know that within 24 hrs he'd be in the hospital from Sept.12 until May 9
Have a heart attack and 4 cardiac arrests caused by the hospital's administration or lack of administration of medicine, be in ICU for 10 ½ days without opening his eyes while the awful nurses gave me the stars because, not only was I there 10-14 hrs a day, I found out they thought I was keeping him alive for myself… witches……all the while telling me to prepare myself, and me sometimes having the energy to say ok, how
He later told me he knew everything that was going on while he was under… then he had a tracheotomy.. and all the while managing to smile and joke with me
I recalled at cottage that he used to say ‘ when we were in the hospital…' his own quiet way of saying I know you went through it with me…. And it was there that the final realization of just what torture and utter horror he went through the past 9 months hit me… he had gotten so incredibly thin…. But always managed a good morning smile for me, without fail, no matter a restless sleep, any throwing up, loss of any appetite, he always had a smile for me .. all the while fighting and feeling mostly terrible though we had good days, and good moments
When I bitched about my time being eaten, about the summer disappearing, he understood it wasn't at him, it was about him not feeling well…. He even asked one social worker when I wasn't in the room about going into a respite hospital for a week to give me a break.. she told me when I came into the living room… I said hell no, I want, he's not going there, and I turned to him and said hey Dad, I want you at home, here, I miss your company when you aren't feeling well, and I miss us just relaxing together on the porch in the summer evening, but no way, I'll get a break somehow, you're staying here.. I could see him sort of smile to himself at that, very pleased….
My sweet Dad…sweeter as time went on…
Aftereffects
On July 2, 2006, my father shrugged off his burden; though it is my belief that having suffered partial brain death, my father chose to leave, July 1, Canada Day.. I lost my father, my companion, my best friend.
In the wake of a death, people crowd around. Offering condolences, hugs, handshakes, and memories shared. They say oh you'll be okay but it will take a long time. A few even offer the fact that your whole life has changed irrevocably. They state the fact that this isn't the worst time, but afterwards is, when people just disappear, leave you alone in your grief, and need to mourn.
Then they disappear. I know a few are very present, yet at this stage of difficulty I require the contact as I drift, feeling lost in my grief, unable to distinguish landmarks through the fog.
The exception being Wayne from across the street with whom I can talk any time; and infrequently, a heartfelt Deacon Bill. As usual, my father's assessment of people's character was spot on. Relatives? Excepting my brother, not a peep, after a few emails in the first week to 10 days. Nothing. Karen & Ben are there though, always.
I learned early on from my father that giving to others was a very legitimate and honest way of staying well in touch with yourself, and ensuring a great degree of appreciation for the joy of living well. What occurs in this grief I am enduring and willingly facing, while my so-called friends make themselves so damningly absent without any just cause for such an extended period and so close to the fact of my father's passing, is an inability for me to reach out more than once or twice to the same people and have nothing come back to me, thus negating the need to share my grief, in mourning.
What has also occurred and continues to do so is a greater appreciation for life, and what can be trusted and valued. My father would quite often and in varying ways convey to me the fact that I need to trust those who do, not those who merely speak. Once again his inherent wisdom in things comes shining throughout my most life-changing events. His love and support endure in this as well, and doing so make blatant what is lacking in others.
I do hear from a friend in Los Angeles weekly, as always. Jim Rider. We have stayed in touch that way for almost 15 years now. The other person I used to know in Californicate I heard from last on July 7, 5 days after my father's beginning this stage in his journey, and since then, not an email, not a call. People announce their character, or lack of it, in their actions. In doing so, they prescribe my future actions, or lack of, concerning them; if I wish to cherish my father's memories, and both value and validate my own integrity.
What I do have is one special friend on the web who has supported me constantly throughout the ordeal I have gone through with my father in this past year. Though we have never spoken on the phone, and I have never even seen a picture of her, she has been available to me several times a day. Thank you, Susan S. You're an angel.
