That day was like any other day... until we didn’t go to service that week. I had a feeling something wasn’t quite right. My father was slower to respond to me and my mother. Maybe he was having a rough day. It happens. The whole family was bickering over any little thing. I just wanted us to get along. Times were especially tough since I got laid off from work. I was waiting on my last paycheck.
The day came and went and we reconciled as a family. I was happy. Somewhat. I had made some new friends on a community about gaming. I was in bliss! These people all seemed so upstanding. My mother was to retire in a year. My father had gone almost a year since his last... episode.
That night, I felt a strong urge to wake the both of them from their sleep. I just had to talk to my father. Slowly, very slowly, my father woke up and talked something out with me. His speech was very slow. Too slow... he insisted that he felt fine and that he was just sleepy. He had just woken up from a deep sleep, so, “Of course I’ll talk slowly”. Deep down in my heart of hearts, I just felt that something was wrong. I couldn’t sleep.
I did everything I could to stay awake: Clean, go through my paperwork one last time... then finally the sun came up and I walked my dog. I came back to greet my folks and another day. Today was the day I was going to change. Since I didn’t sleep, I was exhausted. I closed my eyes to sleep, but I just couldn’t. I had to let my father know, in case he needed anything. I knew he was asleep, as is the custom.
I called him anyway.
“Dad...” I whispered. No answer. “Dad?” I called a second time, louder. Again, no answer. I tiptoed into the room to find him sound asleep. He must have been tired!
“Dad.” I called, in full voice. Nothing. I went up to him to shake him. He was sopping wet and he was gasping for air with every breath.
“Dad!!” I screamed.
Nothing.
This is just another episode. I thought. I called the emergency services and, as calmly as I could, I talked with the dispatcher. Something was different this time. They had mentioned “CPR”.
Within seconds, the EMTs arrived to work their magic on my father. They’d give him an oxygen mask and he’d start talking! I just knew it.
Their voices became raised as they forced me out of the room.
“Stay here.” one of them said.
“What’s going on?!” I asked. Another mentioned CPR. My heart... sank.
Time seemed to fly by me and next thing I knew, I was with my mom at a hospital, ready to check on him.
“Wait right here. The doctor will be with you shortly.” the woman said, not even questioning us. Oh no... we thought. Our brief thoughts were interrupted by
“Code blue! Code blue! Code blue!” (That means someone stopped breathing) That was my father. I was certain of it. I couldn’t even speak. My mother started sobbing. I could barely comfort her; I had no one. Was I going to have to get used to not having a father anymore? I didn’t even get to hug him... or tell him that I loved him.
What felt like hours later, a lanky doctor came out, sweating; tears in his eyes.
“Is he alive?!” we asked him.
“He’s alive.” the doctor responded, out of breath. “Barely.”
He had aspirated--Taking in food and/or drink into the lungs for whatever reason; so much so, it caused severe pneumonia. He literally couldn’t breathe at all on his own.
I recalled something he had said to himself after an argument... “I don’t want to live anymore. I’m ready to go!”
They wheeled him to the ICU on a hospital bed (Here we call them gurneys). He had a breathing tube attached to his mouth, and huge tears were in his eyes. I could almost see the regret in his face.
“Daddy--!” I cried. For the first time in the three-year hellish nightmare, I cried. No one in the family to see me. Just me and my dying father. And life support.
He had told us many times that if something happened to him, he didn’t want to be on life support. He wanted to be “unplugged”. I remembered his words to me and my heart broke all over again.
“We can’t do that. He has to fight for his life. I know he can still do this!” I exclaimed.
“we’re not letting them pull any plugs, son.” my mom, now in some kind of super-maternal mode, said, reassuringly.
He was comatose for nine days. The doctors and nurses had all said that he had no brain activity whatsoever. Clinically, medically, scientifically he was dead.
Me and my mom cried, we prayed... we kept telling him how much we loved him and how we missed him. We kept saying:
“Come back... come back! We sill need you! Please... Come back...”
“Baby! I love you!” My mom cried.
“Daddy! I love you!” I added.
Brain dead... Being the stubborn optimist I’ve always been, I refused to accept that. I told them that they were wrong. Me, some average joe, telling a medical professional that they were wrong!
This was something I felt in my heart. His breathing was monitored by the ventilator. We could SEE pain on his face. Whenever his breathing would falter, the machine would beep excruciatingly loudly.
My mother and I talked to him, “alone”.
“We know you’re in there somewhere. They think your brain is sleeping! That you have no brain activity! We KNOW you’re there. The first doctor who saved your life said that you’re a fighter. You’re a stubborn mule. But this time, you have to cooperate with the doctors and the nurses! Even your life-support knows you’re still there!”
My mother was steaming mad. Her face was red.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!” she screamed.
My father opened his eyes completely, looked right at her, and nodded his head. I could scarcely believe my eyes.
“Dad... ? Did you just... nod?” I asked. Again, he nodded. We grabbed the doctors and the nurses to go check him out.
Not even ten minutes later, one of his nurses came out, her olive islander skin now white, as if she’d seen a ghost.
“W--what did you guys do?” she asked. “He responded to almost all of our commands!”
“Prayed.” my mother answered without missing a beat.
Within two weeks, he was off the ventilator. We thought he had made a miraculous recovery when, one day, we got a phone call no one wanted to hear.
“Your father’s been put back on life-support. He’s declining rapidly and you need to come and say your goodbyes.”
We cried all over again, like lost puppies. After all that, all that breakthrough, he had deteriorated so rapidly that he was once again at death’s door? What did we do wrong to deserve this?
I received painful and unwanted lectures from my cousins about how life had to go on and that I had to “suck it up and accept that my father wasn’t going to be around anymore.” I wanted to punch them I was so mad.
“We thought the same thing about our mother and she still died.”
“Well, my father’s not your mother.” I snapped. “He’s strong!” I stormed away from them, into the ICU, past the nurses yelling for me to stop; into his room.
He was, in fact, attached to that ventilator again. But something felt off, and this time, it was a good thing. He was wide awake, completely alert, yawning outside of the tube, rather than through it.
He motioned to me, touching me on the chest. He pointed to me and made the “OK” sign, implying that we’d be “OK”.
“Dad... I love you! Please don’t leave me--!” I pleaded. “I still need you! I love you!”
He then squeezed my hand, getting my attention. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
Even in my state of duress, I had to laugh. Even then, he knew exactly what to say. “Stop that!” is what he said.
The doctor gave him seven days to survive on the ventilator. After that, they’d be forced to unplug him and let him die. My mother and I, and my father, all looked at eachother, and nodded.
Seven days came and went. On the eighth day, we went to check up on him and to say ou goodbyes. I bit my lower lip to keep from crying.
There was no ventilator in the room. My father was there, watching TV. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes in disbelief. My father was off the machine! He told us to lean in close to him when we got there. Out from his mouth poured:
“I love you too, guy.”
For five agonizing weeks, I had longed to hear those words...
A week later, he was deemed strong enough to be sent home with care and therapy.
Therapy that I’d have to perform with and on him. I didn’t mind. I still don’t.
I get to show my father how much I love him, and every single day, I thank God for just one more day...