What I wish for is one more opportunity when my father turns to me, sitting in his chair in the living room, as he did on that last day, saying with a big smile, "You know, Dean, you're a great guy.." to smile back, hug him, and say, 'you know, Dad, that's because you're a great father..' I hope he hears my heart in that now.
*** ***
Dreams so far...
In the first, shortly after my Dad danced off his physical burden, he shows me himself coming up from the'basement' of a large travel ship; yet covered in a very light and thin patina of Vaseline. Every night he'd put that on his lips due to them cracking and being so dry. It healed. Obviously a journey, a new beginning, a rebirth.
In the second, my father is healthy and well, showing me how to use his old brown cane...
says he doesn't need it now, shows me how to use his former need for it.. meaning to me he'll help me heal in all that process as he used to say 'we' went through, but... use it, let the grieving help, 'and then you won't need it either, I'll be beside you, with you.. as I am now'
Takes place in the house, in the downstairs hallway.. yet not in the house.
Both are not regular 'dreams.' There is an immediacy, and fresh brightness about both. In the second, I feel healed, held in my father's care, concern, love, and promise to be always present.
Anyone who has experienced anything like these will know the special difference that characterises and distinguishes these kinds of 'dreams' from others.
*
I hear my father's voice on the recorded phone messages. It echoes in this wilderness. The plastic container on the kitchen cupboard fell off onto the floor on Monday, July 31 while I was upstairs. Where's the spirit? Where's my proof, my sign in that regard?
*
And another - my father showing me through the corridors of cement blocks, and behind the blocks: frozen vegetables. Just like my Dad - here's the safe way, here's your sustenance, you determine your goal, and the confidence that I'd do so unspoken but stronger than anything nonetheless.
*
and a partial note to my friend Susan:
it was that time in the bathroom as he was getting set to brush his teeth
and before that when he turned in his chair as I entered the living room and said, "You know, Dean, you're a great guy"
I can see him smiling at me then
I can see him in the bathroom looking at me, taking me in, the fully last part of his last day
I feel him still looking at me with such love and care, such sweetness
it just hurts Susan, it makes me scream inside... that was the last part of our last day together while daylight was trailing away... we'd had our last breakfast, our last time for the news, last afternoon, final time for a meal, last moments savoring the summer together, no morning
I can feel his care for me in all that, and see him watching me in my pain
and still feel his hand on my shoulder now, see him last night as I sat here, showing me how he awoke right after dying, almost in the same bed, almost in the same spot, but new, healthy, no pain, renewed;, wondering where he was, but knowing: wondering what had happened, but aware, just being born again, and saying I'll always be with you Dean, know that I'm here
even so I think this is why I cannot hardly sleep even yet... he does know my love is and was active and practical, and he doesn't want my pain but understands in a full compassionate loving way, just as he always did... it's me, grieving for a loss of something that cannot be lost, for someone I'll never truly lose, being born again however so agonizingly slowly in this fire that doesn't even leave ashes, without my sweet Dad's company in the same way we always shared
I'd give it all up for one chance of 'knowing' and connecting, once, as I drift through this howling wind that is my soul now
*
Seen my Dad in several dreams.
Once by a pier, sitting by a huge ship. Smiling and relaxed. A far cry from the carelesness of being givne furosemide to drain liquids from his lungs, which is contraindicated indicated for any heart conditon; and then not being given potassium and magnesium, which brought on a heart attack on a Wednesday night - and then having the same thing happen due to the same lack of those drugs on a Saturday night, and being in a major Ontario Hospital - Trillium, Mississauga - in the ICU when all this occurred.
And later having another stroke occur during the changing of the shift at night in the ICU- and being given a drug to calm him down due to being agitated (a condition known to occur in older patients when they are developing an infection) which I found out from the hospital psychiatrist would agitate his heart, as well as another drug he was on at the time. The psychistrist called the ICU and had it removed.
Fortunately it only took them almost a week to call in a heart specialist for this man who had two major heart attacks and 2 or 3 strokes within a week without any prior history of this.
Welcome to the Canadian medical system in a major Toronto hospital.
*****
Next dream I was walking towards the back door of the house, from the kitchen; everything was solid and real. A knock at the door; and there stood my father, 50 years younger, and happy to see me.
Coincidentally my brother had a dream of him where they were talking in the basement of the house one minute and the next were at the cottage and talking - the very same night, Jan.31/07
©Dean J. Baker
****************************************************
One Year Ago Today
for my father, and for my brother
One year ago today was my father's last conscious day on earth.
I did not know that, after years interrupted by hospital stays, and in particular the last year where he was in the hospital from Sept.11 to May 9, there'd be no more.
There is much to say, and more to tell about this, so some details will be absent from here until a time when my life itself is more settled. My memory, as anyone who knows me can tell you, is excellent. I do recall events, conversations and the entire atmosphere of sounds and scents right from the time I was 2.
I'd told my father a few nights before what a great Dad he was, and had always been. I'd mentioned it before and he seemed to have some trouble sitting still hearing it but always was appreciative. That time however he asked, “.. you really think so?'
The evening before he was himself but my gut was being gnawed at over the fact that I'd been alternately nagging the hell out of him while still being supportive without achieving any different results.
I told him so.
“Dad, I'm sorry about yelling at times, raising my voice, but you know I'm not angry at you.
“I know, Dean. You're not angry at me, you're angry at the situation because I'm not getting better.”
“Thanks for understanding that, Dad. Now start eating!”
I can recall thinking to myself, tomorrow is July 1, don't you dare die on me. I had no concept, nor understanding at all, which events to come would show.
As I write this, it's 7 am. An ordinary day, much like then. One thing I've learned is that is a blessing, and things are only as ordinary as you choose to make them.
My father hadn't been feeling great, and as this persisted my concern increased. His useless doctor who had promised, when he saw us having coffee in the hospital only two months before to come to the house because “you have been my patient for such a long time, and you are a friend, I will come to you if you cannot make it into my office” was nowhere to be found.
I phoned Doctors On Call, a free service for people who could not get out. They sent some guy late that morning who said he was a doctor, who also said there wasn't much wrong with my Dad except for some weakness and a possible infection. He prescribed an antibiotic.
So much for those mutts' powers of observation.
So much for counting on hospital care, as well. There are some greatly dedicated people, professional and compassionate in the system, but as my father said on his way in last time, “I have to get out of here as soon as possible before they make me sicker.”
That was the time we went in at 1:30 am by ambulance, and he finally saw a doctor at 9:30 am. One doctor in charge per night shift for cardiac care, ICU, and the Emergency department.
Michael Moore, you don't show a clue; and so obviously that it seems contrived, however well-meaning.
The problem of course is that the attitude there, unless you are unconscious, is that you may be pestering them with your pain and disease, your emergency, up to the point where the doctor sees you and then you ought to be simply grateful. The myth of the harried, honest and compassionate hospital worker is left intact.
Our problem is that there are those who are honest, compassionate and very nice but they are surrounded by the incompetent, the unwise, the arrogant and the plain stupid when it comes to common sense.
My father never once complained during any of his stays, but that did not eclipse his powers of observation.
One time he'd asked when he was going to be able to get out, and the nurse began, as 95% of them did, talking to him like he was an 89 yr old infant.
“Well, you know Mr. Baker, you are weak due to all your conditions…”
And my father said, “which you gave me. I didn't have them when I came in.”
This was very true. My father went in for a blood clot on the lung. That was taken care of quickly, and well.
Problems occurred due to this leaving him weak, and thus not feeling like eating; being immobile over time, and thus having fluid build up in his lungs.
He was transferred after a fever occurring in the same day to ICU 2.
There they put him on fluids to maintain a level, and furosemide to draw out the excess fluids. Contraindicated to someone with any heart condition, but what the hell huh.
They forgot to give him magnesium and potassium. This brought on a heart attack on a late Wednesday night. He was tubed and vented when I got there around 5:30am.
By Friday, when I arrived, he was sitting outside his room in his hospital bed, while they changed things in there, with neither feeding tube nor oxygen, smiling. The oxygen they removed, the feeding tube he yanked out himself. Saying that he did not need that and wanted some food.
Saturday, he was feeling somewhat better but getting agitated, and I knew from reading the waves of his blood pressure plus the irritability that something was up.
I asked about the potassium. I was told he was already on a maintenance dose of 60 mg. I told them that was his dose when he was at home and healthy, and had not suffered a first heart attack ever.
They basically said that is what the doctor decided. I argued for more. No go. I said you assholes are going to be calling me again real soon.
That night he suffered what they said was a major heart attack. Later they would admit screwing up. A week later they would finally call in a heart specialist. After giving him an anti-psychotic drug to calm him, something fairly common – and then being told to immediately remove it by the hospital psychiatrist, after I checked the internet where I found one result of the drug was that it “agitates the heart and should definitely not be used on patients with a heart condition.”
I was there every day for months from 10 am or so until well past midnight. An ever present though polite thorn in their sides, which they needed.
When it came time for my father to be discharged to a rehab unit they argued for the fact that they thought he'd only need a month.
They had caused or these conditions had arisen during this last hospital stay alone: an infection in the heart, MRSA, several heart attacks and strokes, a tracheotomy, and pneumonia to an 89 year old man who before this whose only problem was bladder cancer - and how it was treated - which he beat, and they wanted to give him a month. I could see they knew better but the bureaucrats were pushing for less time for everyone. Money, you know.
When he was discharged on May 9, it was after 2 months; and an extra week I had to argue for. Two months is the arbitrary length of time determined by the bureaucrats. NO matter your age, or previous conditions.
Unless.. you happen to be mentally disturbed, of which there were a few, and then your stay was indefinite. The reason? They had nowhere to go.
That's part of the story leading up to that day one year ago.
That night, I made sure my father got into bed after washing and brushing his teeth, with my brother Terry standing by. They talked, while I made myself absent to allow this, prior to Terry going out.
I'd come downstairs and check on my Dad at varying intervals, trying to leave him alone enough that he didn't feel crowded, and not for so long that he would ever feel abandoned.
At 11pm, I came down to give him his antibiotic which he took, but spit out the apple sauce he took it with. Unusual, but then he didn't feel well.
I sat on the edge of the bed afterwards and we talked a bit. I went back to my room to read a few things.
I came down later and made sure he was doing okay; sleepy, and a bit cool, but he seemed to be fine.
I hugged him, gave him a good night kiss on the cheek as he lay in bed. He told me he loved me, and Terry, as he got comfortable on his side. I told him, “I know you love me, Dad, both of us, and very well.”
I said I was going to have a bath, and I'd be back in about 10 minutes. As he drifted off, he murmured, ‘… okay, night.' I said my usual, which had been going on for months and months, “See you in the morning.”
I came back down a little while later, after my bath. As I went towards his bedroom, I turned on the hall light so I could check on how he was without waking him, by habit.
There was a certain stillness in the room, and I said, “Dad… Dad. You okay?”
No reply. I turned on his bedroom light.
My father slept on his side. This time he was on his back. I held my breath as I usually did to watch for the rise and fall of his chest.
Nothing.
I noticed his eyes were not completely closed.
My brother came up behind me. With it being a weekend, he was there at this time. “Is he breathing?”
I went to my father, saying Dad. No answer. I touched his cheek. Cool. I tapped him once, twice, 3 times on the cheek to wake him.
Nothing.
The paramedics got him breathing. Brain dead. The next night, July 2, at 10:30, my father died. I had asked him not 24 hours before if he wanted to keep living.
“Well, I'd like to, but my body might have other ideas,” as he smiled at me.
See you in the morning, Dad. I miss your beautiful smile. I love you.
